Posts tagged “theatre”

Saw *As You Like It* at the Wyndham with A. Beautifully spoken Shakespeare, 1920s costumes, folk songs and big-band numbers, slapstick, and unsubtle innuendo. Theatre at its best: unpretentious, slightly silly, a little dirty, and entirely fun.

Saw Festen last night and found the audience's reaction to its racism more disturbing than its incest. Growing up as a white minority in Trinidad, and later passing as invisible among white Britons, I've heard what people say when they think no one who'd mind is listening. Britain's racism is hiding, not gone.

Saw a revived Noel Coward play this week with friends. Amusingly, we nearly walked out at the end of the second act thinking it was over. Mortified, we grabbed ice cream and returned for the actual finale, which was much better.

Manic week: saw the brilliant Ben Wishaw in Hamlet, attended the London blogger meetup, finally stalked Tom in person, caught a glimpse of Cory Doctorow, and watched Eternal Sunshine. Also something mysterious happened Monday. More soon, maybe.

Saw Shakespeare's R&J last night and it's brilliant in ways no review quite captures. Four repressed Catholic schoolboys secretly act out Romeo and Juliet after lights-out, but their own feelings become tangled with the text. The acting is ferociously energetic, the dual plots stunning. Go see it.

I've written a new play called Spree, aimed at Freshblood theatre after they liked but couldn't cast my last one. It's flexible: six characters, easily gender-swapped, two potentially doubled up. A deliberate improvement on Silly Things. It's a draft, so please send me your notes.