Theatre in review: Joseph, Oleanna and Hymn
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is ‘firing on all cylinders’, says The Guardian
The pandemic has cost Andrew Lloyd Webber millions, and the “pingdemic” recently delayed the much-anticipated opening of his new musical Cinderella until 18 August – but a revival of his and Tim Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has reopened at the Palladium – and it is “firing on all cylinders”, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian.
Jac Yarrow looks like “a chiselled biblical superhero in his coat of many colours, and he belts out ballads” with a power that rivals that of Alexandra Burke, who makes a “winning” Narrator (though in her shiny leggings and sparkly trainers, she looks oddly like an aerobics instructor).
To add to the fun of a production that brims with “personality and mischief”, Jason Donovan (who played the title role for years in an earlier production) appears in cameo as a “rockabilly Pharaoh”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
David Mamet’s campus drama Oleanna (Arts Theatre) is so divisive, it triggered stand-up rows between audience members when it opened in the early 1990s, said Dominic Maxwell in The Times.
At the time, I thought of it as an “exciting but rigged” verbal battle between a “smug but fairly decent” male professor and a “failing female student” whose complaints are not unjustified, but who “lets principle overrule her humanity”. Now I am not so sure.
Is it Lucy Bailey’s “thrillingly evenhanded” production that has prompted my rethink – or was the bias in my head, and not in Mamet’s play? It seems to me that what was once a reaction to political correctness “connects more vividly than ever after the #MeToo movement”: the culture wars have shaken up our views about “where power lies”.
Fine acting helps, said Jessie Thompson in the London Evening Standard. It is “exhilarating” to watch Jonathan Slinger and Rosie Sheehy interrupt one another, “grandstand, pace and then deflate”. This is a cracklingly intelligent production, packed with thought-provoking moments (until 23 October).
Hymn, which has reopened at the Almeida, is “an object lesson” in the power and glory of live theatre, said Fiona Mountford in The Daily Telegraph. Lolita Chakrabarti’s new two-hander about brothers, fathers and families was due to open in February, but lockdown saw it shift online.
On a laptop, the piece felt exposed, its longueurs magnified by the medium. But in the flesh – sharing the “same space and air” as the actors, Adrian Lester and Danny Sapani – it’s a different story. Both are “magnificent”: physically committed yet easeful and fluid.
While the play is not perfect – the plot turns on a business proposition that “strains credulity” – Hymn offers plenty to “sing about” (until 13 August).
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
5 hilariously spirited cartoons about the spirit of Christmas
Cartoons Artists take on excuses, pardons, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Inside the house of Assad
The Explainer Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, ruled Syria for more than half a century but how did one family achieve and maintain power?
By The Week UK Published
-
Sudoku medium: December 22, 2024
The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
Alan Cumming's 6 favorite works with resilient characters
Feature The award-winning stage and screen actor recommends works by Douglas Stuart, Alasdair Gray, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 historical homes in Greek Revival style
Feature Featuring a participant in Azalea Festival Garden Tour in North Carolina and a home listed on the National Register of Historic Places in New York
By The Week Staff Published
-
The best books about money and business
The Week Recommends Featuring works by Michael Morris, Alan Edwards, Andrew Leigh and others.
By The Week UK Published
-
A motorbike ride in the mountains of Vietnam
The Week Recommends The landscapes of Hà Giang are incredibly varied but breathtaking
By The Week UK Published
-
Nightbitch: Amy Adams satire is 'less wild' than it sounds
Talking Point Character of Mother starts turning into a dog in dark comedy
By The Week UK Published
-
Electric Dreams: a 'nerd's nirvana' at Tate Modern
The Week Recommends 'Poignant' show explores 20th-century arts' relationship with technology
By The Week UK Published
-
Joya Chatterji shares her favourite books
The Week Recommends The historian chooses works by Thomas Hardy, George Eliot and Peter Carey
By The Week UK Published
-
Ballet Shoes: 'magnificent' show 'never puts a foot wrong'
The Week Recommends Stage adaptation of Noel Streatfeild's much-loved children's novel is a Christmas treat
By The Week UK Published