Month: September 2018

Posted on

Althea Theatre come to the Hope Theatre with Jericho’s Rose this autumn

Presented by Althea Theatre
Jericho’s Rose
The Hope Theatre, 207 Upper Street, London, N1 1RL
Tuesday 16th October – Saturday 3rd November 2018

The award-winning Althea Theatre (There’s No Place Like; One Last Thing (For Now)) return to London, following their US tour, with Jericho’s Rose

Exploring the experience of displacement from the dual perspective of a grandfather struggling with Alzheimer’s and an artist struggling to stay in the UK, Jericho’s Rose is about searching for a home that can’t be found. The show takes the audience on a breath-taking journey across continents to ask what happens when you can’t remember where you belong?

Fresh from the Migration Matters Festival 2018, Jericho’s Rose is a uniquely innovative and beautiful piece about the inescapable isolation of displacement and how identity is built around the home. With discussions of borders never long out of the news-cycle and one in six people expected to develop dementia, Jericho’s Rose empowers a stronger dialogue around the subjects of both immigration and Alzheimer’s. It weaves new writing and projections, movement, live music and loop-pedalled sound to create a unique tapestry of fragmented memories: the remembered, the forgotten and the rediscovered

Writer, Lilac Yosiphon comments, ‘My grandfather has the scent of the road’. I wrote this sentence, in Hebrew, over 12 years ago. Three years ago this sentence found a home, in English, in a short play. This was around the time my grandfather started to forget where his home was. It then found a short home, in French, when I was in Paris after trying to apply for a British Artist’s Visa. And now, I use words from four different languages to speak of belonging, of where our mind resides and where our body lives. Between memories and borders, between languages and passports, what is it or who is it that determines where’s
home?

Posted on

Sky Blue Theatre Review

Sky Blue Seventh Annual Theatre Challenge
Jack Studio Theatre, Brockley, London – until 1 September
Reviewed by Lisa Harlow
4****
The premise is to showcase five very different plays in one evening, following the shortlisting of 274 new short plays from 16 different countries, allowing new writers the opportunity to have their shows performed. Step in Sky Blue theatre who have been supporting and producing work from both emerging and established writers from around the world since 2007. Running through the week, audience members are asked to rank each play in order based only on the writing and not the acting, with the winning writer receiving the accolade of the Anne Bartram Playright Award (formerly known as the Audience Appreciation award). Anne Bartram was a playwright and founder of Sky Blue theatre who sadly passed away this year.
2045 by Scott Lummer: a vision of the human race merging itself with artificial intelligence, apparently inspired by a Time magazine cover. Although the positives are presented early on as we share time with the inventor’s family, the not so positive implications and consequences gradually reveal themselves through slips from the daughter who has undergone the ‘first wave’ migrations. Micro versus macro ethics play out-  should keeping a family together be more important than preventing potential disaster on a macro level for mankind?
Tagged by Jim Moss: taking inspiration from a Pokemon Go generation, you find yourself living within a nightmare with the main character with minimal dialogue for some time. Interesting concept but certainly delivery is reliant on the encapturing acting.
Teatime by Sheila Cowley: within war destruction and tragedy in an unknown time and place we find surreal characters and situations, as if you’ve suddenly begun viewing through a psychedelic telescope. Amusing if bizarre.
Accident of Birth by Trevor Suthers: the acting was superb, and yes, I shouldn’t be letting that influence my decision, but this was a very well written piece of theatre. Harrowing and steady to unravel its clues, I found myself siding with the most unexpected of characters in spite of his pathological history, weaving within his yearning and feeling his rejection as he explores the human need to know your past, your DNA and be loved.
Bunnies and Wolves by Elspeth Tilley: after thinking this play again fits within the overarching theme of the insidious influence of technology in our lives in this evening’s performances, this piece of writing actually fired spiky, uncomfortable questions regarding the ethics of private funding having any place in the issue of healthcare. All delivered in a completely enjoyable manner – great fun…..somehow!
Pleasantly enjoyable evening to begin with but grew in its substance and hold of the audience, all presented by a dynamic and engaging Sky Blue Theatre host. I look forward to hearing more from a couple of these writers and next year’s challenge.
Posted on

Denise Van Outen to Star As Velma Kelly in CHICAGO at the Phoenix Theatre, London

DENISE VAN OUTEN

TO STAR AS VELMA KELLY IN

AT THE PHOENIX THEATRE, LONDON

FROM MONDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2018

JOINING ALEXANDRA BURKE, DUNCAN JAMES, MAZZ MURRAY & PAUL RIDER

Star of stage and screen Denise Van Outen will join the West End cast of CHICAGO at the Phoenix Theatre, playing the role of Velma Kelly from Monday 24 September through to Saturday 17 November 2018.  Denise will join Alexandra Burke as Roxie Hart, Duncan James as Billy Flynn, Mazz Murray as Mama Morton and Paul Rider as Amos Hart.

CHICAGO is booking at the Phoenix Theatre in London’s West End until Saturday 5 January 2019.


Denise Van Outen returns to CHICAGO to play Velma Kelly having previously played the role of Roxie Hart to critical acclaim in both the West End and on Broadway. Her other West End credits include Tell Me on a Sunday, Legally Blonde, Rent and her one woman show Some Girl I Used to Know.

 

On TV, Denise currently judges on Ireland’s Got Talent having previously judged on BBC1’s Any Dream Will Do and I’d Do Anything alongside Andrew Lloyd Webber. Denise can also be seen on ITV1’s daytime chat show Loose Women and in 2012 reached the final of BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing. Her film credits include Love, Honor and Obey and Run for Your Wife.

 

The multi award-winning Kander & Ebb musical CHICAGO, winner of six Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards and a Grammy, returned to London’s West End on Monday 26 March 2018, with a press night on Wednesday 11 April at the Phoenix Theatre in London.

 

CHICAGO originally ran in London for 15 years, making it the West End’s longest running revival.  It first opened at the Adelphi Theatre on 18 November 1997 to rave reviews and immediately became a sell-out hit.  CHICAGO won the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for ‘Outstanding Musical Production’ as well as the 1998 Critics Circle Drama Award for ‘Best Musical’.  CHICAGO transferred from the Adelphi Theatre to the Cambridge Theatre in April 2006, where it ran for five years until 27 August 2011.  The show then opened at the Garrick Theatre on 7 November 2011, where it ran until 1 September 2012.

Since it opened in New York in 1996, CHICAGO has played in 36 countries worldwide, and been performed in English, Dutch, German, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, French, Danish, Japanese and Korean.  It has grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide and has played over 32,500 performances worldwide, with an estimated 31 million people around the world having seen CHICAGO.  CHICAGO continues to play on Broadway, where it celebrated its 21st birthday last year, and around the world in multiple languages.  It is the world’s longest running American musical.

CHICAGO, which is based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins, has a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.  The 1996 Broadway revival of CHICAGO was choreographed by Ann Reinking in the style of Bob Fosse, directed by Walter Bobbie, and produced by Barry and Fran Weissler.