Pandemonium at Soho Theatre

Pandemonium at Soho Theatre had immediate appeal thanks to the names Armando Iannucci (illustrious cv) and Patrick Marber (another illustrious cv and a local lad too) so way back in August I booked my Xmas treat with seat G7 for a knock-off £25 (old gits discount).

Having booked it I forgot all about it.

Come the day I got a text message from Soho Theatre sending me my tickets for the show that afternoon and I quickly changed my plans! These included an early lunch, a couple of tubes to Tottenham Court Road and a quick pint in the theatre bar beforehand.

Pandemonium, as the poster skilfully suggests, is a play about the Covid pandemic and the Boris Johnson led government's woeful handling of it. There was a little prologue on the Brexit referendum, which gave Johnson's career a big boost, and we started with the two articles he wrote, one supporting leave and one supporting remain.

Clearly a lot of easy comedy targets in that scenario and safe territory for a play.

Pandemonium was more that that. For a start it played heavily with Shakespeare memes like rhyming couplets. The two articles became "To leave, or not to leave" and the scene was set.

In an hour and a half we met all of the key players from that era, even Liz Truss, and these were all brought to life by a cast of just five.  

The humour was relentless and all the well designed and executed theatry bits made Pandemonium an intelligent show, not just a funny one.

Dust at Soho Theatre was astounding (again)

Having seen Dust on an Edinburgh preview run at The Bunker in July 2017 I very keen when it returned to London for a full run at Soho Theatre. The Sold Out sign on the poster tells you that lots of other people wanted to see it too, no doubt enticed from the very positive reviews it had easily collected.

Possibly because it was a one woman show, or perhaps because it was staged in the smaller upstairs space, it was priced at a ridiculously low £14. No wonder it sold out.

The unusually early start time, 7;15pm, was something of a challenge, particularly as people kept talking in my 5pm meeting at work and dragged it out until almost 5:45. A bit of careful haste, due to the snow, allowed me to catch the 5:52 train and I was back on some sort of plan. I got to Soho Theatre Cafe in time to share a pizza and I finished that just before the doors opened. Careful positioning, from experience, got me into the theatre quickly enough to claim a seat in the front row which is exactly where I wanted to be.

Having seen Dust before I had some idea of what to expect and while there were no surprises in the main themes the sheer speed with which stories were delivered meant that I had forgotten many of them. I had also forgotten the  bewildering range and depth of those stores. It was often very dark, as you would expect a play about a suicide to be, it was often extremely coarse with, for example, a graphic description of oral sex, it was often frivolous such as when she coveted Top Show vouchers and it was often funny too. It was a rich hailstorm of ideas.

The great success of Dust is that it easily encompassed that wide diversity of ideas while dealing with the main theme, depression, sympathetically and realistically. We were living in the intersection between a young woman's chaotic life and her depression.

The great success of Milly Thomas was not only that she wrote Dust but she also played all the characters in it, from the rich aunt to the drug riddles brother. The characters changed as quickly as the ideas and it was a very impressive performance.

Dust had evolved a little since I first saw it and the addition of lighting and sound effects added the professional touch that turned it from a work in progress to a fully formed show.

I am not sure who impressed me the most that evening, Milly Thomas the playwright or Milly Thomas the actor. It was also nice to meet Milly Thomas the young woman briefly afterwards to tell her just how much I had enjoyed the performance.

Sarah Milton impressed in Tumble Tuck at Soho Theatre

As excuses for going to the theatre go, a chance meeting on a train with a pretty young woman is one of the more romantic (in a 1950's black and white film way, where older men treated younger women like their nieces). I was on a train out of Waterloo after Spine when I got into a short serendipitous conversations with Sarah Milton. In this she mentioned that she had a show on at Soho Theatre the following week. It would have been churlish not to go.

Getting there proved to be harder than it should have. I made the mistake of talking to somebody on the way out of the office, got delayed by a couple of minutes and missed my train by a handful of seconds, unable to get on thanks to the crowds coming out of the station. The subsequent train was delayed by over ten minutes which made the third train on the timetable the second one due and my best option, then that started getting later and later. It got so late that the delayed second train became the second train again. It arrived to some confusion as it was announced as stopping at Waterloo only. That did not suit the many people heading home to places like Wimbledon but it suited me just fine.

In the end I got to the theatre just in time to collect my ticket before they opened the doors. I was the second person up the stairs and took a seat in the centre next to one that was reserved. The first person up, a young woman, having sat somewhere else changed her mind and came and set in the chair next to me. We had a nice chat about theatre while waiting for the show to start; Tennessee Williams was mentioned. By then the place was pretty full.

There was no set and very few props. I like that.

On to that empty stage walked Daisy played by Sarah Milton, she was the sole performer as well as the playwright. She was wearing a swimming suit, hence the title Tumble Tuck. She had unexpectedly found herself in a swimming team and it was about to be her leg of the relay. She did her best and they got a medal.

Then the story exploded in several directions and we explored Daisy's relationships with her mother, her best friend, her former boyfriend currently in prison, and the star swimmer on the team. Sarah played all of these roles as Daisy told us her story. It was an emotional story too with pressure to perform, a house devoid of food, a murder, body pride, a secret relationship maintained through letters, and a young woman trying to come to terms with all that life had thrown her. She did remarkably well.

Sarah Milton did even better. The play was nicely crafted with plenty of drama, a few justifiable twists in the story and dollops of humour, often from Daisy's representation of other people. Sarah made Daisy somebody that I cared about.

After the show I nursed a coffee in the bar (I'm on antibiotics) in the hope that Sarah would come in. She did and was swamped by admirers. I waited for the frenzy to die down a little before going across to add my praise to all the rest, all well deserved.

Spine at Soho Theatre was fast, intense and tender

I loved Spine so much when I saw it in November 2014 that I eagerly took the opportunity to see it when it returned almost two years later. It meant skipping one of my regular meetings to see it but that was an easy price to pay.

The urge to see it came partially from it being a provocative and political play and partially because it was a one-woman tour de force by Rosie Wyatt. I first saw her in Blink which was the spur for me to see Spine the first time around. I also saw her in the The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas so this was my fourth time seeing her on stage in two years. I'm a fan.

Spine was back in the upper space at Soho Theatre, which was good, and because there was another show on later in the evening, it started at 7pm which was less good. I had hoped to escape from work early but an important meeting with champagne kept me there beyond 5:30 and I had to make hasty excuses to catch the 17:43 from TED to WAT. Things worked well after that and I had just got myself a beer when we were called upstairs. It was a long walk and many of the seats on the front row were reserved for guests but I managed to find one for me pretty close to the centre. Job done.

Spine is narrated by Amy, a young woman (still a girl really at the start of the story) who tells us her recent story about how she ended up in a room full of books, which is all that there was on the stage. The other main character in the story was an elderly lady who Amy mimicked when telling her story. We also heard about Amy's family and a recent boyfriend.

The story was told naturally with Amy leaping to different parts of her life to tell us about episodes what she was telling us about at the time. That gave us a heap of small stories within the main one and while I remembered the main story I had forgotten many of the small ones, such as her criminal career and the toilet incident that caused her to be sacked from a job.

The deluge of quickly little stories made Spine an intense experience and Rosie Wyatt's skillful deliver brought out the humour, brutality and tenderness. One summary could be that this was a coming of age play with a happy ending but that summary leaves out all the rich detail that made Spine such an enjoyable play.

I was a little worried about seeing it again so soon after the first time but I should not have been. Spine was excellent (again).

I needed to unwind after that so hit the bar for a second pint. I was on my way out after that when I noticed Rosie in the bar so I went up to do some hero worshipping. She recognised me from my tweeting which made the introduction a little less daunting. I like to give direct feedback when I can, and I try not to intrude too much or to be too fawning. I am always grateful when creatives respond positively.

That would normally have been a good end to a great evening but there was another incident after that which lifted the evening. I was on the train home talking about theatres I love when a young woman interrupted to ask if I was talking about Blink, I was, and when I mentioned Wink! she said that she knew the playwright. A brief but deeply rewarding twitter exchanged followed later that evening. I love theatre and theatre people.
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Radiant Vermin at the Soho Theatre showed the charming side of mass-murder

I was a fairly late in discovering Philip Ridley, it all started with Ghost from a Perfect Place in October 14, but I fell in love with his writing very quickly and that made Radiant Vermin a must-see for me.

While the Soho is not one of my very favourite theatres, it lacks the front of house atmosphere for that, it is still one that I like a lot and it had the advantage of being well placed, in Soho funnily enough. It's location helped here as I had to be in Reading during the day and so had to rush back to see this. It's a routine that I am used to now and the only tricky bit was deciding which pasty to get at the station.

Queueing for the theatre at Soho is always awkward and people, myself included, hung around the door to the bar. Things got better when another show was called as that thinned the numbers considerably. When it was our turn I was well placed enough and alert enough to get a front-row seat.

There was not much to look at, apart from a white stage with a slightly raised white background. I was already liking it.

Then we met young couple Ollie and Jill who said that they had a story to tell us and that they were really nice people really but they had done some pretty terrible things. They did all this in a cheesy TV advert sort of way while wearing the sort of clothes that only people with no imagination wear, something like M&S but a little posher. Alan Partridge would have approved.

Then it got quickly got complicated and complex as we were sucked into a typical Ridley realm that blended typical family life with horror, mystery, humour and politics, and they were just the most obvious ingredients in a most delightful stew.

The basic premise was that they were approached by a Miss D., offering them the chance to get a new house for free. This would be in a run-down area and they would have to do it up by themselves. The aim being to encourage other people back into the neglected area by planting the seed of one restored house.

So far so good and plausible too.

Then an accident reveals a quick way to get the house not just restored but refashioned exactly as they wished it could be. The bad news was that somebody had to die but the less bad news was that this was a vagrant who nobody would miss. The story evolved quickly from there and the couple got the house that they wanted and they got better at killing vagrants.

That opened all sorts of questions, such as how much did the Government really know about this scheme (e.g. did they see the loss of vagrants as another benefit?), how many such schemes where there?, who or what was Miss D.?, did the scheme work by magic, science or was there a religious element?

As the couple sunk deeper and deeper into the horror (from our perspective), they remained resolutely charming, happy and nice. It was a bit like Helen Mirren calmly disposing of bodies in Red 2, and it was funny for the same reason.

The regeneration scheme worked and they gradually acquired a set of new neighbours of the aspirational class that the Government would have approved of.

The number of characters grew but the cast did not and the couple took on the additional roles effortlessly and seamlessly. In one superb scene, a BBQ, all the characters were on stage at the same time and were talking quickly to each other. This was exceptional quick-fire acting from Gemma Whelan and Sean Michael Verey and I was exhausted just watching them.

The brilliance of the piece was the way that it took an empty white stage, added two people (plus a little help from a third) and managed to conjure up something that exploded in many directions, any one of which would have been satisfying on its own. This is typical of Ridley and why I am such a fan of his work.

It was almost irrelevant that the cute Summer-frock wearing mother, Gemma Whelan, was rather better known as the woman warrior Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones, though that did make me respect her even more as an actor.

Sirens at Soho Theatre was strange, stark and sparkling

I was enticed into seeing Sirens as it sounded unusual and outrageous. I love unusual and outrageous can work very well when it is used to shock and provoke rather than to titillate.

I also like Soho Theatre as a venue. The performance spaces are good, if somewhat traditional, and the location is ideal. Being placed in the heart of Soho means that it is easy to combine a trip to the theatre with something else. This time it was a trip to the Liberty Sale and that is why I chose to go to the matinee performance rather than the evening one.

Soho Theatre is a pretty and gentle walk away from Piccadilly Circus, my usual arrival point in Central London. I had allowed time for a light lunch in the safe expectation that I would find a good cafe along the way. My expectations were exceeded with Apostrophe in Brewer Street with its rough modern look (not unlike some of my favourite theatres), art exhibition on the walls and reasonable menu. There were young men in there with beards and laptops. My sort of place.

I had not given up drink for January but I was cutting out the "unnecessary" drinks and as many of those are before and during theatre trips I made the point of this time of arriving at the theatre just in time to collect tickets and join the queue and I avoided the bar. Queueing was an issue, as always, with the keenest people huddling by the door and so blocking it for other people. I was not that far away but kept out of the main routes to avoid inconveniencing others. There I struck up a conversation with a woman who liked the same sort of theatres and shows that I do. That was a pleasant way to pass a few minutes before we were allowed up.

Once released, we proceeded in a reasonably orderly fashion up to the second floor only for me to walk back down again to claim my usual seat in the front row where a dark and bare stage was only interrupted by some music stands and bottles of water.

Sirens started with some singing without words, or noises if you prefer, and continued with a series of short pieces that used speech, signing, a little movement and more noises. The sole connection between them was that they were a view of womanhood and with nothing else to link them they flew past in an almost bewildering way. The changes in styles and moods kept the show interesting at the time but makes it harder for me to recall most of it now, almost two weeks later. However,  there were several notable scenes that have stuck in the memory.

I liked the one where the women talked about the cosmetics they bought and how much they spent on them. This was an interesting side of womanhood that I was aware of but had no real understanding of and it was made humorous too with the young woman in the glamorous purple dress admitting that she bough all her cosmetics from Lidl for not very much money.

Another scene that I could relate to more had a young woman talking about her baby, her fear that its silence meant that it had died and then talking through the consequences.

And so the show continued with a startling mix of topics delivered with intensity and humour, but almost without the confusion and bias of passion.

It was also a fairly negative view of womanhood in that it showed many of the trials and tribulations associated with being a woman but said almost nothing about the joys. For example, there was the expected view of the pain of birth but nothing about the pleasure of being a mother. I did not mind that as the purpose was to balance the almost relentlessly positive view given in the mainstream media and so it did not need to be balanced itself.

Sirens was a difficult show because of the style of presentation as much as the subject matter and it was that difficulty that gave it its edge. It was not comfortable to watch, nor was it meant to be, but it was intelligent, challenging and rewarding.

Rosie Wyatt was magnificent in Spine at the Soho Theatre

I often pick my theatre on the flimsiest of reasons because I have to make quick decisions on which ones to see from the myriad of temptations. The main reason for going to see Spine was that it starred Rossie Wyatt who had impressed me in Blink at the start of the year.

Rosie also impressed the audiences for Spine at the Edinburgh Festival where she picked up some acting awards.

I like the Soho Theatre too so my flimsy reason was starting to look pretty strong.

Not for the first time, the only performance that I could make was the final one and that meant driving back to Kingston from Dorset on a Sunday afternoon and then taking the bus/train/tube to Oxford Circus.

I got to the theatre in time to get a beer before positioning myself strategically by the door where the queue is always more of a huddle than a line. That good positioning and alertness meant that I was the second person up the stairs, the young lady who ran past me was obviously even keener than I was. It was a long way up to as we were in the rehearsal space on the top floor, Soho Upstairs, which is where we had been for Blink. The lady's rush was somewhat unnecessary and I sat next to her in the middle of the front-row in the central block.

Confronting me was a simple set adorned with piles of books. That was my first clue as to what Spine could be about.

Once everybody was settled in to the packed room, it was pleasingly sold out, Rosie walked on stage dressed casually and started to tell us her story. She was Amy a young woman with a difficult past, involving men and crime, and a brain.

Feeding that brain was pensioner Glenda (who we never saw) whose house this was with all the books.

Amy was the only character in the play and she spoke directly to us.

Her story swept swiftly from moments to simple humour (well, I found the idea of Glenda's husband dying while looking at a lingerie catalogue amusing) to darker times arguing with her family and committing burglaries with her boyfriend. Rosie captured these changing moods precisely with her voice and her loud body language.

Amy's story was, obviously, a reflection of the society that she lived in and this gave the play a welcome political edge. Glenda was particularly angry at the closure of libraries and Amy was unable to find a decent job.

The personal and the political stories combined to produce an ending that while quite predictable was also very satisfying.

Clara Brennan's play was clever, human and engrossing and Rosie's magnificent acting made it deeply personal and completely immersive. It was absolutely marvellous and easily worth all the effort it took to get there. My only regret was that Rosie disappeared at the end before I could tell her personally how much I had enjoyed her performance.

Spine was that good that I am tingling writing about it a few weeks later.

Delightful La Traviata at the Soho Theatre

I was very keen to see OperaUpClose's production of La Traviata at Soho Theatre because I loved their version of Tosca at the same venue last year.

Normally the complexities of my diary mean that I get to see shows just before they close, and far too often that is on their last day, but this time those complexities meant that the best chance that I had to see it was on their opening night.

This time I came heavily armed with friends. They managed to eat and drink in comfort before the show but I had to rush back from Reading which left me only enough time for a bagel from the bar, but then I am used to living off just peanuts so this was a significant improvement.

Confusingly the Soho Theatre had changed their queueing system again and rather than cluster around the door to the bar we were allowed upstairs to wait in the disused bar on the second floor. Fortunately I was clued up enough to get the front row seat that I wanted. The place was sold out and soon we were being asked to shuffle along the bench seats to let more people squeeze in.

I had seen La Traviata before so I knew the basic story but hearing it in English was so much better and let me discover some of the subtleties in the lyrics, like the recurring themes, that I had missed with surtitles.

It was the first night and it took some of the singers a little while to get going properly, the second half was better than the first.

One singer who delivered from beginning to end was James Harrison, baritone, who I had been lucky enough to see twice before. He was my star on the night because of his strong clear singing and also the way that he played the role of the father with grandeur and grace.

The production was fairly minimalistic, as their Tosca had been, and that worked well, as it had with Tosca. There were three or four musicians hidden in a room off to the left and the set was quite shallow with, for most of the time, just one significant piece of furniture in it. I like my opera like that as nothing gets in the way of the story or the singing.

The slow start apart, there were no other obvious signs that this was a first night. The only minor slip that I noticed was that a couple of people had not learned how one of the doors opened. Nothing to get worried about.

La Traviata is a simple story of emotional ups-and-downs and this production captured the mood changes well to create a delightful evening, one that opera purists and novices could both appreciate.

The One at the Soho Theatre

The One sounded a little weird and that was good enough for me as I like a little weird and also I have only ever seen good things at the Soho Theatre.

There is a lot in my calendar at the moment so, not for the first time recently, I went to see the final performance. Lots of people had obviously read the same good reviews that I had and the place was sold out.

We were in the main theatre where I had been many times but this was the first time I had seen it with a raised stage. That threw my usual plan for a front-row seat and I grabbed on in the middle of the third which looked to be the nearest equivalent.

The set was a simple living room in a flat and that is where all the action was. Actually there was not much action, it was mostly just dialogue between unmarried couple Jo (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Harry (Rufus Wright) with additional input from several-times visitor Kerry (Lu Corfield). Jo and Harry had met when he taught her at university and Kerry was a colleague of his.

The core of the play was the relationship between Jo and Harry and, to a lesser extent, that between Kerry and Harry.

Exactly what was going on was difficult to fathom as Harry and Jo both told lies all the time. Sometimes these were things-to-hide lies and sometimes they were having-a-laugh lies but it was impossible to be sure which was which or whether some of them were actually truths.

Kerry was as confused as the rest of us.

Harry and Jo joked/lied about some big topics like having children, getting married and having an open relationship and the emotions between them leaped up and down as they did so. Harry even appeared to be violent towards Jo at one point but that too could have been a joke/lie.

The joke/lie devise reminded me of The Magus (book by John Fowles) and The Game (film starring Michael Douglas) and I am not sure what happened in them either.

Stripped of a storyline that could be trusted this was a series of scenes which explored some of the most important aspects of relationships, notably trust, and the good/bad emotions that spring from these.

And it worked. The story pieces were each credible and were strung together believably to make a convincing and engaging drama.

The Ugly Sisters at Soho Theatre

The Ugly Sisters sounded different and I like different so I constructed a day around going to see it. In the end the day went gallery, gallery, theatre, gallery, theatre and this was the first theatre of the day.

The difference was obvious from the start as there was a  three-piece band playing as we filed in to the main theatre.

Music was to feature throughout the show, though there was not enough of it for me to call it a musical, more a play with some songs and music. The musicians also played some of the characters.

The only other characters were the Ugly Sisters.

This was their story told from their perspective in their way. And their way was a boisterous and energetic mix of narration, acting, dancing and, yes, music.

The basic story was obviously familiar, though this was a modern telling of Cinderella with the glass slipper replaced by a reality TV show where the three sisters made it to the final stages.

The story leading up to that denouement was sympathetic towards the Ugly Sisters, and not just because they told it. They were never bright or pretty and when their mother married again they because second favourites to the pretty Arabella.

It was a very personal and emotional story with some ups and more downs. Along the way they got through lots of costumes and a few props in a very lively and fun performance. The (not that) Ugly Sisters were excellent and the musicians played their part too as they competed to see who could play the most instruments.

The Ugly Sisters revelled in its weirdness, telling an unusual story unusually. And that is why I liked it so much.

Blink at Soho Theatre

Blink was those one in twenty or so theatre performances that I see that was truly exceptional.

It had sold out most of its return run to the Soho and looked sold out on the night that I was there. The Soho Theatre does not do queueing very well and we all jostled for position in the bar before being allowed upstairs, then it was something of a scramble.

I was surprised to find that we were going all the way upstairs, passing the main theatre as we did so. Our destination was Soho Upstairs which is billed as a rehearsal space. It was laid out as a square stage area (not raised) with seating on three sides, most of it to the front. I was able to claim a seat in the front row in one of the corners. A reasonable result for my earlier jostling.

Blink claimed to be an unusual love story about two slightly unusual people, and so it was. It was a great deal more than that too, which is why I found it exceptional.

The young couple are both unemployed but do not need to work (for different reasons) and end up in the same house, him renting the downstairs flat from her while she lives above him.

Their relationship develops without them meeting, it is all conducted via technology, and without him knowing that the woman he is in  relationship with is living upstairs. By chance he discovers who she is and their relationship becomes even stranger with them going to the same places at the same time but without talking to each other, as if the gap that had been breached by technology was still there.

A serious accident brings them together and their love blossoms. What happens after that I'll keep to myself.

The strange story had some lovely strange moments in it. For example, in the early days when they are conducting their relationship remotely one of the things that they do is watch the same TV programmes and we were treated to a detour in to the plots of a soap opera that they are watching.

There are many memorable moments like this in the script but its main strength, and beauty, comes from the richness of the dialogue and narration. There are an awful lot of clever ideas and nice touches crammed in there. The script demands, and gets, your constant attention.

Of course a good love story requires a couple that the audience cares about and I really cared about Jonah (Harry McEntire) and Sophie (Rosie Wyatt). They were both realistic and lovable and both actors were excellent in showing all the details of their characters through their movements and expressions.

The set and few props were used imaginatively too.

Everything about Blink was cleverly constructed and brilliantly presented without ever forgetting that it was an unusual love story about two slightly unusual people.

Tosca at the Soho Theatre

Soho Theatre is one of those cosy places that does lots of interesting shows and I am always embarrassed that I do not get there more often.

Not working in London for the last couple of years has not helped.

The irresistible pull this time was the promise of an updated and intimate version of the legendary Tosca.

I mistimed my arrival slightly and there was no time for a beer before the show as I had to go straight in to claim a front-row seat. Luckily there was an interval.

The setting was moved to East Germany in the days just before the Wall came tumbling down and the plot revolved around dissidents (firm and casual) and the Stasi out to catch them. Tosca was a singer who was in love with a casual dissident whose friend was a firm dissident who had just escaped from prison.

The first person we meet is a lazy cleaner and I was relieved to hear him sing in English and delighted by the quality of his voice. The rest of the small cast were equally sweet and clear and that made the plot easy to follow and Puccini's music a rich pleasure despite the even smaller band of three musicians.

The adaptation was excellent playing nicely on the events of the time, the East German leader Erich Honecker resigns towards the end of the opera, and that gave the menace real force.

The other themes were strong too and we were caught up in the lives of all the people, their relationships, hopes and desperation. Even the treachery was easily forgiven because we understood why it had been done.

A good sign of the conviction of the story and the characters is when the baddies get cheerfully booed in the curtain calls, as they did here.

The staging was spot-on too and I was seriously impressed that they managed to find such convincing props. I worked in Czechoslovakia not longer after this, in 1992, and can vouch for the accuracy of the dull grey suits etc.

I had not seen Tosca before, except many years ago on TV, and while I knew the basic of the plot I did not know the details but I suspect that one of the main elements was changed here and there may have been more people alive at the end than usual. It was not a happy ending though and Tosca got her big moment at the end.

It was easy to see what OperaUpClose were trying to do with this production because it all worked and worked very well. I loved it to bits.

Oh the Humanity at Soho Theatre

The Soho is one of those places that I like to go to but frequently fail to as they change their programme frequently I often find out about good shows too late to see them myself.

So I was pleased to get to Oh the Humanity having picked up some good reports via Twitter.

Oh the Humanity is a series of five scenes each showing an aspect of humanity that is dark and confusing.

First up we have a football manager who has obviously come to the end of a very difficult season and he is trying to rescue some crumbs of comfort from the disaster that he has lived through. We soon learn that his personal life has been just as bad, his wife has left him and he is struggling to survive on his own.

In one revealing line he tells us about visiting late-night supermarkets and looking at his reflection in the freezer window that brings the thought, "you've not had a bad day, that's what you look like now".

Next we see two people doing introductory videos for a dating service. Both are not far from normal and not that far from happy but, again, their masks slip a little and we see some of what they are thinking that really should have been left hidden. Things like screaming alone in the dark.

Then comes an airline PR person making an announcement following a serious plane crash that has killed all the passengers and crew. She is cringe-worthy bad at her job and makes several inappropriate comments and gestures. Again she tells us more about herself than she really should have done and we find another damaged person.

We, the audience, are involved in the next scene as a group photo is being taken of us.It is a recreation of a famous war photograph and one of the photographers speculates as to whether the picture was taken before or after the battle. She speculates in graphic detail on what the battle they may have lived through was like.

The language of the speculation shocks, as it does in the other scenes and its this inappropriateness that drags a lot of humour out of what is essentially depressing situations.

The final short scene is completely different and provides a splash of humour that highlights the misery that has gone before.

The scenes are played by just a few actors who move quickly and smoothly between the roles in a way that had me seriously doubting that they were the same people at times. All the acting was excellent. Really excellent.

Somehow the overall effect is very positive with the clumsiness of the human frailties triumphing over that dark side. A bit like a bad taste Frankie Boyle joke that should offend deeply but has you laughing instead.

Operation Greenfield at the Soho Theatre

This was a demonstration of the power Twitter!

I started following @sohotheatre after seeing Chekhov in Hell there recently and through them I saw lots of good comments about Operation Greenfield so I made a spur of the moment to go and see it on a free Monday evening. I'm glad that I did.

Its described as "a fast-paced, funny and furious tale of four unlikely teenagers on the rocky road to battle-of-the-bands stardom." Which is true but that leaves out that its a Christian band playing in a church competition in a small village, that one of the girls is an immigrant (French) and there is a dose of sexual awakening too, including a Brookside moment.

Music features heavily with the band playing a few pieces and heavy use of background music (controlled by the actors themselves) when the band was not playing.

I did not catch all of this but we had two decent chunks from Einstein on the Beach and, I think, Tavener's The Protecting Veil (or was it Avro Part?).

The music height was Five Years that started as background music and was finished by the band very loudly, joyfully and wonderfully. At that point they sounded like a traditional rock band, which is what The Spiders from Mars were.

Elsewhere the music was harder to categorise featuring, as it did at various times, a flute, accordion and a xylophone. A Christian Jethro Tull perhaps.

But I digress, music is important but it is just one aspect of the play that fizzes and bounces along for an hour and a half or so without pausing for breath. The few props, mostly chairs and a picnic blanket, are moved continuously as we move smoothly from scene to scene.

The humour, and there's a lot of humour, comes from the script and from the actors who brilliantly convey the delights and pains of being a teenager and also use exaggerated expressions as they tell their tale directly to us.

It was good to see such a full theatre and with so many young people there. The demographics can be rather different at other theatres!

I went to see Operation Greenfield simply because so many other people recommended it. The least that I can do is pass that recommendation on.

Chekhov in Hell at the Soho Theatre

I have been rather successful over the last year or so in seeing good innovative plays in small theatres and so it proved again with Chekhov in Hell at the Soho Theatre.

This was my first time at the Soho Theatre too though I had walked past its nondescript frontage many times, especially when I worked in Soho in the early 90s. In marked contrast to most of the theatres I've been to recently this one is not buried underground but is up on the third floor then sinks down like a lecture theatre. It certainly does not look purpose-built.

There is a little theatre bar that just about lives up to its name but is certainly the smallest theatre bar that I have been to. Not a big problem as I was happy not to have a drink and did not have long to wait before the doors opened.

There was a minor scramble for the best seats when the doors opened (my definition of a small theatre is one with free seating) but I am well practised at this and managed to get a seat in the front row. In the middle.

I like minimalist sets as great plays do not need much in the way of props and too many or too extravagant props can detract from what you are meant to be watching.

Chekhov in Hell has a wonderfully minimalist set. For most of the play there is just a chair or two on the stage and sometimes there is nothing at all.

The minimalism extends to the costumes and while the small cast each plays several roles (apart from Chekhov) they do so in the same clothes. And I mean clothes rather than costumes as the actors are dressed normally.

That simple approach works well as the superb cast are able to convey the different characters that they play through just voices and mannerisms. It's a joy to witness.

The play takes a look at modern life through the eyes of Anton Chekhov who awakes from a coma after a hundred years and after being introduced to his closest living relative, a chavy single mother, he escapes in bemusement in to the world of today.

The story then evolves as Chekhov moves from one scene to another each rich with comedy as the slightest weaknesses in modern life are exposed cruelly.

There are too many scenes running thick and fast after each other for me to do anything other than pick out a few.

There was the self-help group, The Survivors, who were somewhat less than helpful to each other. A gay designer who explains that fashion is just men's way of proving that women are stupid. A Customer Support Officer who provides very ineffectual and patronising support, e.g. offering a hug.

Chekhov also gets inadvertently involved with the Russian Mafia and that theme makes the play a story rather than just a collection of disjointed scenes.

Chekhov in Hell is some of the best fun that I've had at the theatre for ages. It is genuinely funny throughout, pointing an irreverent mirror at ourselves, and is acted with aplomb. Superb stuff.