The Week on Stage: From Grease to The Father and the Assassin
The highs and lows of the week’s theatre
Major musical revivals and big political plays have been on the agenda this week.
Grease and My Fair Lady arrived in the West End, while The House of Shades and The Father and the Assassin opened at the Almeida and the National Theatre. Our critics give their verdicts below.
Next week’s line-up includes a revival of Legally Blonde the Musical at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, and The Unfriend, a new play from Steven Moffatt.
Grease – Dominion Theatre ★★★☆☆
Grease’s enduring popularity is both a blessing and a curse. So many people know and love the 1978 film that a West End run is all but guaranteed to sell out. But it’s hard to make the original 1971 stage production feel worthwhile to an audience so familiar with the classic movie. It’s a problem that this production doesn’t completely solve.
The large ensemble numbers are undeniably the best thing about this production. Arlene Phillips’s choreography is bold and energetic, making the moments where the company is dancing at full pelt across the Dominion Theatre’s sizeable stage quite spectacular. It’s because the music and dance numbers are so strong that the production manages to stay afloat, despite a clumsy and stale script.
The choice to end the evening with a singalong reprise of the show’s best-known songs was a smart one: it reminds the crowd of what they came to see in the first place. On the way there, some accents ultimately sounded more Cambridge than Chicago, while the odd lyric got lost due to mumbled pronunciation. But if you’re looking to enjoy some staple musical numbers with bright lights and pretty costumes, you’ll be satisfied – just not electrified. Nicole Vassell
The House of Shades – Almeida Theatre ★★★★☆
There’s something nostalgic about The House of Shades. Not just because Beth Steel’s heavyweight saga about a working-class family feels tied to a tradition of old-fashioned, muscular social dramas. But because it’s full of arguments about politics. Proper politics. Oh, how wistful I felt for days when we didn’t only argue about the basic moral integrity of those in political office.
In Steel’s play, spanning 1965 to 2019, those arguments take place around the Webster family’s kitchen table. The play is set in a terraced house in Nottinghamshire, where several generations live under one roof; there’s always a battle going on. Anne-Marie Duff is on spectacular form as Constance, the family matriarch. Dreaming of a life beyond motherhood and household drudgery, she slinks about quoting Bette Davis to blank faces.
At almost three hours, the play can feel unwieldy. Some of the bolder flourishes – a hammily delivered narrator who frames the action; a ghostly encounter with Nye Bevan – don’t come off. It’s at its most confident and compelling when unpicking the tension between feminism and socialism.
Steel’s ambitious state-of-the-nation play tugs us in many directions as it asks why we are where we are. She’s a thinker, but also a fighter – I kept thinking how fortunate we are to have a writer like her. Bring on the old-fashioned arguments. Jessie Thompson
My Fair Lady – London Coliseum ★★★★☆
Watching a star form before your eyes is a magical feeling. In Bartlett Sher’s revolutionary take on My Fair Lady, now playing in the West End four years after it opened on Broadway, Amara Okereke is that star. As Eliza Doolittle, the 25-year-old gives one of the most enthralling stage performances of the year, transforming from a gobby Cockney flower seller to a member of the genteel English middle classes at the hands of Professor Henry Higgins (Harry Hadden-Paton).
In a production focused on modernity, it’s hard to elicit sympathy for Henry Higgins – a man who calls Eliza a “barbarous wretch” and “deliciously low”. Hadden-Paton leans into this, instilling Henry with a chaotic energy and manic glint in his eyes. When the pair argue they make great opponents, but little sense as a couple. That dynamic works for the show’s updated, potentially controversial conclusion.
In the group numbers, you can really smell the production’s money. Catherine Zuber’s costumes are intricately designed, with luxurious fabrics and glittering jewels. Parts of the set design are less swanky, but that doesn’t distract from the wider spectacle. This is a hypnotic show that keeps you in Eliza’s captivating world with an unmissable performance. Isobel Lewis
The Father and the Assassin – National Theatre ★★★★☆
Nathuram Godse: the man who killed Mohandas Gandhi in 1948. We know the impact Gandhi’s death had on the world, but chances are that Godse’s name – and the events leading up to the non-violent activist’s death – might not have stuck in your mind.
Anupama Chandrasekhar’s new play The Father and the Assassin directly tackles these knowledge gaps. Godse (Shubham Saraf) is both our omniscient narrator and the play’s on-stage director, taking us non-chronologically through his life. This structure initially feels jarring, but Saraf grounds the story with cheeky asides, telling the audience: “May I kindly ask you to switch off your… British scepticism.”
While Chandrasekhar’s play is dripping with sarcasm about the audience’s ignorance, it presents the violence of the British empire unflinchingly. When you hear the thuds of wood on skull over and over again, you can understand Godse’s early frustrations in Gandhi’s (a serene Paul Bazely) obsession with non-violent protest.
When he finds himself caught up in the world of nationalist Vinayak Savarkar (Sagar Arya, with a steely-eyed stillness), Godse’s fate is sealed. He roars in rage at Gandhi’s decisions and speaks angrily of his vision for a united Hindu India. Loosely woven threads of khadi cloth cover the backdrop of Rajha Sakiry’s set, unravelling at the edges, just as Godse does. IL
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