45 and 46 - Yeah, This House is Haunted and Hammer Sandwich

You might have noticed I'm finalising and posting a lot of blog posts at a time! Yes, I have once again fallen behind with blogging my theatrical escapades due to being in a play myself. Only this time it was a double bill for Halloween with the brilliant Breakfast Cat Theatre raising money to rebuild Croydon after the riots. So that is TWO plays. I can't really review these as I was in them and genuinely thought everyone was brilliant. So here are some photos!

Yeah, this house is Hauntd by Ben Parker.
This was a very clever play which had a great concept behind it. Steve has recently hanged himself, only to discover that this means an eternity of hanging out in his dingy flat with the exuberant Barry, another former occupant. The dialogue between the ghosts is great, their very different characters made many audiences compare them to Jez and Mark from Peep Show, though although Barry is rather like a less self-absorbed version of Jez, I don't think Steve is muchlike Mark, he's just a bit depressed and overwelmed and would like some time to himself, a hint Barry, who has been alone for 15 years, is not picking up on. This relationship is great as the characters are very well drawn and I think this is what the Croydon Advertiser meant when she said in the review that this play could have been longer. An estate agent shows up to show two women the flat, but the women are actually ghost hunters and have bought along a ouiji board to try and communicate with Steve. Having the ghosts on stage talking about the other characters who can't see or hear them made this really funny.











Hammer Sandwich by Roberto Prestoni.
This play was set in an indoor market in Croydon where Frankenstein’s Monster is trying to sell sandwiches on the same patch as Dracula, The Mummy and a coven of witches. I loved all the local references in this play, the dialogue was snappy and the scooby-doo ending was great fun!

44 - Some Like It Hip Hop, ZooNation at the Peacock Thetare London

I know I say this every time I see some good contemporary dance but seriously, how do these people move like that? I'm supposedly the same species as them and I can't get off the sofa in a graceful manner!

This is just awesome, this show. It is funny, has a wholesome positive message without being annoying and the dance moves are simply incredible.

The storyline is not unlike a fairytale, you go away feeling happy and warm inside. I was also frankly intensely relieved to see modern hiphop music and dance in a show promoting gender equality. In a genre dominated by men who refer to women as bitches and hos and women who think wearing a bikini, oiling up and draping themselves over a car in a music video making blow job faces is somehow not degrading to them and every woman who buys their single, this was a breath of fresh air. Yes I sound like my mum and I don't care, if I had kids and found them watching Transformers and dancing to Rhianna I would burn the offending DVDs with my blow torch.

I digress, and I don't want to make the show sound like some kind of morality lesson as you might be put off and not go and see it. There were a lot of school groups in to see this but it was also a highly enjoyable night out with the girls. Basically I lack the dance knowledge to write a proper review of this show so I'll just stick to THIS IS AWESOME GO SEE IT and post a video.

43 - Sweeney Todd, Chichester Festival Theatre

I love Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton's film is one of my favourite DVDs. But I didn't really appreciate the powerful operatic music until I saw this production. And for me to appreciate music in a production is quite a feat as I am severely musically challenged.

This truly spectacular production is transferring to the West End shortly and I would urge you to see it. It is grand in every way, the set is a behemoth of complexity, complete with a working barber's chair with trap door leading to a lower level where Mrs Lovett prepares her gruesome pies in an enormous roaring oven. The music is beautiful, the dialogue sparkles, the blood splatters all over the place and for fans of dark comedy there are more laughs than a Nighty Night Christmas special.

Imelda Staunton plays a hilarious Mrs Lovett, her rendition of Try The Priest with Michael Ball is a highlight of the show.

Michael Ball really exceeded my expectations, resisting the urge towards camp which the role can lean towards, he was brooding and menacing providing the perfect contrast to the exuberant Staunton. I suspect I won't quite see him in the same way ever again.

Look out for Peter Polycarpou as Beedle Bamford too, he was excellent and really make me giggle.

If I had a criticism of this production it would be of the decision to set it in the early 20th century. I mean, when you go to see Sweeney Todd you do want to see grimy Victorian London and I felt a bit cheated by the more modern dress and neon-lit pie shop. It was a bit like going to see Oliver! only to find it set in the 1980s. I don't feel like this added much to the production and don't think it necessary to chance the setting merely to hammer home a message that corruption and down-trodden working classes still exist today.

42 - The Mummy's Tomb, Exit Theatre at the Charles Cryer, Carshalton

I really enjoyed the big colourful characters in this production, but probably would have cut it down as it lacked the substance needed to keep our attention for such a long play.

This typical egyptian Mummy story sees an egyptologist, his daughter and her suitors on a quest to discover a lost tomb, only to uncover a cursed undead Mummy.

The best performances were those played in the required cartoonish style, so the characters which really shone were inevitably the baddies. Scott Nicholson was very funny as a posh trigger-happy Lord Soaper, but I did think a comedy walk would have completed the character. Sarah Jane was a real gem as the evil Egyptian queen and dominated the stage. James Farr played an excellent Nazi villain with a great stage presence who perhaps just needed to be a bit louder when talking in Arabic gibberish to the Egyptians.

The fights and action scenes should have been more cartoonish too to give a definite style to the whole thing, the best parts were the comic punches where there was a batman style sound effect.

Overall the acting felt like the actors had been asked to reign in the ott characters to make it more naturalistic like Indiana Jones, which didn't work. We didn't sympathise with the one dimensional characters, so we just wanted it to be funny.

This was one of the things which gave me the feeling the director, Graham Butler, did not seem to know what he was directing. The play was billed as a farce in the literature which it definitely wasn't. If anything it was a spoof, but not one which made any particularly knowing comments or jokes on the genre. The script was a melodrama, but Exit had cut out the songs so it no longer held together as one. It did occur to me that perhaps it was a family production for kids, who might have enjoyed it if it had been cut down a bit. However the promotional material did seem to be aimed at adults so I was left a bit bemused about who the target audience was, and what we were supposed to be watching.

There was some clever set construction, I particularly really liked the boat which folded up from the raised back area of the stage with the black curtains at the back pulled apart in a triange shape so the white wall behind created the appearance of sails. There was also a scne in which Lucy Hamilton as the archeologist's dim but attractive daughter was shown in silhouette in a tent being attacked by a snake which was very well executed technically and ended with a hillarious rescue with James Farr fighting a toy snake.

Overall this was fun but too serious at points and far too long, there is a reason Scooby Doo is only a ten minute cartoon and we grew rather weary by the end of the show!

41 - Legally Blonde at Savoy Theatre

Legally blonde is pure fun. I might have had to supress a feminist wince at some lyrics but it's all very tongue in cheek and the little dogs and dramatic sparkly set pieces made this a spectacle well worth seeing. I was just a little sorry not to have seen Sheriden Smith as Elle Woods as I suspect she would have been brilliant, but Carley Stenson did a grat job. Don't let all the pink fool you, this is a witty and clever musical, perfect for a girls night out.

40 - The God of Soho at The Globe

How lovely to see a brand new modern play at the Globe. This contemporary play uses classical traditions ike the Gods descending to earth to paint a picture of our obsessions with celebrity, hypocrisy and treatment of the homeless with vibrancy, colour and laughter.

Ska band King Porter Stomp got all the groundlings dancing, showing once again that if you go to The Globe and can stand up for a couple of hours, the yard tickts are the best in the house.

Massive characters like Natty (a loud Mouthed Kerry Katona-esque celeb played by a brilliant Emma Pierson)and her pretentious 'artist' Pete Doherty-like lover Baz are essential for a grand outdoor setting. These almost panto caracatures wre offset by a punchy script that mingled poetry with modern London dialect.

I'm suprised to read some very negative reactions to The God of Soho online, accusing it of hating its characters and being purile and gratuitous. I really didn't get those things from this play at all. However I have noticed those commenters frquently end with a grumble about paying £30 to see it. This play was not for the traditional Shakespeare audience paying to sit at the Globe. You made an error during the seat booking process. You neded to be standing amongst the carnival dancers in the yard, people! Then like me you would have come away thinking 'Blimey £5 for that amount of brilliant entertainment, what an absolute bargain.'

39 - The Merry Wives of Winsor , The Rough Mechanicals at the Charles Cryer

I hadn't seen the Rough Mechanicals before, apparently they perform a Shakespeare every year at the Cryer and I'll definately try and catch them in future.

Some great casting and talanted leads made this a really enjoyable romp through one of Shakespeare's more tedious plays. Falstaff looked like he'd just walked out of a pub sign and his jolly mischeviousness helped carry the play along.

There were a few line slips from the actor who played Mistress Ford but she didn't let it slow her down and was helped along by other cast members. The feeling I got overall from this production was the cohesion between th cast members, I really felt like they were having a good time. This along with the fact that they clearly knew and understood the play made this well worth watching.

I also thought the set was fabulous, with the bar in the middle of the stage right at the heart of the action and different locations around it, helping to keep scene changes to a minimum.