REVIEW: Bacon at the Finborough Theatre

Entering the compact space of the Finborough Theatre, it is difficult to imagine how such a small space can create something so slick yet somehow epic. ‘Bacon’ is a play that somehow straddles between naturalism and breathtaking heightened realism within a matter of lines. With a running time of seventy-five minutes, I don’t think I took a breath the whole time.

‘Bacon’ explores the relationship between Mark and Darren. Two teenagers at school in Brentford. They’re completely different people but somehow have a connection which is just as dangerous as it is joyful. Each of them talk to the audience throughout, but at its heart it is Mark who is telling us his story. A story rich in trauma, shame and failed dreams. It all sounds very bleak, but the characters are littered with hilarious idiosyncrasies and phrases which gives it a real pace. Mark is almost like a more interesting version of Will from ‘The Inbetweeners’. He has hilarious one-liners about the love for his dog Barney and distrust for bullies and detention. Darren is the damaged teen who wears his heart in his fists, but every now again shows a burst of vulnerability.2

REVIEW: Chemistry at the Finborough Theatre

The European Premier production of Jacob Marx Rice’s award-winning Chemistry is an intimate and honest look into the world of mental health and its preconceptions and misconceptions. The haze-filled auditorium is in traverse layout with the stage space being dominated by a floating rectangle of scaffolding which houses the two characters throughout. Following the shape of the scaffolding is a maze of wires and lights across the floor. The story follows Steph (Caoimhe Farren) and Jamie (James Mear) as their lives combine after a chance meeting in a waiting room. 

Farren’s depression-stricken Steph is sharp-witted and Farren seems to revel in her characters playfulness. She also masterfully tackles the intricacies of Steph’s depressive episodes with truth and an individuality appropriate for such a complex and diverse illness. 

Mear is brilliant as unipolar manic Jamie. His performance was gut-wrenchingly real and had beautiful moments of guttural pain and frustration which was painful to observe in all the right ways.

REVIEW: Maggie May at the Finborough Theatre

Maggie May was made famous by the 1971 Rod Stewart hit that has become a standard of his live concerts ever since and was based he said on an old song about a Liverpool prostitute. However, seven years earlier Lionel Bart had written a full musical around the same character as a follow up to his big hit musicals of Oliver (1960) and Blitz (1962). The Finborough which prides itself on “unique rediscoveries” has revived it over 50 years since its last professional production. The score won the Novello award as outstanding score of the year and the critics poll as best new British musical, so why has it disappeared from view?

It is an unusual score with a wide range of musical sources from folk ballads, to Jazz, to lullaby’s and laments and lively sixties pop dance and at one point an end of the pier music hall number. All the songs are pleasant tunes accompanied here by just MD Henry Brennan on the upright piano but none of them linger in the memory as tunes. What does linger is the central performance of Kara Lily Hayworth as Margaret Mary Duffy (Maggie May) sounding like Cilla Black. She beautifully captures the hard edge required to do her street work at £5 a man while showing her vulnerability and love for Pat Casey (James Dench) in songs like “I told you so” with her fellow prostitute Maureen (Natalie Williams) and “its Yourself “with Pat. 

REVIEW: ‘A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Gynecologic Oncology Unit At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Of New York City’ at the Finborough Theatre

The Finborough Theatre is a dainty little theatre off West Brompton known for producing high quality Fringe productions, and ‘A Funny Thing..’ is no exception. Halley Feifer’s follow up after her 2017 sell out ‘I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard’ looks set to be another, having been a success Off-Broadway in 2016. I personally can think of nothing worse than watching my mother on a deathbed, and this play delves into that nightmare scenario.

The basic premise is that Karla, a foul-mouthed twenty-something comedian, and Don, a middle-aged man embroiled in a nasty divorce, are brought together unexpectedly when their cancer-stricken mothers become roommates in the hospital.

A typical struggle with any play is how do you start it and make it memorable, especially with a memorably unmemorable name like ‘A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Gynecologic Oncology Unit At Memorial Sloan Lettering Cancer Center Of New York City’, and author Halley Feiffer knows exactly how to do that. Karla’s (played by the sensational Cariad Lloyd) opening line certainly makes the most memorable opening and sets the tone with ‘I’ve been single for so long I have wet dreams about my vibrator’. However anyone thinking this show is pure crudity and vibrator jokes are wrong. This play covers a multitude of realistic and heartbreaking emotions and taboos, from feminism, to what is socially acceptable to make jokes about, to dealing with grief, and to broken relationships. Each element is thoughtfully written about, acted with true raw emotion and skilfully layered due to brilliant oversight from director Bethany Pitts. My only major criticism is that the play felt about 10 minutes too long, and a couple of times the dialogue didn’t sustain enough, but this doesn’t stop a fantastic show.

The Biograph Girl to be revived at the Finborough Theatre as part of their ‘Celebrating British Music Theatre’ series

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In a production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre as part of their acclaimed ‘Celebrating British Music Theatre’ series, the first professional UK production since its 1980 premiere, The Biograph Girl by Warner Brown and David Heneker opens at the Finborough Theatre for a three week limited season on Tuesday, 22 May 2018.

From the composer of Half A Sixpence, a joyous musical celebration of Hollywood's glorious era of silent film – beginning in 1912 when disreputable “flickers” are shown in fleapits and no self-respecting actor will appear in them, and ending in 1927 with movies now a glamorous, multi-million dollar industry and the first talking pictures signal the doom of silent films.

In a breath taking sweep of just fifteen years, the great innovative directors created filmmaking as we know it today, ground breaking movie moguls laid the foundations of the entertainment industry, and trail blazing actors launched the Hollywood star system.

REVIEW: Cyril's Success at the Finborough Theatre

Last night was my first time at the historic Finborough Theatre in Earl’s Court and I loved it! The evening was a real escape, especially thanks to the production of Cyril’s Success by Henry J. Byron, produced for the first time in London in 128 years. It is produced in the context of FINBOROUGH150, which marks 150 years of the building. This year, they are only staging plays from 1868. 

The theatre prides itself on staging new work as well as work that has not been staged for a long time, and the result is refreshing.

Cyril’s Success is the story of Cyril Cuthbert, a writer who has found fame within the circle of theatre managers, critics and actors. His wife is growing jealous of his success, mostly because it means it takes him away from her. On the evening of their wedding anniversary, as Cyril makes very clear that he has completely forgotten the date and goes out to mingle with his peers, she finds a letter and mistakes it for a letter from a mistress. What follows are confusions about relationships and a series of farcical quid pro quos involving ex-spouses, lovers and action behind closed doors in a semi-autobiographical satire about Byron’s trials and joys of marriage and of a life in the theatre. In the end, what is success without a partner to share it with?

REVIEW: Booby's Bay at the Finborough Theatre

The Finborough Theatre building 150th anniversary season has begun with two world and one European premieres of new plays and the latest offering is Henry Darke's first full length play Booby's Bay. The young Cornish man was selected as one of the Royal court fifty most promising playwrights and has set the play in his home county. Booby's Bay is a small rural community apparently named after the rather stupid Booby bird that was virtually tame and now one of the Cornish beaches popular with surfers. It is a protest play and the writing shows real promise as it is packed with ideas and themes. The central character, Huck is angry about much of the Cornwall community development and finds himself isolated and in conflict with his friends and family. HIs protests cover overfishing by modern fishing vessels, commercialisation of the town, absent fathers, pollution of the seas, fake news and homelessness. He is a lone voice, the arguments are never fully developed and it difficult to feel sympathy for him, even when we learn about the tragic past that has driven his isolation. 

The play over three acts without an interval almost has too much to say which combined with local Cornish dialect and local references makes it hard work at times over the 110 minutes running time and would benefit from stronger comic and light relief elements. Director Chris White has created a breathless race, with some longer speeches delivered without pause or change of tone and even the scene changes being active moments with cast chanting and singing as they reset. Huck returns frequently to chanting Om mani padme hum, the Tibetan Buddhist mantra but we never sense the enlightened awareness he seeks provides the understanding to save anyone, even himself.

REVIEW: Dolphins and Sharks at Finborough Theatre

Marking James Anthony Tyler's professional debut, Dolphins and Sharks is a play about power conflicts between colleagues, set against a background of racial discrimination, pay inequality and ruthless capitalism.

We are in a copy shop in Harlem, New York, where African American Isabel (Shyko Ammos) and Dominican descendant Xiomara (Rachel Handshaw) have been working together for many years, becoming good friends and allies against the white exploiter company owner Mr. Timmons. When Xiomara is promoted as a shop manager, though, the balances suddenly change, as she dutifully bends to the requests of the absent Mr. Timmons, imposing unreasonable policies to her co-workers. 

With the luring promise of a pay rise, Xiomara gains the connivance of the newly-employed Yusuf (Ammar Duffus), whose current salary is below legal minimum and doesn't even enables him to pay his rent, after a degree in Philosophy has left him jobless.

Cast announced for THE GRAND TOUR at the Finborough Theatre

Alastair Brookshaw, Nick Kyle and Zoë Doano are to head the cast for the European première of Jerry Herman’s 1979 Broadway musical, The Grand Tour, directed by Thom Southerland, at the Finborough Theatre as part of the 20 Premières Season.

Produced by Danielle Tarento, The Grand Tour will run for an eight-week strictly limited season from Thursday, 1 January to Saturday 21 February.

France, 1940. Jacobowsky, a Polish Jewish intellectual, has been one step ahead of the Nazis for years. Stjerbinsky, an aristocrat, anti semitic Polish colonel is desperately trying to get to England. Jacobowsky has purchased a car he doesn’t know how to drive. The Colonel knows how to drive, but has no car. When the two meet at a Paris hotel, they agree to join forces in order to escape the approaching Nazis. Together with the Colonel’s girlfriend, Marianne, they begin their perilous journey on the road to freedom. Featuring one of Jerry Herman’s most engrossing and heartfelt scores, The Grand Tour finds beauty, light and humour in one of history’s darkest hours.

‘FOG’ ANNOUNCES UK TOUR AFTER SUCCESSFUL SELL-OUT RUN AT THE FINBOROUGH THEATRE

Following a highly successful run at the Finborough Theatre in 2012, AGF Productions pleased to officially announce the UK Tour of FOG by Tash Fairbanks and Toby Wharton in the Autumn of 2013. Toby Wharton will again be starring as Gary, with direction again by multi-award-winning writer/director Ché Walker, whose credits include Been So Long (The Royal Court Theatre and  The Young Vic London), The Frontline (The Globe, London) and His Greatness (Finborough Theatre, London). The project is supported by the Arts Council England.

Two families: one white and dysfunctional, the other black and aspiring. Gary and Lou were put into care as young children by their soldier father, Cannon, following the untimely death of their mother. Ten years later, Cannon returns, expecting to reassemble his family around him. But he feels a stranger in this ‘new’ England of broken promises. And nothing could prepare him for the damage that abandonment and an inadequate care system has wreaked on his kids. He desperately tries to repair what has been broken, but is it all too little too late?