Please Post Your Review - Even Brief Comments Help!

I saw this last night and also liked it. A brisk, solidly acted production.

I only discovered Questors Theatre a couple of years ago in spite of living in the area for nearly 20 years now. I've been to a few productions since then and they have all been decently done, some better than others but as Jan says none would have looked out of place at one of the "proper" fringe venues. The venue is a 10 minute walk from Ealing Broadway station so worth checking them out if you live in West London.

I also saw the Questors' Julius Caesar and enjoyed it. One thing I didn't understand was the significance of the schoolgirl being onstage throughout. I think she was reading a biography of Caesar and then occasionally playing a minor character. Can anyone shed any light on her purpose/significance? 

I wondered if it was a slightly clumsy way of representing 'us' - as in modern day citizens learning from history, hence the book? But why a schoolgirl? And why have her playing Caesar's wife with her school blazer still on? I thought I must be missing something. 

That makes more sense - thanks Jan. 

In my experience, I don't think fringe standard is necessarily lower than WE at all? I suppose it depends  on what you're calling fringe? But I've seen excellent acting at the Playground Theatre (definitely fringe), the Kiln, Bush, Menier, Riverside, Orange Tree, Park etc. I've done an acting course myself at Questors (I have no pretensions about my acting skills at all, definitely just for fun) but I wouldn't say the acting is on a level with professional theatre. I frequently heard the phrase "just as good as the WE" but from the productions I saw that was not the case.

I was thinking of fringe venue like Finborough. At the Questors several of the actors *are* professional actors though - Drama school trained, Equity members, in Spotlight etc. but just not paid for the work they do at Questors.  

Another quick report on here for MAGGIE AND ME, which I saw on its last night of its tour around Scotland (and Northampton) in Edinburgh as a National Theatre for Scotland production.

It’s an adaptation of Damien Barr’s memoir, which tells the story of his childhood in the shadow of the Ravenscraig steelworks in Lanarkshire. A poor neighbourhood, difficult parenting, dealing with his sexuality in the time of Thatcher and Section 28. And let’s not forget that Barr, like me, grew up in a country where homosexuality was not decriminalised in the way it had been in England and Wales until the 1980s.

The play is quite a different animal than the book; it introduces the character of “older DB”, the writer of the book, and the premise is that current DB is struggling to revisit his childhood in order to write his book. The play is written by James Ley, who wrote the homage to Edinburgh LGBT bookshop ‘Love Song to Lavender Menace’, which is one of my favourite plays ever. The play ‘Maggie and Me’ is a bit of a fever dream, it’s a fantasia of 1980s Lanarkshire, and two days later I’m still processing what I saw and I’d love to see it again.

A stunning central performance by Gary Lamont as older DB, and a realistic performance as “wee DB” by Sam Angell made this show really work for me - the West of Scotland (like many other areas of heavy industry) was a weird and sad place to live in the early 80s, and the use of the character of Thatcher as an all-pervading influence accurately reflects how it felt for me as a young person at that time. My grandfather worked at Ravenscraig and lit one of the blast furnaces there so there was a real personal connection to me. I had to explain to my husband that Carfin Grotto, a major location in the play, was a real place and not part of the fantasy world created for this play.

I really hope this has a future life, I thought it was a really inspired work, packed probably with too many ideas, but as a broad contemporary of Damien Barr, this hit deep in my psyche, and I wept for a good few minutes at the end of the show, identifying with the feart young boy that was the young DB. That was me.

Saw "The Voice of the Turtle" at Jermyn Street Theatre this afternoon, and LOVED it!

Its ending on Saturday or I would have started a thread as it felt like a solid 4 stars, a romantic comedy that works.

If you saw David Eldridge's "Beginning," where two stragglers at a party begin a relationship, this was just like that, only written in 1943 by John Van Druten.

The play was even made into a film in 1947 where the putative romance was between The Sound of Music's glorious Baroness, Eleanor Parker, and Ronald Reagan lol.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Basically, Skye Hallam's consummate society girl, Olive, wants to ditch her weekend date, soldier Bill (Cabaret's Nathan Ives-Moiba), as she's found a better prospect, and she dumps him at her best friend's apartment so as to make an easy exit. That actress best friend, Imogen Elliott's Sally, has herself recently been dumped by a Bigwig Theatre Producer, and she's sworn off love, but because all the hotels in NYC are booked, she lets the soldier stay the night, and that's the beginning. . .

What's notable is in this play is that before terms like "aspergers" and "OCD" became common place, it's pretty clear that Sally, who can't stop saying everything she's thinking, who thinks of inanimate objects as having feelings, and who can't not answer a phone or not check everything before going to bed, could easily be described as a bit OCD, somewhere on the spectrum.

Its a tremendously open and affecting performance by Elliott, her every thought instantly verbalised, and it's lovely the way Ives-Moiba's dumbfounded soldier finds her every quirk so endearing.

With Skye Hallam's scheming dynamic character sparking up enjoyable drama in her every appearance, this was, for me, just as good as Eldridge's "Beginning."

Indeed, the title refers to the coming of spring time in the Bible, in which the voice of turtle doves can be heard in the spring, a sort of spring awakening or beginning. Its all quite lovely, with three distinctly different, authentically portrayed characters, bouncing amusingly off each other.

4 stars from me.

My ongoing permabuilation around Britain's provincial theatres continued last night with a trip to the rather nice Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, a pleasant modern theatre albeit in an awkward part of town.

Was there to see a script-in-hand concert performance of a new musical by Seiriol Davies, O.G. PRINCE OF WALES, essentially a biographical musical about Owain Glyndŵr, for some the last authentic Prince of Wales, and to some extent Henry V. Staged in front of an admittedly somewhat partisan audience, it was very enthusiastically received. Some seriously good and very funny songs, some of which I can still hum the next day, which is quite impressive considering it's the first time anyone outside the production has heard them. A real mix of musical styles, ranging from big hair rock anthems and Gilbert & Sullivan pastiche to French cabaret. The storytelling needs work, it's very linear and is quite this happens... then this happens... but I expect some smart staging could disguise some of that linearity or they may find a way to play around with the timeline. Also was billed as a very queer take on the story, but wasn't really, apart from some mild gender fluidity and hints at a youthful encounter or two between Hal and the O.G. But a seriously promising first take.

Given it was a one-off concert, just really putting it here for the record so that when it opens on Broadway in five years time I can point to this post. Supported by the National Theatre of Wales and seeking lots of feedback from the audience including focus groups coming up, so serious amounts of work being put into this. Michael Sheen in the audience for this along with several other members of the Tafferati so will be interested to see where this goes next.

Oh and shout out to the cast and crew for being note-perfect as a one off. Interestingly Glyndŵr played by Sharif Afifi and Henry V by Marc Antolin, last seen together in The Band's Visit at the Donmar.

Sounds like a really fun afternoon for you TallPaul and definitely something I’d have booked for. I’d have been up on that stage strutting my stuff! 🕺

Ha!  My London office relocated to Woking earlier this year, so I worked a couple of days back-to-back in Woking - saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang there in the Summer.  Didn't realise there was an external Theatre entrance literally steps from my office next to the road, and did the same "follow the arrows" around that shopping centre!  Nice theatre though.