Laura Barnett

Jumping off a pier on a hang-glider or a pair of homemade wings might not sound like everybody’s idea of entertainment, but it’s pretty popular. ‘Birdman’ competitions take place each year in coastal towns from Worthing to Ilfracombe, and now assume fictional form in this new play by Alison Carr. The setting is a B&B in an unnamed seaside town, run by grandmother Maeve (Tricia Kelly). Over this particular July weekend, however, there are no vacancies: Maeve’s daughter Claire (Judith Amsenga) has cancelled all bookings following her mother’s recent stroke. But one guest, Simon (Alan Mahon), appears to have missed the memo: he turns up late on Friday night, brandishing his email confirmation, and Claire decides to let his two-night booking stand. It’s an intriguing premise, lent added interest by the fact that Simon is there to compete in the town’s Birdman contest: his wings are in his van, damaged following a collision on a petrol station forecourt. Damage, in fact, is the unifying theme of the play: all three characters are nursing fractures of both the physical and emotional variety, and these are gradually revealed over the course of the weekend. There are some nice lyrical moments in Carr’s writing, and she has a sharp ear for naturalistic dialogue. She’s brave, too, in exploring Claire’s ambivalence about motherhood – she’s been staying with Maeve to look after her, but is also fleeing her husband and son – and there are some committed performances from the cast. It’s a

Before we had ‘Fleabag’ – Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s sexy, blistering monologue about a young Londoner making a mess of life and love, later filmed for the BBC – we had this, the debut play by Waller-Bridge’s friend and collaborator Vicky Jones. ‘The One’ won the Soho Theatre’s prestigious Verity Bargate award back in 2013, and had its premiere there the following year, starring Waller-Bridge. Together, Jones and Waller-Bridge run the theatre company DryWrite, and Jones directed ‘Fleabag’ for the stage. In this new production, directed for its second outing by Soho boss Steve Marmion, rising star Tuppence Middleton steps into Waller-Bridge’s shoes (figuratively speaking – she remains barefoot throughout) as Jo, another young woman in the ‘Fleabag’ mould: clever, restless, vulnerable, with a seriously nasty streak.  John Hopkins is her boyfriend, Harry: Jo’s former professor, ten years her senior, but no better able to navigate the channels of their passionate, mutually destructive relationship. A night of sex, arguing and unconventional Wotsit consumption is interrupted, at intervals, by Harry’s friend Kerry (Julia Sandiford), who is definitely not just popping round for a mug of Ovaltine. As with Waller-Bridge, Jones’s skill as a writer lies in skewering the way people actually speak and behave – or at least would do, if they were brave or messed up enough. Her script brims with twisted humour, and confronts just about every relationship taboo, from betrayal and violence to sexu

‘A sad tale’s best for winter,’ declares the young prince Mamillius in this, one of Shakespeare’s most curious and intriguing plays.  Mamillius’s own story is about to get sadder than he can imagine: shortly, he will see his father Leontes, wrongly accuse his mother Hermione of adultery; he’ll be separated from her; and then he’ll die. But Blanche McIntyre’s tight, muscular production proves that a sad tale – albeit one also shot through with humour – can equally suit a warm summer’s night beside the Thames. With its sudden, lurching transition from the tragic events unfolding in Sicilia at the beginning to the more comic, pastoral scenes in the Bohemia-set second half, ‘The Winter’s Tale’ can feel like two very different plays welded into one.  Director McIntyre tackles these idiosyncrasies head-on, offering us a clashing vision of twelfth-century Sicilia – flowing Grecian gowns, golden pantaloons – and a Bohemia whose inhabitants, in patterned leggings and glittery make-up, look less like shepherds and more like stray Lovebox attendees.  It’s a bold choice, and one that pays off particularly in the second half, translating some of Shakespeare’s more impenetrable comedy into contemporary terms – the rogue Autolycus (Becci Gemmell) is transformed into a festival merch-seller, flogging T-shirts and knock-off sunglasses along with ballads on seven-inch vinyl.  McIntyre’s take on the play’s famous stage direction ‘exit, pursued by a bear’ is also characteristically original, and

'Stomp' has been on the West End since 2002, and it's not difficult to see why the show has lasted so long. Take a troupe of sexy young performers in overalls, add an array of junkyard items moonlighting as percussion instruments, publicise with a series of high-profile, global advertising campaigns, and you have the recipe for an international hit. I saw 'Stomp' at the age of ten and remember staring agape at all those fit men with their big muscles and even bigger dustbins. But that's not all there is to 'Stomp'. As well as attractive player-dancers and the wow factor of rhythms beaten out on bin lids, a complete absence of words means it can cater to audiences of all nationalities. That may be why, on a freezing January week night, the Ambassadors was heaving with teens on dates and grandparents clutching overcoats squeezed between crowds of German tourists. So does 'Stomp' still pack a punch? Yes – to a degree. The performers remain exhaustingly energetic, and there's something undeniably impressive about watching brooms, oil cans and vacuum-cleaner tubes transformed into musical instruments before your eyes. Despite becoming a global behemoth, the show has managed to retain some of its original irreverence: it grew out of the street-theatre scene, first becoming a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, and it remains bigger and better than the many copycat shows that have sprung up in its wake. But 100 minutes is a long time to watch people play with rubbish, however talented they

Michael Flatley's 'Lord of the Dance' returns to the West End October 10 2015-January 24 2016. This is a review of the 2014 run. And, lo! He has come, our saviour, ready to lead us high-kicking away from the forces of darkness. Well, all right, so Michael Flatley has stopped short of selling this reboot of the spangled, turbocharged Irish dance formula that he’s been peddling around the world for 20 years, as the Second Coming.  But only just: the programme is a breathless exercise in hagiography, and the show opens by recounting  Flatley’s own story of how hard work and blistered feet turned to glittering success.It feels more like the start of a motivational event than a dance show, but to be fair, Flatley’s achievements have been considerable: over the course of a few decades he’s taken an art form little known outside its native Ireland and made it enormously popular worldwide.This ‘epic new spectacle’ hangs by a thread from a nonsensical plot: a ‘Little Spirit’ summons the forces of good and evil with her flute, and they then do battle against a fantastical backdrop, evoked by some very strange computer graphics: part ‘Transformers’, part ‘Care Bears’, part Lucky Charms advert. The costumes, too, are bizarre, running the gamut from robot costumes to trashy catsuits (the female dancers are cast, alternately, as whores and saints).Through it all, at intervals, wanders former Girls Aloud star Nadine Coyle, looking faintly dazed as she delivers a clutch of distinctly unmemo

It was, for those involved, a tragedy of ancient Greek proportions. The 1980 movie musical ‘Xanadu’ - conceived as a surefire hit for Olivia Newton-John and instrumentalist/composer John Farrar, the man behind many of the top tunes from ‘Grease’ - was a flop so epic it spawned the first ever Razzie Award for worst director.But then, decades later, the Gods smiled on this silly, bubblegum tale about an immortal Muse who descends on Venice Beach to help a mediocre street-artist achieve his dream of realising the greatest of all art-forms… a roller disco. A theatrical team got behind it, and turned the turkey of a film into a stage musical that, in 2007, became a surprise Broadway success.So now, here it is in London, in a new production that bears the hallmarks of Southwark Playhouse’s usual quality musical efforts: high production values, top-notch musicians and a hardworking cast (any performer who can sing, dance, act and roller-skate deserves my respect - and quite possibly a stiff drink).The show knowingly pokes fun at the film’s naffness: much (everything, really) about ‘Xanadu’ is naff, from the legwarmers and sweatbands to the intentionally terrible Australian accent adopted by the Muse, Kira/Clio (the excellent Carly Anderson). It won’t be to everybody’s taste, and wasn’t really to mine - an ironic awareness of naffness doesn’t, after all, take that naffness away, and the musical score is uneven. But for those willing to get on board with its arch campness and so-bad-i

Well, if that swell-looking old dame hasn’t got herself all dolled up! Sorry – but getting carried away with that psuedo-1930s Chicago gangster talk is inevitable after watching this show: a new play by David Rogers, based on the Oscar-winning 1973 film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.The dame is Wilton’s of course – our finest surviving example of a grand Victorian music hall – and it is indeed looking swell. The theatre has just reopened following an extensive refurbishment project that has, we’re told, finally shored it up against damp, subsidence and other structural nasties. And it looks great: same crumbling brick and unsurpassable historic atmosphere; better toilets, a nicer bar, more rooms to explore.‘The Sting’ is a fun show to re-open with – a great Hollywood caper movie whose pedigree can be traced right down to films like ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and ‘American Hustle’. Its affectionate, knowingly clichéd setting – all plumed showgirls, trenchcoated cops and gangsters in trilby hats – recalls that of ‘Bugsy Malone’, made three years later. And its plot – two smooth-talking ‘grifters’, Gondorff (Bob Cryer), and Hooker (Ross Forder), and their allies attempt to con big-time hoodlum Doyle Lonnegan (John Chancer) – offers as many twists and turns as a Chicago dime-a-dancer.So it’s a shame that the production, directed and designed by Peter Joucla, never quite flies. There are some strong performances, but others are uneven, with wildly wavering accents, and it proves d