REVIEW: Tell Me Straight at the King's Head Theatre

Tell me Straight is an original new play championing queer and working-class voices making their mark on the independent theatre scene produced by Gartland Productions and as part of the Kings Head Theatre queer season. Written by Paul Bradshaw and directed by Imogen Hudson-Clayton, together with the rest of the team they have produced a charming piece of theatre that will speak to a generation of LGBTQ people in London navigating hookup culture, getting older and sexuality.

Writer, Bradshaw, also stars in this work, he plays a millennial gay man determined to find some new perspective in his life. He decides the only way to do this is by putting himself on a self mandated 30-day detox from sex, booze and fast food. This attempt at a sober existence forces him to examine his work life, past relationships and to confront the prospect of new ones. It becomes quickly evident, in regards to his love life, that he has a type, ‘straight’ men working out their own identity. Alongside Bradshaw is George Greenland who takes on a multi charter role to represent these past and present flames. As the story unfolds, tales of optimism and romance are met by constant disappointment and this man willing to put himself on the line in the name of love, is forced to question why he finds himself as a sort of testing ground for these other men who are not yet ready to fully confront their own sexuality.

REVIEW: I Wish My Life Was a Musical at the King's Head Theatre (Online)

The Kings Head Theatre in Islington is one of those fringe theatres where the audience loves its intimate atmosphere, quirky low budget productions and traditional pleas to buy a mug or tote bag before the show to keep it going. Soon it hopes to move to its own purpose-built venue, so it is great to see a range of shows available from Kings Head TV available on stream via its website to keep connecting with its audience until a full reopening.

I wish my life Were a Musical was a hit at the Edinburgh Festival in 2019 and it now restaged on a traverse stage across the Kings Head Theatre between two rows of empty seats. It is a typical fringe show a sort of cross between Showstoppers and a musical comedy revue. Written and MD’d by Alexander S Bermange it is a witty parody of both the songs and lyrics of musical Theatre and the life of an actor aspiring to become a star. Indeed, at times the musical phrases seemed so like an original composer’s tunes you wondered whether royalties were payable. 

The first half of the hour-long show has six wonderfully crafted and well-performed songs telling of life from drama school to chorus line, but I found the second half less engaging as we heard about the life of leading performers through to the ultimate Diva. The show is like one long in-joke amongst theatre lovies and it starts to wear thin towards the end. However, the first half makes the whole thing worthwhile.

REVIEW: Vulvarine at the King's Head Theatre

Now that nationwide comic book connoisseurs have just about recovered from the epic saga final that was ‘Avengers Endgame’, it appears the world is in need of a brand new super hero. Where she resides? Smack bang in the centre of Angel at The Kings Head Theatre in Fat Rascal Theatre’s latest production of ‘Vulvarine: A New Musical’. 

Following their rave success and reviews across the U.K., Fat Rascals sixth and latest instalment follows Bryony Buckle; an astoundingly average woman living in the extremely ordinary town of High Wycombe. Her days are consumed with endless office work, and falling hopelessly for Orson Bloom from IT. However, after an unusual and highly suspicious dose of hormones and a surprisingly convenient bolt of lightning, the world is given Vulvarine, a feminist superhero for the modern day; saviour of womankind. 

Anyone who has paid a trip to The Kings Head Theatre will tell you that the space is nothing mind blowing. Its stripped back, relies solely on public donations to remain open, and is plain and simply, a blank canvas. The perfect location for any artist to bring their latest masterpiece to life. Which is undoubtedly what Fat Rascal Theatre are doing. Upon entering the space the public are greeted by three pieces and handmade and painted set on stage, nothing more, nothing less. There was no gimmicks, no mind blowing technology, just a minimalistic design to aid the genius that was due to entail.

REVIEW: Undetectable at the King’s Head Theatre

Undetectable sees tour de force team of Tom Wright with Rikki Beadle-Blair MBE once again, hot off Tom’s successful debut with ‘My Dad’s Gap Year’ at the Park Theatre in February, and with success! Hunky Lex and fem twink Bradley are falling for each other, and after three months, Lex decides tonight’s the night for sex, but unearths intricate emotions, moral dilemmas and personal demons that both he and Bradley take to bed with them. A two hander set in the thrust theatre sees them exploring insecurities and LGBTQ stereotypes in a highly entertaining manner.

Tom Wright’s play thrives when adding wit and naturalistic humour to some fairly taboo topics, ranging from masculinity, race, HIV, body dysmorphia to uses of the word queer. Tom’s writing style is very naturalistic and really reflects conversation in the gay scene, with stand out lines including ‘“Why don’t we play a game” “Said every serial killer ever”’ and ‘When I laugh too much I fart’, bringing real roundedness and likeability to both characters. For me personally however, the play had a couple of stumbling areas. I felt the nudity didn’t add anything extra to the play (although both Freddie Hogan and Lewis Brown are certainly pleasing to the eye), and risked cheapening the play. Also when delving deeply into both characters’ backstories later on, the style of the play completely changed to spoken word storytelling, which was jarring to the world that had been created before. That said Richard Lambert’s lighting and Holly Buhagiar’s sound design truly shone in this moment with its intricacy and technicality highlighting the change in style.

REVIEW: Hamilton (Lewis) at the King's Head Theatre

When Lin-Manuel Miranda’s over hyped musical Hamilton was announced for London West End someone tweeted @JoeMofoBro: “Lewis #Hamilton might be a really good racing driver but I don’t see why they have written a musical about him”. It was a very good question and I am still not sure of the answer. However Fiona English thought it was a good idea and wrote this show and David Eaton wrote the music and lyrics for it in range of styles including hip-hop, jazz, blues, and rap. I have enjoyed his work and that of director Benji Sperring before at the Kings Head but not on this occasion.

The evening gets off to a very slow start with a 10 minute delay in opening the House due to an overrun in the changeover from the previous show and then the audience is required to listen to the usual overlong plea for financial support from Adam Spreadbury-Mather, the Kings Head Artistic Director before we get a rather silly weak two page prologue about GDPR, Copyright and other disclaimers. It also apologises for the show being written quickly and asks if you don’t know anything about Lewis Hamilton or the rap musical “why on earth are you here”. The answer of course is to review the show!