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My Chinese friends tell me I’m a sheep, but nonetheless I offer fraternal greetings to all goats at this, our very own New Year, as the written symbols for sheep, goats and rams are all the same. More of that in moment – but may I just ask, did you know about the Troxy in Limehouse?
Built in 1933 this magnificent art deco hall served as a cinema, as a rehearsal space for Covent Garden Opera, and then, along with so many relics of the golden era of movies, it dwindled into a bingo hall before closing in 2005, and dereliction loomed. But then bingo! – to coin a phrase – along came a firm called Ashburn, who turned it into a modern “events” venue, and restored its glorious mirrors, lights, stairways, and soon it will provide a home for one of the grandest of the Mighty Wurtlitzer cinema organs, rescued from the site of the now-demolished Elephant and Castle Trocadero – watch this space.
Long before its centre moved to Soho, London’s old Chinese quarter – in the days of opium and laundries – was of course Limehouse.
A Big Event this week pulling the crowds to the Commercial Road was a special Gala Concert for the Chinese New Year of the Sheep, 2015. My friend Lin Yi from Peking University took me along to see her amazingly talented daughter Milly perform on the guzheng – often described as a form of zither, but it’s actually more like a sort of horizontal Welsh harp. It sounds terrific, and Milly played up a storm, accompanied on the piano by my former RADA colleague, the estimable Andrew Charity. Here they are doing their stuff onstage at the Troxy:
February has been a busy month – lots of new students to entertain and (hopefully) inform, and a range of shows to take in. Yet more “concept” Shakespeare, I’m afraid. Much as I might rail and fret, they come thick and fast. At the Almeida they’ve revived Rupert Goold’s collaboration with the RSC, the “Merchant of Venice”, starring Ian McNiece, and well OK – it’s set in a las Vegas night club, and Launcelot Gobbo’s an Elvis impersonator but dammit I enjoyed it! Susannah Fielding’s Portia is just brilliant – an inspiring example of an artist taking an apparently perverse line on a role and making it work triumphantly. This seemingly ditzy southern belle dons a slick suit for the courtroom to wipe the floor with the wily old loan-shark, and is richly comic and gloriously appealing throughout. Knock-out work.
Thence, I took a dive underground – literally. Beneath the rumbling tracks of Waterloo station is a murky aperture called Leake St, and there you will find the entrance to the Vaults, an echoing complex of performance spaces, with a gallery, a bar and a restaurant. Last week it hosted a production by Filter, part of the Tobacco Factory Group, of “Macbeth”, now moved on but still on tour – see the link below for details. It’s worth catching – Macbeth is a compact piece, and fits well in small spaces. I’ve directed a couple of portable versions of it myself – one a four-hander called “The Weird Sisters” afloat in the Indian Ocean – but that’s another story for another time. Suffice to say this show – delivered with a luxurious resource of seven performers – gets to grips with the murderous domestic tensions at the heart of the play, and has an impressive cast, several of whom are great musicians. It’s odd, it’s sort of Japanese in flavour, but it still takes you into the dark recesses of Glamis Castle and the tortured minds of the highly-stressed couple who live there.
Unlike the Hammersmith “Othello” I reported on in the last entry (and by the way, the Lyric also co-produced this show) all the Shakespearian language is delivered with assurance and gusto – as well it should be, since several of the performers trained at Guildhall, domain of the legendary vocal coach Patsy Rodenberg. Ferdy Roberts who plays the Thane and Poppy Miler, who gives a very tidy Lady M, including one of the best sleepwalking scenes I’ve ever witnessed, give this potent, disturbing text full value .
In these days of Austerity, so few companies can afford to do the classics in anything other than a small-scale, “poor theatre” format. It was good to see the Cyphers company back at the Proud Archivist canal-side venue over in Haggerston, giving a bold and pacey treatment to Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations”. They’re a tight-knit, committed group, who care deeply about rich, fine-tuned writing and deliver the words with verve and relish.There is talk of a tour – watch this space.
Meanwhile, tucked away amongst the new skyscrapers on the Euston Rd is the New Diorama Theatre where another young company, Faction, has found the resources to deliver a professional repertory season. As a survivor from the heady days of the sixties when such companies flourished throughout the land I’m really, really pleased about this – it is quite extraordinary that London of all places doesn’t have any form of repertory theatre outside of the National, which can hardly be called a “rep”.
The current Faction “Romeo and Juliet” has lots of exuberant energy, but alas, alas here once again is a Shakespeare show let down by woefully inadequate delivery of the text by key personnel – the actors playing the two title roles in this, the ultimate poetic, romantic drama, really should show at least an inkling of how to cherish and speak well the amazing, wondrous words provided for them. I loved the energy and attack the company brought onstage, but winced as one perfect line after another squirmed and died in the dust.The season ends this week, so I won’t get a chance to see the other plays in their repertoire: I fully support their overall intentions, and hope we get a chance to see them again soon.
London is teeming with young talent. Caroline Horton is an outstanding writer/performer, and I went to her latest offering, “Islands” at the Bush Theatre. Some of the critics have been sniffy about this – but I went with a group of New York University Tisch students who loved every moment, and totally got it. It’s an in-your-face piece of “agitprop”, expressing rage at the cynical contempt the banking community holds for ordinary mortals who actually work for wages. The day we saw it the HSBC tax-avoidance scandal had just broken, and the piece couldn’t have been more relevant. Caroline Horton (top left of the picture) is a name to be noted – the performance of her monologue about bull-fighting at the start of the second half of “Islands” was alone worth the trip to Shepherd’s Bush Market.
Yet more spectacle is at the Peacock Theatre. Interesting venue this – it’s on the site of a theatre converted from a tennis court in the 17th century, and the present building used to be called the Royalty. I remember seeing Philip Hedley’s production of the amazing musical review “Five Guys Named Mo” there – one of the few commercial successes at a theatre whose location at the side of Kingsway is just not quite “West End”. Anyway, thanks to a substantial donation from the TV executive Michael Peacock it was bought by the London School of Economics – hence the name change – and is now leased to Sadler’s Wells as a dance venue.
I saw “Cirkopolis” by the Canadian
company Cirque Eloize. This is a blend of modern ballet and acrobatic circus work.
Don’t go expecting “Cirque du Soleil”, with the sort of heart-stopping acts they gather into their shows from around the world. This is a single, disciplined troupe, producing some sequences of great beauty, with wit and style, in a finely-designed, exquisitely-lit stage setting. 
Look out for a comparatively rare phenomenon, a fine British circus artist, Ashley Carr – a graduate of Central and Circus Space – who does an extraordinary routine with a costume-rail!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wduuTxGxjGc
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