REVIEW: A Cold Supper Behind Harrods from the Oxford Playhouse (Original Theatre)

Original Theatre continues to lead the way in Streamed content with their eleventh online production of the last year. This time it is a live staged reading of a radio play from the stage of the Oxford Playhouse Theatre with scripts in hand after a half-day of read-throughs and a day of technical rehearsal with the cameras. It might help that the marvellous three lead actors had all performed in it before in 2012 on the radio, although Anton Lesser admitted afterwards he did not remember that performance! Philip Franks directed the piece for the stream with a clever addition of an actress appearing as the ghost of Patricia, the Special Operations Executive operative captured by the Gestapo immediately as she landed in occupied France.

David Morley's script is based on real-life characters from the Second World War, the code breaker Leo Marks and the intelligence Officer Vera Atkins who reported to Colonel Maurice Buckmaster who headed the French section. He imagines a meeting fifty years after the war between them and a fictional character John Harrison who was captured in France and was held in German prisoner of war camps from July 1943 until liberation in April 1945. Harrison sent messages back to London from France which led to Patricia, who both Marks and Harrison love, being dropped into France.

REVIEW: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Online)

The 12 months of Lockdown has forced the more inventive producers and directors to reinvent their creative processes to continue to reach their audiences who are unable to attend their favourite venues for a live performance. Five regional venues led by the team at The Barn Theatre in Cirencester have coproduced this modern reimagining of the Oscar Wilde story of The Picture of Dorian Gray in conjunction with nineteen regional partner venues to promote to their audiences’ bases. The resulting ninety-five-minute film is an extraordinary disturbing modern retelling of the story of obsessive desire for beauty and sensual fulfilment. 

Henry Filloux-Bennett, the artistic director of the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, has written the production taking the core characters from the original book and placing them in the social media world on 2020/21. Dorian Gray becomes a second-year university student Vlogger obsessively trying to build subscribers. The artist Basil Hallward becomes a married developer and part-time photographer, usually represented as an avatar on a youtube channel, acting as a social media avenger discussing anxiety, stress and depression. Lord Henry Wotton becomes the self-obsessed Harry being interviewed and reflecting on his relationship with Dorian. The actress Sibyl Vane becomes an eighteen-year-old actress creating Shakespearean videos for her @sibvane2000 channel. When she gets a big break to appear with RSC stars on stage, she dries mid-speech with dramatic consequences.