November: London Theatre Round-Up

November: London Theatre Round-Up

02 December, 2010
by: Spoonfed Theatre Team

Emma Berge looks back on November's theatreland happenings.

Just rewards

Naima journeyed all over London and was rewarded by some pretty darn decent theatre: the all-male production of Iolanthe, The White Devil with all its entertaining assassinations, and Scaramouche Jones, which did the New Red Lion proud. Jo Sutherland also had a blast at Blasted (sorry) and Forum Theatre piece Or Am I Alone, a collaborative type of theatre which is highly undervalued. The cream of this months crop, though, was The Cradle Will Rock at the Arcola Theatre.

Behind the scenes

Speaking of the Arcola, it's moving to its new home soon, so Naima trekked over to Dalston once more to talk to artistic director Mehmet Ergen about the changes and the future. Meanwhile, Emma got to go behind the scenes at Little Angel Theatre to check out Alice in Wonderland which was stellar.

Naima got to the nitty gritty of collaboration in theatre and politics with director of Coalition Nadia Latif who ended up with Gordon Brown in her audience. We mused over the essence of story telling with Flyboy Is Alone Again This Christmas creator Matthew Robins, and discussed the state of society with Charged writer Rebecca Pritchard.

Emma talked pretty dancing with pantomime star Anita Dobson and had a bit of a rant about the state of the cliched musicals. Musical lyricist megaweight Anthony Drewe backed her up though. We also had our man on the inside, Adam Hillmore, telling us about the rehearsal process for Desperate to Be Doris.

The not-so-great

The Print Room failed to impress with its first production, Fabrication, and we politely hid our sniggers at news that Flashdance The Musical is closing on January 15th. We weren't so pleased by the news that Fela! is facing a lawsuit from a biographer that's come out of the woodwork at an embarrassingly late stage to claim copyright.

Celebs galore

There's been a mass of celebrity castings this month. Stephen Fry has confirmed peoples' belief that he is indeed God by appearing as the part at the Almeida for a charity one-off; Danny Boyle is also getting into the charitable spirit by directing a star-studded one-off at the Old Vic. Matthew Fox is journeying across the pond to star in the latest LaBute to hit the West End, the line up for the tour of Stictly Come Dancing has been announced, and the biggest celeb of all, Batman, is going to be appearing in arenas next year.

For more recommendations see our December Top 5.

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Spoonfed Theatre Team