EleanorTurney.co.uk

FELA! is a bouncy, buoyant, corker of production that rather loses its way halfway through. The first half is an utter joy. Bill T Jones’ choreography does not flag for a second, the music is infectiously upbeat, the energy of the performers is relentless. It rattles along, full of exuberant lessons about Afro-beat, Cuban drumming, James Brown and high-life music.

The dancing, and the dancers, are utterly, superlatively, mesmerising. They are also universally stunning. Early on in his engaging narrative, Fela (Sehr Ngaujah) tells the audience that the British stole Nigeria’s oil and diamonds, and what did we leave in return? Gonorrhoea and Jesus. Doesn’t seem like a fair swap. This is indicative of the wit, warmth and brilliance that Ngaujah brings to the stage, making Jim Lewis and Bill T Jones’ words and Jones’ choreography zing and zip.

The whole first half was bursting with joy, life and gyrating buttocks. I don’t suppose that Sadler’s Wells has seen hundreds of people getting in touch with their “clocks” before: thrust your pelvis forward, that’s 12 o’clock. Now stick your bum out, that’s 6. Hips side-to-side hits 3 and 9. Now imagine a semi-naked, sinfully sexy man, glistening with sweat, getting the whole of Sadler’s on its feet, thrusting and foot-tapping as he shouts out numbers. Now imagine trying to follow his instructions while watching far more attractive, scantily-clad and adept dancers do the same moves on stage. In tassled knickers, and not a lot else. It made a refreshing change from pointed shoes and pirouettes.

With such virtuosic dancing and superb choreography, if it ended at the interval I’d say you’d be hard-pressed to have a better time in the theatre this year. However, after a well-directed come-down early in the second half, the show rather lost its way. It’s tricky to bring the mood down without alienating a happy, buzzy audience, but the story demanded it. The first hint of a sombre mood was a refreshing change, and was handled adroitly. However, the odd juxtaposition of joyful dancing and singing of the first half with stark, brutal and uncompromising descriptions of rape and torture in the second became rather baffling, especially when there were still song-and-dance routines mixed in.

A completely weird, massively over-long dream sequence that overestimated the dramatic potential of UV lighting took up much of the second half, followed by a beautiful but jarring operatic song (sung by the brilliant Melanie Marshall). It all sat very oddly with high-life rhythms of the first half and general feel of the rest of the piece. The musicians deserve a review of their own – we got a full blown gig along with the dance and a (mini) play.

It’s nice to see Sadler’s embracing something different, and a superlatively good cast kept the evening afloat as the play floundered. It’s worth seeing for the supremely talented cast and fantastic first half – but if you left at the interval you wouldn’t miss much.

Priestley is fond of dramatic irony, and lays it on particularly heavily in this, apparently his favourite play. It is rarely performed, perhaps because, as a piece of drama, it offers relatively little to a director. There are so many mentions that it is set in 1912 that one cannot ignore the looming horror of World War One – and the audience is continually encouraged to recognise that although we know what’s coming, the general feeling expressed by the characters is one of optimism of a bright future. So far, so ironic, but it all gets rather tiresome and inescapable after a while.

It is presumably supposed to make us question the complacency of those whose comfortable, upper-middle-class existence is about to shattered by conscription, bereavement and the privations of war. Although it does set the Kirby family’s petty problems in context, this idea of knowing what’s coming does little more than give the audience a sense of superiority. Unlike with other Priestley plays (An Inspector Calls uses very similar tropes), inEden End it is very hard to extrapolate the Kirby’s concerns to become a caustic look at a wider societal malaise. Yes, they are smug and safe and blinkered, yes they are worried about ultimately unimportant things, but it’s hard to see what Priestly and director Laurie Sansom are driving at besides recognising that hindsight is a wonderful thing.

There were other oddities, too: the set (Sara Perks) was beautiful, floating on an island of its own above the stage, and yet this dreamy setting is treated as naturalistically as possible, with time-appropriate props and costumes. The incongruity was not a problem, it was just a bit strange and, again, felt a bit  un-thought-through. William Chubb, as Dr Kirby, was weak, which perhaps negated some of the impact that his thoughts about the future could have had – he muses on what’s to come with a blind optimism that is never really challenged. Unfortunately, Chubb was neither charismatic nor convincing enough to pull off a speech about his almost utopian vision for the future, and these scenes consequently fell rather flat, despite the best efforts of Charlotte Emerson’s Stella. Emerson was a highlight, particularly when playing off Daisy Douglas’s stolid Lilian. The sisterly friction was brittle and brilliant, with Lilian’s resentment emanating from Douglas is fierce waves.

Little brother Wilfred (Nick Hendrix, in his professional debut) was less convincing in the first half, but found his feet playing legless in the second. His after-the-pub scene with Charles (a louche, charming Daniel Betts) was one of the high points of the evening, and directed with a subtlety sometimes missing elsewhere. Sansom has done a good job of coaxing nuanced, delicate performances from Douglas as the dependable but angry Lilian and from Charlotte as the highly-strung Stella, but perhaps neglected to always do the same with the male cast members. Betts clearly has fun playing Charles as a shallow chancer, and, although he does so with warmth and wit, it would have been nice to be given a bit more depth, too.

Perhaps I am too impatient, but this production took slow-burn to extremes while managing to still gabble some of the dialogue. It took a very long time to get going at all, and once it had started it remained predictable and slightly insipid. The domestic drama needs setting in its wider context to have any clout or point to it, and Priestley’s script is severely lacking in this. Some of the wistful moments when Stella or Dr Kirby mused about what might have been, or what might be, could have been moments of illumination, but in the stodge of the rest of the plot they get rather lost. Sansom has done some interesting things with the staging, but cannot redeem what is ultimately a rather pointless play.

There was a lot to like about this production of The Jungle Book, mainly the parts that stayed truest to the magic of the book. However, writer Stuart Paterson and director Neal Foster have taken liberties with the plot and dialogue, adding in some rather twee ‘lessons’ about finding out who you really are, and then staying true to yourself. Just because it’s aimed at kids doesn’t excuse this kind of lazy moralising, especially when the material you have to work with is already so rich.

And then there were the songs. Given that the plot has already been Disney-fied with extraneous soul-searching, BB Cooper (with “additional music” from Gidon Fineman) could have capitalised on this and gone for up-beat songs in a similar vein to the film. Instead, we are subjected to dreary songs with lyrics (Barb Jungr) ranging from bland to laughably bad and dull, forgettable melodies. Don’t get me started on the dance routines. Not only were the musical numbers cringe-worthy, but also completely unnecessary. As I said, there was much to like about this show, and the songs were an unwelcome distraction from the otherwise fun production.

It had a big heart and a huge energy, with a hard-working cast. They all looked knackered at the end, but plastered on huge, musical-theatre grins and, yes, there were jazz hands. All had pleasant enough voices, although none really shone (this may have had more to do with the songs than the singers…). Simon Hargreaves is a bouncy, childish Mowgli, full of glee at outwitting his teachers, which proved popular with the young audience. My seven-year-old companion joined in the audience-participation with enthusiasm, despite the frequency with which this was required.

The dialogue was not bad – there was some nice borrowings from Kipling and Manley Hopkins for poetic phrases and flair, but it often lapsed into cliché or just didn’t quite ring true. However, we are in the jungle with wolf-boy and a rather camp tiger (Peter Sowerbutt having immense fun as the panto villain Sheer Khan), so perhaps dialogue falling slightly flat should be overlooked. The use of mics does not encourage naturalistic interaction between the cast, but given the volume of the backing tracks and background noise (which was nicely done) it was perhaps for the best that they were miked. Although that in turn did mean that we could hear the songs…

I am being harsh. These complaints did not spoil the whole evening, they just niggled. The set and costumes were great. We got clever, raggedy animal costumes with gorgeous masks (Gemma Hughes and Tanya Felts), beautiful giant puppets and a lush, green set covered in vines and trees (Jacqueline Trousdale). The cast make the most of the few, simple blocks and props – we are asked to use our imaginations a fair amount. This led to almost manic levels of playing to the audience from the cast, which was rather over the top for my taste, but the children in the audience were loving it.

While the show did not quite hit the spot for me, I was clearly not the target audience, so it would be churlish to be too critical. I shall leave you instead with a quote from my small companion who appreciated the production more than I did: when asked what her favourite part was she replied, “The elephant and the snake and the tiger and the wolves and the monkeys and all of it!”

It may be more spectacle than substance, but this production of Doctor Faustus is so jolly that one can’t help but be carried along on the tide of flashes and bangs. While some of the subtleties and delicacy of Marlowe’s language get lost in director Matthew Dunster’s eagerness to rattle along to the next magic trick, these are done with such flair and joie de vivre that it’s easy to forgive this production’s weaker points.

Arthus Darvill is a jauntily-dressed, pointily-bearded Mephistopheles, who reeks malevolence and is clearly enjoying toying with Paul Hilton’s tormented Faustus. However, with both, there is a sense of holding back: Darvill throws away one of  Mephistopheles’ greatest lines (“why, this is hell, nor am I out of it”), almost muttering it to a cowering Faustus, and Hilton doesn’t always cut to the heart of Faustus’s inner turmoil – both could do with more emotional heft.

Although there were many things to enjoy in the production, that’s what’s stuck with me: it was a bit lightweight. For a play that examines the depths of human desires, that ponders intense philosophical questions, that deals with life and death, salvation and damnation, I can’t help but feel that Dunster has sacrificed depth for exuberant colour and clowning. It was much funnier than I was expecting, and while this is fine, it needed some darker moments to contrast.

However, the lighter moments are excellently done. The comedy trio of Robin, Dick and the horse courser are all excellent, playing up to the audience, milking every bawdy joke (and adding some in for good measure) and generally playing for laughs. The threat of hell for those who meddle in magic and necromancy is real enough, and Mephistopheles’s casual cruelty to those foolish enough to try briefly brings a much-needed sense of peril to the proceedings.

The props and puppets (designed by Paul Wills) are gorgeous – especially a rather wonderful pair of dragons. The costumes, too, are sumptuous, and Wills has let his imagination run riot for the devils and angels’ costumes with great effect. The music (composed by Jules Maxwell) is entertaining and mostly spot-on, although again I feel that Dunster relies rather too heavily on thunderous drum-rolls to create tension. He could do with coaxing his cast to produce more of the tension themselves.

The production overall is snazzy, slapstick and, well, sexy, but doesn’t always hit the mark in the darker scenes. Faustus’s soul-searching never comes to much, and despite Darvill embodying Mephistopheles with a louche swaggering menace, it is hard to believe that Faustus is really in mortal peril until the very end when he is dragged kicking and screaming to hell. For a show that is lacking in depth and has over-invested in spectacle, it is, at least, spectacular to look at.

Dr Faustus is playing at the Globe Theatre until 2nd October. For more information and to book tickets, see the website here.

Misery, turmoil, lies, more misery, and a bit of onstage torture thrown in for good measure. The Beauty Queen of Leenane is not a happy play. In fact, Martin McDonagh’s script is so unrelenting in  its misery that you are left unsure who you are supposed to empathise with. It is also quite, quite gripping, and scattered with enough (blackly) comic moments to keep the audience absorbed.

I physically recoiled at two points (I won’t spoil the story – you’ll know which points if you go and see it), so completely absorbing was the story. The cast of four are all superlative, playing out the claustrophobic nuances of rural life, trapped in relationships from the unfulfilling to the downright unhealthy. Both Joe Hill-Gibbons’s direction and McDonagh’s script are subtle and highly intelligent: we are shown the ins and outs of Maureen (Derbhle Crotty) and Mag’s (Rosaleen Lineham) mutually destructive relationship in the first five minutes of stage time.

Hill-Gibbons keeps his audience guessing; both mother (Mag) and daughter (Maureen) are morally ambiguous, although both thoroughly unpleasant. Watching Mag’s malicious attempts to sabotage Maureen’s life and hopes, we begin to sympathise with Crotty’s down-trodden Maureen. Then the power balance subtly shifts, and we are left wincing at her callousness and cruelty. It is not comfortable veiwing, and it gets bleaker as the evening progresses.

Ultz’s  clever set was detailed in the extreme, perfectly capturing the suffocating, decaying lives being played out in rural Leenane. The wistfulness that Mag and Maureen feel when the other two characters (Frank Laverty and Johnny Ward) leave their run-down dwelling is palpable, as they are left alone with each other and their bad memories.

The script has echoes of Beckett – the trapped figures in one space, circling each other, sniping and grumbling. But here it is not physical barriers that keep them inside or together, but emotional ties that bind and drag them down. At the end of the play, you are left unsure who to believe, what is real and what is fantasy. There is no redemption here, no chance of escape: Hill-Gibbons emphasises that this cycle will not be broken, that Maureen is bound to turn into Mag, that hope is short-lived and fleeting. Bleak, but brilliant.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane is currently on tour before returning to the Young Vic Theatre. For more information and tickets see the website here.

There’s a certain irony to missing the start of The Railway Children because your train is delayed, and not an especially funny one. Peter’s desperate watch-checking after the landslide (which was nicely done with a dramatic tower of tumbling boxes) – “The 11.29 hasn’t been by yet! We’ve only got three minutes!” – lost a little of its tension knowing what we all know about British Rail – don’t worry, mate, you’ve got at least 20mins before you need to start panicking…

But this is Oakworth, not Kings Cross, and things happen differently here. In the Railway Children’s idyllic countryside world nothing really awful ever happens (well, nothing Mummy and the Old Gentleman can’t solve, any how), everyone’s “a brick”, and the happy ending is inevitable. Given such a cheesy story to work with, Damian Cruden directs to wring every last drop of emotion from Mike Kenny’s script, laying it on thick but getting away with it because, well, we want Daddy to come home and everything to be alright.

Kenny’s script borrows heavily from both book and film, but it feels right because we want the familiar, slightly saccharine story to unfold, heading inexorably to the famous “Daddy! My daddy!” scene where Bobby (Amy Noble) is reunited with her father (Stephen Beckett) and there is not a dry eye in the house. Well, my 12-year-old companion remained fairly stoic, but I was weeping into my handbag.

The children themselves were done well, although Grace Rowe has a tough job making the rather immature Phyllis likeable. Tim Lewis’s blustering Peter is sweet, and Amy Noble makes a mature and sensible Roberta, with more pluck than she is perhaps gifted in the original story. Blair Plant, sporting a rather wonderful pointy ginger beard, is a moving Schepansky. Marcus Brigstocke is clearing having a great time as the grumbly Mr Perks, complete with thick Yorkshire accent. His gruffness hides a soft heart, and we know three children who will win him round in the end. It’s all predictable enough, but wears its soppiness well.

Special mention must go to Christopher Madin who wrote the beautiful score – strains of Copeland and English pastoral interwoven with brilliant, hummable tunes that never overpower the cast or stray too far across the bounds of sentimentality. Not that a bit of sentimentality is necessarily a bad thing; designer Joanna Scotcher has done a lovely job of making the whole Eurostar terminal space at Waterloo station feel almost cosy. The set and costumes are lovely – there is a real sense of no-expense-spared with the whole production. And then there’s the train. A real, actual live steam train, which runs between the two banks of audience members, puffing and chuntering. It does not disappoint.

Yes, it’s pure, unadulterated schmaltz, but if that’s what you’re going for, then do it boldly, and your audience will go with you. Cruden and his cast tackle the sentimental story with vim and enough dramatic moments to cut through some of the sugar without killing the sweetness. It’s handled with a light touch, and the cast manage not to be outshone by the gleaming train. It’s packed with enough cheese to last you a long time, but this avowed cynic was won over by The Railway Children’s charm, playfulness and sense of fun.

James Corden needs to be superlatively good to carry this show: make no mistake, Francis Hensahll, the “one man” of the title, is onstage virtually the whole time, and he carries a lot of plot and jokes on his shoulders. Lucky, then, that Corden imbues Francis with the energy to make him a  rogue while adding just enough pathos to keep him likeable. He is an extremely talented clown, adept at manipulating his audience and making sure we are rooting for him as he begs, borrows and steals his way from rags to, well, not riches, but at least a good dinner and a trip to Majorca.

The audience in the Lyttleton on a Sunday afternoon was kind to Corden – perhaps a little too ready to laugh: there is a tendency to be prepped to laugh when we know we are seeing a comedy and that a well-known comedian is in the title role. This can mean that the jokes don’t necessarily have to hold up to much scrutiny, they just need to be delivered by the right person. As I say, I have no doubt that Corden was the right man for the job, but I am not convinced that the jokes would fare as well in less capable hands.

Richard Bean has taken Carlo Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters and dragged it into the 1960s, complete with Beatnik actor-wannabe, a beehive-sporting proponent of Women’s Lib and a wonderful be-suited skiffle band. There are moments when the script could be sharper, but it has some nice flourishes and enough genuinely funny nods to the time to keep the punters happy. Dolly (Suzie Toase) declares at one point that in the next 20 years there will be a woman in 10 Downing Street and that caring for the poor, compassion and an end to foreign wars cannot be far behind. It’s adeptly done, but overall Bean’s script is not quite as deft as it could have been.

His characters remain a little two-dimensional, too. Pauline (Claire Lams) is thick. That’s about all we learn about her, through no fault of either Lams herself or Nicholas Hytner’s direction. Her wayward fiance, Alan (Daniel Rigby) is an Actor with a capital A, and flounces a lot. He is very funny, but  rather a slender character. Diminutive Jemima Rooper as Rachel/Roscoe is genuinely intimidating, and plays with a lightness of touch missing from some of the other cast members – she doesn’t become a caricature despite not being given a great deal to work with. Oliver Chris as Stanley is furiously channeling Hugh Laurie’s Bertie Wooster for much of the show, with a few more boarding-school jokes thrown in for good measure. He is hilarious, but one can’t help but wonder what the fiesty Rachel sees in his ugger-bugger Stanley.

Grant Olding’s musical interludes are wonderful: they set the mood nicely and provide entertainment during the scene changes. However, they become increasingly frequent and more bizarre as the show goes on, until it inexplicably turns into a musical in the last five minutes, as if Bean didn’t know what else to do with his story and demanded a big ensemble number as a finale. The cast have serviceable voices, including Corden, but it all gets a bit silly towards the end. The skiffle band, however, are great – good musicians and personable performers, and I enjoyed Corden’s turn on the metalophone wearing a rather natty fez.

The piece is predictable enough, but Bean/Goldoni work in enough clever set-pieces to keep it pacy, expertly directed by Hytner. The humour is slapstick in the extreme, and the fourth wall is broken frequently and with impunity. All-in-all it’s a silly, cheerful vehicle for Corden to clown – which he does superlatively well.

One Man, Two Guvnors is playing at the National Theatre until 19th September. See the website for more information.

Sampled at The Junction, Day 1: This is just to say, How To Be A Leader, Dreams of a House High on a Hill and Death Drive.

The Junction is a lovely space, in rather inauspicious surroundings: in the looming shadow of a giant cinema/bowling alley/fast food restaurant complex on one side, the ugliest Travelodge in the world (fact) on the other, in South Cambridge, far from the stunning gentility of the colleges. However, we all know that neither books nor theatres should be judged by their covers: The Junction is a treasure trove of nooks, studios and theatre spaces allowing its annual mini-festival Sampled to offer something for everyone. With bunting, free jelly babies and cheap coffee, I am sold before I see any shows…

Hannah Jane Walker’s This is just to say is an intimate theatrical conversation about what it means to say “sorry”, and why we have a habit of apologising for other people’s mistakes: how often have you said “oh, sorry!” to the person who trod on your toes or let a door swing shut into you? Walker combines her poems with an engaging conversational style, and some gentle audience participation.  When my companion and I strolled up to the entrance we are greeted with cups of squash and a cheery request to fill in a name sticker: audience participation is not usually my cup of tea, and I squirm at the thought of being called on, especially if the actor knows my name. But, Walker is so charming and friendly that I decided to be brave, scrawl my name (illegibly – ha!) and take a seat in The Junction’s meeting room. The show is clever without being smug, and Walker is skilled at both performing, chatting, and putting people at ease. I am not convinced that her poems are strong enough to carry an hour’s show, but Walker is so engaging that the potential weakness of the poems (they become a little same-y after a while) becomes immaterial. She is at her best when she is philosophising about the nature of apology, forgiveness and linguistics, which she does with articulacy and wit. Some of the over-sharing about ex-boyfriends gets a little uncomfortable in such a small space – but perhaps I am just a wuss. The audience was receptive to Walker’s charms, and she instigated a real sense of camaraderie in the 13-strong audience.

Next, fortified with a jelly baby or two, we snuck into Tim Clare’s first show of that day, How To Be A Leader. A mix of stand-up comedy, monologue and sudden shouting, Clare’s performance was great. His seven rules of leadership are a mock how-to guide to becoming a dictator: the key seems to be careful guarding of resources (Frazzles); each citizen receives (Frazzles) according to their need; don’t let ‘em see you bleed (even if you’ve been shot); and, um, get a Spell-Lady to make you a magic hat. Simple, huh? Well, Clare’s bizarre logic and manic persona make the hour fly by. He is off-beat and hilarious, with moments of real insight thrown in here and there with a very light touch. We cover feminism, the real qualities of a good leader, how dictatorships are formed and sustained, and why neither Kim Jong-Il not Sarah Palin is a good role model. Clare ends with an utterly brilliant rap in the voice of various female leaders, to redress the balance a little after the rest of the show focused on male “assholes”. Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, Mother Theresa (who has a filthy mouth in Clare’s somewhat warped imaginations),  are given a voice, in Clare’s inimitable style. His way with words is almost on par with the incomparable Tim Minchin, and Clare possesses a similar acerbic wit offset with a twinkly-eyed grin.

A bizarre 20-minutes followed, watching Made In China’s Dreams of a House High on a Hill. I am still not sure if it was theatrical genius or pretentious twaddle. I am inclined to come down somewhere between the two. It is undeniable that this short piece cast some kind of spell over the assembled company; the audience were entranced, even after the lights came up there was silence. It was a shame that the lone female performer felt the need to say “Um, that’s it” after a minute or two, but she was sitting half-naked in a bath of milk, so it it understandable that she wanted to get out! The story was mesmerising but strange, a mixture of what could have been hallucinations, drug trips, mental illness. It was left frustratingly ambiguous, hence why I am unsure whether we witnessed genius or gibberish. The silent audience seemed confused at the end, and Made In China’s show left me somewhat confused. The script was not strong enough to bear the repetition, and although it effectively created an aura of mystery, it then tried to imbue the performance with more weight than it could take: by remaining so reticent with facts or truths it became impossible to connect with the narrative. We were left puzzled – indeed, the evaluation form asked us to fill in what we thought the play was about. The piece is a work in progress, so there is definite room for improvement, and I hope that the team is brave enough to make some decisions about the story. The script could do with a re-write to sharpen it up a bit, and some background might be nice, although I appreciate the delicacy of the narrative might not hold up under too much context.

Finally, we saw Tim Clare’s second show, Death Drive, a tragi-comic look at Clare’s depression and how he worked his way out of it through a combination of paternal determination, self esteem building, and the advice of a psychic horse. Clare has a nice line in self-deprecation and self-recrimination, balanced with humour and a healthy sense of self-awareness. The show covers difficult subjects (mental illness, suicide, father-son relationships) with a lightness of touch that belies the hard work that Clare has clearly put in to delving into his own psyche and sharing the results with his audience. It is difficult to watch Clare put himself through remembering his torment, albeit in a humourous way, but one leaves with a huge respect for both his bravery and his craft.

Day 1 was a delightful mix of shows, with a festive feel to The Junction.

I am looking forward to day 2.

The Sampled Festival is a weekend of events held at the Junction Theatre in Cambridge exploring new contemporary theatre. For more information see the full line up on the website here.

NB – I didn’t make it to day 2 as I cracked a disc in my back and couldn’t move. I am sure it was great!

Bouncy, boisterous and brutal, this is children’s theatre at its best. Rosamunde Hutt’s lively production is full of swash and buckle, without glossing over the darker side of the story which gives it its heart. If you can ignore the slight incongruity of people in high-vis vests suddenly drawing their rapiers – which is easy given the impressive energy displayed by the whole ensemble – the fight scenes steal the show: fight directors Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown have done a fine job. Up, down and every which way around Christopher Fauld’s split-level set, the fights gallop about which the requisite spectacular rescues and near misses.

The whole production bursts with vim and humour, and it is impossible not to admire such a hard-working cast. Amaka Okafor, who excels as the fiery yet helpless Constance, notches up another five characters without breaking a sweat. Eric Nzaramba makes a smoulderingly evil Rochefort, a hard-drinking but sharp Athos and a hilariously vain Buckingham. Carl Miller’s adaptation pulls off a nice trick with the language barrier (the play moves between France and England) which I won’t spoil, but suffice to say that Nzaramba’s Buckingham gets the most laughs out of it. Liam Lane is a boyish and irrepressible D’Artagnan, who is forced to grow up during the course of the play. Lane charts this course with aplomb, from wide-eyed country boy to heart-broken wiser man, although his screeched “A woman weeps, a man revenges” doesn’t ring quite as true as when uttered by Nzaramba’s steely Athos.

Julie Hewlett has fun as Milady, stalking about the stage and bullying her servant (Samantha Adams). Along with Nzaramba’s scary Rochefort (“force is the only way”) and John Cockerill’s cold and merciless Cardinal, the audience is quickly caught up in the complex politics, plots and intrigues that surround the French court. There is a pleasing sense of knowing who we are supposed to be rooting for, and it gives the trio of baddies licence to enjoy being really jolly evil. Cockerill also plays a rather louche Aramis and adds some welcome comic relief as D’Artagnan’s quick-witted servant. Samantha Adams plays an amusingly smutty Porthos and a dignified Queen.

Some of this doubling, tripling and quadrupling gets a touch a confusing from time to time, but mostly it elicits admiration for the versatility and exuberance of the cast. The script also gets a little befuddled occasionally, with a odd mix of archaic syntax and modern language, but it was mostly clever and sharp. The songs were nicely chosen, and Okafor has a lovely voice. So, if there are children of your acquaintance who need something to do during the long Easter holidays, I suggest you hustle them off to the Unicorn for a cracking evening’s entertainment.

The Three Musketeers is playing at the Unicorn Theatre until 8th May. For more information and tickets, see the website here.

After a triumphant Richard II, director Andrew Hilton has chosen one of Shakespeare’s gentlest comedies for his next production: there is no touch of melancholy, no edge here, as we are swept through a breathless couple of hours.

There is almost no let-up in Hilton’s rattling production, leaving the audience delighted and occasionally bamboozled as two sets of identical twins get mistaken for each other in every conceivable combination and permutation. This is light-hearted stuff (apart from the myriad beatings heaped on the shoulders of poor Dromio (Richard Neale and Gareth Kennerley)), and provides a cracking evening’s entertainment. Hilton has a gift for coaxing a freshness from his cast, making the language zip and sing – there are lines that sound as though they were written yesterday, and some thoroughly modern intonation. In the skillful hands of Hilton and his fantastic cast, this builds pace and humour without dumbing down or getting caught up in the intricacies of the language.

Neale and Kennerley are expressive and witty Dromios, who end the play on a beautiful moment when they meet, brother to brother, for the first time. Dan Winter and Matthew Thomas were strong as Antipholus of Syracuse and of Ephesus, doubly bearded and waist-coated, doubly cocky but likeable. Dorothea Myer-Bennett is a great Adrianna, playing Antipholus’s long-suffering but loving wife with verve, and treading a nice line between dignity and hysteria. Ffion Jolly as her patient, bookish sister does well with a slim part, and invests Luciana with a steely determination and fine comic timing.

The piece is played for laughs throughout, without much bother about depth of character or balance, which works with such a silly play. Even for Shakespeare, having two sets of identical twins is pushing it, and Hilton et al make the most out of every opportunity for silliness, physical comedy or an extra laugh. This is not a criticism – it is a pretty slightly plot – but merely than observation that, unlike many of the other comedies, this one does not have a dark heart – or at least Hilton has not gone looking for one. It works, because the cast have impeccable timing and the ability to be funny without speaking, but it does make for a fairly breathless production: with so much frenetic energy, there are very few calm or thoughtful moments, meaning that the audience leaves feeling a little steam-rollered by the play.

For such light entertainment, this production never lets up with the comedy and only just stays the right side of hysterical. The cast is good enough to avoid being hammy, but there are moments where the script invites it. Hilton picks his way through with aplomb, and keeps this production on the straight and narrow while maintaining the high-energy brand of humour, wit and verve that the Tobacco Factory is renowned for.

N.B. The morning of the show brought news that the Tobacco Factory was successful in its bid to become an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations, securing regular funding for the first time. In other good news, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, has announced a new partnership to tour productions to Exeter Northcott. Good news for one of my favourite theatre spaces.

The Comedy of Errors is playing at the Tobacco Factory until 30th April. For information and tickets see the website here.