Culture Tiger

T  Curtain Up: Celebrating 40 Years of Theatre in London and New York at the V&A is a proud and joyous transatlantic display of the rich and glittering history of two theatrical heavyweights - London’s West End and New York’s Broadway. A small (and free!) exhibition, Curtain Up brings visitors up close and personal with iconic costumes. Many of the costuming highlights range from the lavish Red Death ensemble from the eternal blockbuster The Phantom of the Opera to the roughly shredded chiffon bottoms from Matthew Bourne’s erotically charged Swan Lake. As well as an insight into the painstakingly fine details of costumes, there is an array of intricate set designs, scripts, letters detailing challenging props transfers, a wonderfully charming note from Ian McKellan to an understudy and videos of industry insiders revealing the demanding highs and lows of the business. Curtain Up goes beyond the glamour of a night watching a stellar performance - it also guides you through the...

Performance artist Bryony Kimmings never shies away from taboo subjects. Instead, she grabs them for a full-on embrace for the world to see while changing perceptions and encouraging fresh debate in the process.The first time I saw Kimmings perform was back in 2010 with the raw and very funny Sex Idiot where she explored her sexual history after contracting her first STI. Her latest work, Fake it ‘til you Make it , opens up a frank discussion on clinical depression and social pressures on men. For this Edinburgh Fringe sell-out production, Kimmings collaborates with her partner Tim Grayburn who works in advertising and has depression. Grayburn had kept his condition a secret for a long time when Kimmings discovered antidepressants in his bag six months into their relationship. Fake it ‘til you Make it is a very real love story darkly comic, frighteningly heartbreaking and warmly tender in turn. Spoken word confessions of the heart and mind precede and follow daft yet poignant musical...

Richard Bean’s The Mentalists returns to the London stage for the first time since its 2002 debut at the National Theatre. In this revival on the other side of the Thames, comic and producer Stephen Merchant (The Office, An Idiot Abroad) is given his first theatrical outing as the frustrated and excitable suburban middle manager Ted. Joining Merchant is Steffan Rhodri (Gavin & Stacey) as Ted’s entrusted friend hairdresser Morrie who repeats fantastical stories about a multi-talented father and sexual prowess with women. Set in a basic Finsbury Park en suite hotel room, Morrie sets up a camera while Ted leaves a phone message to a woman, who he unconvincingly claims is his secretary, lying about his whereabouts. The potential seediness of it all quickly erodes when Ted changes into a suit and frets over forgetting to pack socks which may be noticed by potential thousands who will watch the eventual video. The video being produced is Ted presenting his vision of a disciplined utopia ...

Nottingham Playhouse’s innovative production of 1984, adapted by Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillan, returns to London’s Playhouse Theatre following a successful year. George Orwell’s dystopian novel was published in 1949 and still feels highly relevant to the present day with Edward Snowden’s revelations, of NSA and GCHQ surveillance activities, and the Communications Data Bill which could potentially pass under the current UK government. This adaptation of 1984 is a compelling yet uncomfortably bumpy ride through the oppressive Oceania. Scenes end with blackouts and sounds of mechanical screeching and electrical sparks. Matthew Spencer plays everyman protagonist Winston with a sensitivity that draws you in - every touch of hope or paranoia expressed brings out empathy yet also makes you question what is reality and imagination in Winston’s world. Everyday scenes are repeated such as the same interactions with the same colleagues in the same work canteen. The monotony of life in Oceania...

Pedro Almodóvar’s 1988 film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown has the ingredients for a great musical theatre adaptation - love, passion, heartache, drama, humour and strong complex characters. Transferring a highly revered cinematic modern classic onto the stage has its risks as a balance has to be met between being true to the soul of the original yet allowing new interpretations to come through.   Both Almodóvar fans and theatregoers less familiar with his work will not be disappointed with the musical production currently in its final week at the Playhouse Theatre. Set in a colourful and vibrant Madrid going through a post Franco cultural and sexual explosion, the story follows actress Pepa who struggles with her lover Ivan’s unceremonious leaving. On top of the personal hurt and confusion Pepa crosses paths with Ivan’s bitter unstable wife, his shy put-upon grown up son and snobbish uptight future daughter-in-law. There is also Pepa’s best friend Candela who finds...

The last show I attended in 2013 was The El. Train - three one-act plays by Eugene O’Neill put together for the first time in a single production. The venue was the Victorian grade II listed Hoxton Hall which had been transformed into 1920s New York with a “Hell Hole” saloon bar serving up period-inspired cocktails and blaring out melancholic jazz. The theatre itself was turned into a cramped dark tenement block with the piercing sound of a railway train racing overhead followed by live music and the heart-rending vocals of Nicola Hughes. The first two plays, Before Breakfast and The Web , were directed by Sam Yates with Ruth Wilson as the female leads. Before Breakfast sees Wilson’s embittered Mrs Rowland getting ready for work while talking to her silent husband Alfred of whom one could vaguely make out a silhouette in the curtained off bedroom. As the play progresses, anger rises and falls in Wilson’s east coast drawl which also sounds exhausted by everything. Increasingly more ...

I mprov, unscripted and unrehearsed theatre, is currently underrated. I have had long conversations attempting to describe improv to which I eventually get the exclamation of ‘You mean like “ Whose Line Is It Anyway? ”!’ - a 90’s Channel 4 hit which sadly is not trendy nostalgia.

www.stjamestheatre.co.uk Oliver Reed - actor, prolific boozer and professional hellraiser - had a life and career so talked about to the point where he became like a mythical ancient god found in fables of romp and drama. Even if you know nothing about the drinks and the punch ups, Reed’s film roles showed a one-off individual who left a lasting impression. My first introduction to “Ollie” Reed was in Oliver! as brutal criminal Bill Sykes - a dark scary presence amongst the gaiety of ‘Oom-pah-pah’. For other audiences, a first Reed experience could have been 'Women in Love', which bore the first ever male full frontal nude scene in British cinema, or the heavily censored 'The Devils' with its explicit themes of sex, violence and religion.