Theatre
Edmond de Bergerac by Alexis Michalik (Richmond Theatre) This story of the inspiration, development and first performance of Cyrano de Bergerac benefits from superior casting. Full review here ****
Gainsborough’s Girls by Cecil Beaton (Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington) A long lost play by society designer/photographer Cecil Beaton which traces the story of artist Thomas Gainsborough and his family’s move to London. Although the writing is a bit clunky in places it told an interesting tale and was worth seeing for curiosity value alone. The girls of the title (Gainsborough’s daughters) were well delineated and highlighted the treatment of women in that era. The costumes (appropriately enough) were absolutely sumptuous and the settings well thought out ***
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare (Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington). Any attempt to review this would be inappropriate and disingenuous as I was playing Sir John Falstaff. However, here‘s a review someone else wrote and here’s a blog I wrote about one tiny part of it
Cinema
BEST OF THE BUNCH
Rocket Man directed by Dexter Fletcher. After the apparent polarised opinions over Bohemian Rhapsody (yet to see it) this was unexpectedly good and a rather bold piece of film making. A warts and all portrait of the singer with very clever flights of fancy and the lyrics used to wrest extra meaning from the situations. As camp as a row of tents (of course) and thoroughly enjoyable with the exception of a rather syrupy last ten minutes or so. I’ll be digging out the albums for sure ****
