A few days ago, Ellie & I watched South Korean playwright Jaha Koo’s play/performance Haribo Kimchi at the Southbank Centre in London. We both were rather excited, when we were queuing with around 150 ethnic South Koreans (many, no doubt, with a British passport) and roughly the same number of audience members from British and other backgrounds. JAHA KOO’S HARIBO KIMCHI SOUNDED LIKE A MUST-SEE PERFORMANCE What we had heard about the play had sounded intriguing: a performance involving audience members, which combines video, robots, smells, sounds, music and traditional theatre, staged in a fully operational street kitchen where food is being prepared throughout the play by the main actor, who also happens to be the playwright, director, composer, video artist, robot designer and operator, and composer. We had been told that the street kitchen within the story is located in a working class district of Seoul, the time is […]
The brilliant Martin Freeman in The Fifth Step at Soho Place
Last night, Ellie & I watched David Ireland’s latest play The Fifth Step at Soho Place. The darkly comic two-hander is being directed by Finn den Hertog and – by definition – has only two actors involved. Both of them are considered to be top-end thespians. The fabulous Martin Freeman, whose development from the “I’m not a pervert” Bruiser sketches to Hollywood A-lister I followed closely and with great interest. As well as the also highly successful & talented Jack Lowden, who I know my good wife loved in Slow Horses. Last year, when the play premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival, Freeman’s role had been played by Sean Gilder. All pics (c) Johan Persson except where otherwise indicated. Feature pic (c) Neal Street Productions. THE FIFTH STEP’S VENUE: SOHO PLACE We’ve started to grow really fond of Soho Place, who keep on surprising us with excellent productions, since […]
Mohamed-Zain Dada’s play SPEED at the Bush Theatre – My Review
Ellie & I recently visited the Bush Theatre in SheBu for the first time, to watch the play Speed, whose setting is a speed awareness course. We had regularly heard about great plays being staged at the Bush Theatre, but we had always been too late to get tickets or too busy to make it. MOHAMED-ZAIN DADA’S PLAY SPEED IS ABOUT A SPEED AWARENESS COURSE GONE WRONG Only a year ago, I had been sitting through an online speed awareness course, because some complete moron had decided to keep the temporary 30mph speed limit on the M4 just outside Cardiff near Exit 33 in place, despite the fact that the construction works had long been completed and all gear and barriers removed. I had been caught doing 33mph on that empty motorway late in the evening. 6 years prior to that, I had had the pleasure of sitting through another […]
Jamie Armitage’s Play An Interrogation at Hampstead Theatre – My Review
Ellie & I recently visited Hampstead Theatre for the first time, to watch Jamie Armitage’s debut play An Interrogation, which he also directs. One and a half years ago, the play had had a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Armitage is an Associate Director at the Bridge Theatre, following stints as Resident Director at the Almeida Theatre and as Associate Artist at the King’s Head Theatre. For his work on SIX, the musical, he was nominated for a 2022 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical. JAMIE ARMITAGE’S PLAY AN INTERROGATION IS BASED ON TRUE EVENTS One of my all-time favourite plays, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Heinar Kipphardt, is not exactly about a police interview, but about an interrogation during a security clearance hearing, nonetheless a rather similar set-up. This meant that I had to see Armitage’s play. The fact that the play […]
Canned Goods, the play, at Southwark Playhouse – My Review
Ellie & I recently watched another play at the marvellous venue that is Southwark Playhouse: the play Canned Goods. Having grown up in Germany, I, like everyone else in my generation, knew about the important historic aspect of WWII, that the play is based on. But talking with my friends and checking the WWII Wikipedia article, made me realise that it is not common knowledge everywhere: a false flag operation staged by Nazi Germany and involving an attack on the radio station in Gleiwitz, kicked off World War II. Pics public domain. (1) Franciszek Honiok, (2) & (3) Alfred Naujocks 1936 & 1946. NUREMBERG TRIALS TRANSCRIPTS ARE THE BASIS FOR THE PLAY CANNED GOODS Most of the facts around SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler’s “Operation Himmler” only came to light during the testimony of SS Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujocks at the Nuremberg Trials. Naujocks had organised the operation under orders from […]