Kin (Lyttelton, National Theatre, London)
Verdict: Oddly enjoyable; and enjoyably odd
Leaves Of Glass (Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, London)
Verdict: Pitch dark Ridley
Astonishing news just in at the National Theatre: most of us come from all over the world.
This revelation may, of course, prove less than surprising to devotees of the BBC prime-time show Who Do You Think You Are? I, for example, am of Irish stock, following my Norman ancestors’ illegal invasion of England in 1066, which entailed pillaging various parts of Britain, before heading West for the rain.
Gecko Theatre Company, on the other hand, is a multinational performance outfit which has devised an impressive, high-energy dance piece to illustrate its members’ own cultural diversity, via their ancestors’ peregrinations through the 20th century.
Now enjoying a stint at the National Theatre, they hail from as far afield as Hong Kong, Colombia, Israel and Norway, but together exude a mittel-European, vegan mime vibe.
Gecko Theatre Company is a multinational performance outfit which has devised an impressive, high-energy dance piece to illustrate its members’ own cultural diversity, via their ancestors’ peregrinations through the 20th century
Now enjoying a stint at the National Theatre, they hail from as far afield as Hong Kong, Colombia, Israel and Norway, but together exude a mittel-European, vegan mime vibe
Much more interesting than the jumbled, repetitive and often bamboozling story, though, is the spectacle itself
Their 80-minute epic opens with Jewish emigrés in Latin America in the 1930s, and ends with the performers wearing orange life-jackets in solidarity with the boat refugees exploited by brutal people smugglers today.
Much more interesting than the jumbled, repetitive and often bamboozling story, though, is the spectacle itself.
Unusually for this kind of didactic disquisition, it’s very high spirited. Rather than gloomily reprimanding the audience, it’s a manic, often elegant — even joyful — cartoon account of people crossing continents and struggling with racial intolerance.
The refugees are presented as sweet, resilient, slightly competitive creatures inclined to break out into vibrantly choreographed dance routines — even while watching the newly popularised television sets of the 1960s.
Developed over three years by director Amit Lahav (an Israeli-born Londoner, by way of Yemen and Palestine), the often mesmerising performance is set to minimalist Michael Nyman-ish music, with added wailing, drumming and the shrieking trumpets of Hispanic fiestas.
But as we travel the world with the cast of eight, sometimes all speaking (loudly) in their native tongues, Chris Swain’s (cultural etymology unknown) directional lighting picks out the actors in ever-changing costumes, as if in a dream. There is squabbling, protesting and a lot of queuing at border controls — but even these queues fizz with excitement.
So yes, it’s a somewhat worthy tale of displacement, exclusion and integration by arts centre refugees. But it’s also a hymn to the human spirit and its perpetual state of flux.
Meanwhile, in Finsbury Park, it’s white English working class all the way. The event is the return of last year’s exceptionally acted revival of Philip Ridley’s merciless 2007 drama, excavating a sinister history of abuse in an East End family.
Steeped in guilt, shame and grief, the play is plotted with forensic detail and is an increasingly unnerving experience as it tightens its icy grip.
Despite running at an hour and 50 minutes with no interval, it’s the theatrical equivalent of a page-turner. Time raced by for me in the story of graffiti removal businessman Steve, who seeks to manage his disturbed artist brother, take care of his iron-willed mum, and placate his wary pregnant wife. And all in the shadow of his reclusive father’s unexplained death.
Max Harrison’s production in this tiny 90-seater theatre is rigorously directed on Kit Hinchcliffe’s spartan set of a black patent square, four benches and a handful of props.
Kacey Ainsworth is a proper East End mum, steeped in denial and enforcing her rule with strategically dispensed biscuits; while Katie Eldred, as Steve’s young wife, fumes with suspicion.
Ned Costello, as the man in the middle of it all, is a seriously impressive young actor with the dangerous look of a Roman Emperor (maybe Caligula). Though steadily wrung out by the plot, he looks set to be a star.
Joseph Potter as little bro Barry — caught between alcoholism and manic depression — impresses, too. I warned you it was dark.
Circus daredevils win my ‘Sweaty Palm d’Or’ award
BY GEORGINA BROWN
Alegria (Royal Albert Hall)
Verdict: Nobody does it better
I thought I was done with Cirque du Soleil. Spectacular but soulless.
But this revamp of an old show, Alegria — Spanish for elation — scales new heights, new extremes. They’ve got their mojo back.
This time, it’s exhilaratingly dangerous. And sexy. Not all the time, but enough to satisfy.
For the finale, the safety net is rolled out. High above our heads, in the biggest big top in London, the trapeze artists swing like swifts swooping for insects. Then they hurl themselves into the void, almost freezing in flight, to be caught by another. My heart was in my mouth. These are peerless winners of my Sweaty Palm d’Or award.
While some defy gravity, others expand the possibilities of human anatomy. Two women contortionists slide, eel-like, in a double act of sensuality, as though neither has a bone in her body.
I thought I was done with Cirque du Soleil. Spectacular but soulless. But this revamp of an old show, Alegria — Spanish for elation — scales new heights, new extremes
In another, two exquisitely alluring Russians plunge, lunge and swivel on ropes in an aerial dance as erotic as it is athletic, climaxing in a kiss, lips meeting as one hangs from the other’s neck.
In between the acts come the clowns — ghosts of circuses past — waddling androgynous grotesques with wacky wigs and wonky breasts. Overgrown infants, they blow raspberries, screech gobbledigook, cackle and tumble.
A pair of Stan and Ollie types squabble and sulk, break up and make up. Their purpose, I suppose, is to bring us back to earth with a very human bump before the next jaw-dropping performance of god-like daredevilry. But for a magic moment when they conjure up a blizzard of snow, I could have done without them.
Much more exciting is the team of trampoliners, hurtling like missiles. Or the mesmerising, fire-powered Samoan who juggles flaming torches which he licks, caresses and rests on the soles of his feet, and leaves behind him the pungent smell of petrol. So you know you didn’t dream it.
Time to fight the fungus (and zombies) all over again
BY PETER HOSKIN
The Last Of Us: Part Two — Remastered (PlayStation 5, £44.99 or a £10 upgrade if you own the original)
Verdict: Remasterpiece
With The Last Of Us — the game of chilly cinematic brilliance that last year was adapted into a TV show — the developers Naughty Dog earned the right to do whatever they want. So that’s precisely what they have done.
When The Last of Us: Part Two was first released in 2020, it dismayed some people with its choices. It jettisoned — or at least moved on from — what had been carefully built up in the first game.
The father-daughter relationship between husky Joel and headstrong Ellie? Not so much, any more. The careful explanation of a world blighted by mushrooms that turn people into zombies? Nuh-uh. Lots of revenge and bitterness and stabbing? Oh, yes — that there is a lot of.
When The Last of Us: Part Two was first released in 2020, it dismayed some people with its choices
I found this narrative bravery, this overturning of expectations, exhilarating back then. And I still find it exhilarating now that The Last Of Us: Part Two has returned in a newly remastered form.
Hang on. A remaster? For a game that came out just over three years ago? It sounds like little more than a cash-grab, inspired by the incoming second season of the show.
But this release does more than enough to justify its own existence.
The graphics, which were already plenty impressive, are now pretty much the best way of showing off the capabilities of your PlayStation 5.
There are also new forms of play — including a testing ‘survival’ mode against waves of zombies — added on top of the original’s 30-hour-long story. Or perhaps, I’m just being controlled by some sort of mind-seizing fungus.
Either way, I was more than happy to play through this masterwork again.
Elektra (Royal Opera)
Verdict: Elektra-fying
BY TULLY POTTER
It is always heartwarming when a singer flies in as substitute for a much-loved artist and scores a massive triumph in her own right, as happened to Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte on Monday night.
Mind you, it was the only heartwarming aspect of the performance. This is Richard Strauss at his most uncompromisingly expressionist, thumping the innocent listener in the solar plexus at every opportunity.
With Antonio Pappano, sadly in his last new production as music director, constantly winding his fine orchestra up to full intensity and three terrific sopranos enacting an operatic equivalent to What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, it is not an evening for the faint-hearted.
We are in Ancient Greece, although you would not know it from Johannes Leiacker’s designs. He and director Christof Loy set most of the action in the yard of a down-at-heel stately home, with occasional eruptions in the house itself, and the costumes are incredibly boring 20th century. Why can we not have graceful Greek garb?
Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s script, stripped down from his play which itself is derived from Sophocles, has Elektra on stage almost throughout, riven with hatred for her mother Klytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus who murdered her father Agamemnon.
Replacing the indisposed Nina Stemme, Ausrine Stundyte virtually lives the role, which she has sung in Salzburg, Vienna and Hamburg. Her scenes with sister Chrysothemis (Sara Jakubiak from Michigan, also making her house debut) and Klytemnestra (the great Karita Mattila) positively crackle with tension.
Lukasz Golinski is excellent as long-lost brother Orestes, who turns up to avenge their father by despatching Klytemnestra and Aegisthus — cue screams and a lot of blood. Their recognition scene is another highlight.
By the time Elektra swings into her exultant dance — and drops dead from a stroke — catharsis has been thoroughly achieved.
The many smaller roles are well taken and if this is the sort of opera you like, you will not see or hear it much better done.