GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
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More themes than thrills in humdrum family drama
Cavorting: Paul Bradley and Belinda Lang in Humble Pie
[Manuel Harlan]
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
Humble Boy
Orange Tree, Richmond
THE BIG problem with a contemporary play which pays homage to other writers is that, without a strong authorial voice, the end product is less than satisfactory.
Thus it proves with Charlotte Jones's Humble Boy, which won several awards after its 2001 premiere.
There are shades of Alan Ayckbourn here and Tom Stoppard. And there's a reworking of Hamlet too, as son Felix Humble (Jonathan Broadbent) returns to the family home after the death of his father to find his mother Flora (Belinda Lang) cavorting with lover George Pye, played with energetic vulgarity by Paul Bradley.
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KEITH RICHMOND relishes a superbly conceived modern version of Aeschylus’ drama of murderous family succession
GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY