Reviews

Even the sauna-like atmosphere of The Chamber at The Queen’s Theatre did not deter the opening night audience for Michael Griffiths: Greatest Hits.

What happens when a woman unleashes her unbridled sexuality on a seemingly sympatico target – who turns out to be a dud choice? Wrong-footed romance leaves you feeling like Ariadne of Greek myth fame, abandoned on the beach at Naxos by Theseus – but with a glimmer of hope that Dionysus – the Greek God of wine and ecstasy –  will come along for a final rescue. In The Bull, the Moon & the Coronet of Stars, Van Badham takes this myth and weaves a magical, mystical tale of lust, love and destiny.

Beautiful Thing was a West End hit for playwright Jonathan Hardy in 1993. It is a gentle play about emerging gay love. Though set in the UK, its characters and their relationships are poignantly universal. Hardy injects their story with hope and humour that director Mark G Nagle describes as “touching and funny”.

Rafael Bonachela’s new work was cancelled a year ago when COVID closed our theatres just days before its opening.  No wonder it’s called Impermanence.

Bonachela then reforged it into a full one-hour work, with his frequent musical collaborator, Bryce Dessner, the American founder of the rock band The National, now Paris-based.  Impermanence was of course enveloping us all, our climate, the Australian bushfires, the incineration of the ancient Notre Dame and Trump’s America.