Tag: Finborough Theatre

Incident at Vichy at the Finborough Theatre review ****

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Incident at Vichy

Finborough Theatre, 16th April 2017

I haven’t see that many productions at the Finborough but what I have seen there has been uniformly excellent. This was no exception.

This is an Arthur Miller play which premiered in 1964 and was prompted in part by a visit with his third wife, Inge Morath, to Mauthausen concentration camp near Salzburg and to the trial of some Auschwitz guards. It focusses on a group of male characters who have been rounded up and detained by a local police offer and a German military officer in Vichy France and are awaiting an inspection by a German doctor. Most of the characters are Jewish and they begin to discuss what may be about to happen. As the true horror of their situation becomes clearer their fears, appeals to rationality, desperation, denialism and ultimately their true humanity is explored with Miller’s characteristic incisiveness and intelligence. How was/is this allowed to happen and who was/is complicit in letting it happen?

There is sufficient plot and development to keep the audience gripped and emotionally engaged but the play ultimately revolves around the themes that are explored by this very diverse range of character viewpoints. Director Phil Wilmott and colleagues wisely opted for a non-naturalistic white room set to highlight these themes and the tiny Finborough stage with audience piled up in front was ideal in conveying the increasing desperation of the characters.

Unfortunately this has been and gone but it would be a crying shame if London had to wait another 50 years (for that is how long it took) for this to reappear. But it does lend further credence to a couple of golden rules in theatre – firstly, if anything takes your fancy at the Finborough take the plunge, and secondly, always check out any production of an Arthur Miller play.

 

London theatre update

So a few things to note since the last London theatre update.

Booking opens 5th May (earlier for members of various hues) for the new batch of productions at the National Theatre. I reckon tickets for Follies, the Sondheim musical with a cast of thousands and the pocket rocket Imelda Staunton in the lead, will sell like the proverbial hot cakes. I also have my eye on Mosquitoes, the new play by Lucy Kirkwood (Chimerica, NSFW, The Children) with Olivia Colman off the telly.

Booking for the 4 way RSC Shakespeare Roman plays extravaganza is now open at the Barbican.

The new Bridge Theatre inaugural season is announced and I am so excited. Public booking opens 27th April. I recommend all 3 of the openers. Young Marx with Rory Kinnear as Marx, Oliver Chris as Engels, written by Richard Bean and Clive Colman and directed by Nicholas Hytner himself. The Julius Caesar not only has Ben Wishaw as Brutus but David Morrissey (last seen in the magnificent Hangmen by Martin McDonagh – best play of the last 3 years) as Mark Antony. And there is a new work, Nightfall by Barney Norris, which sounds intriguing (the refurbished Bush Theatre has While We’re Here, another new play by busy Barney, coming up). And the Bridge has lined up future new works by Nina Raine (about Bach yesssssss !!!! with Simon Russell Beale yessssss !!!), whose Consent I have yet to see at the NT, and by Lucy Prebble based on Bizet’s opera Carmen, as well as by Sam Holcroft and Lucinda Coxon.

Against at the Almeida will be booking from mid May.

The Old Vic is set to stage The Divide, the new play by Alan Ayckbourn, set in a future dystopian England, after a run at the Edinburgh Festival. Sounds like a cracker, mind you not too many laughs I am guessing from the blurb. No booking details yet.

I am casting an eye over Little Foot (by South African playwright Craig Higginson) and Doubt, A Parable (JP Shanley which was made into a film I gather) at the Southwark Playhouse (who are also bringing back Kiki’s Delivery Service which is a belter if you have littl’uns).

Everything Between Us (by David Ireland), Food and Mr Gillie look like the best of the bunch in the new Finborough theatre season.

And I have booked 3 of the 5 offerings at the end of July at the Orange Tree where they are letting young directors’, studying at St Mary’s round the corner in Strawberry Hill, loose on early plays by James Graham, Brad Birch, David Ireland, Enda Walsh and Kate Tempest. £7.50 a pop to support aspiring talent. Go on.

Finally I am weighing up the RSC Queen Anne at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in the transfer from Stratford but can’t quite make up my mind though Romola Garai in the lead may tip the balance.

Happy theatre going.