Theatre Review: Pinter 5

Sometimes there are all kinds of profound reasons why you want to see a show. Sometimes you just want to sit in the warm with a big glass of red wine and stare at Rupert Graves for a couple of hours. Both of these are equally valid.

No prizes for guessing that it was very much the second reason that found me back at the Harold Pinter Theatre for Pinter 5 last night. Pinter 5, that is, that plays once more before closing. So let’s make this snappy shall we?

Pinter 5 is directed by Patrick Marber and made up of three pieces: short play The Room, comedy sketch Victoria Station and Family Voices another, shorter, play.

For me, The Room was by far the least enjoyable. It is exactly what I always thought Pinter was, and exactly why I’d never been to any of his work before this season: pretentious, bleak, slow, impenetrable, paus-y. I can’t even tell you what the plot was because I don’t know. Something about how we don’t communicate maybe? Genuinely not sure. It is, though, immaculately acted - a theme of the night - by the reliably excellent Jane Horrocks and a extremely powerful, if underused, Rupert Graves. Shout out too to fight director Kate Waters for her truly brutal sequence. Not for me, but not unwatchable.

The Room is the entirety of the first act of the production. After the interval things perk up considerably. Victoria Station is admittedly rather slight but it’s fantastically done. A very funny piece of writing that looks great - such a clever use of Soutra Gilmour’s otherwise domestic revolving set and Richard Howell’s lighting - and is performed brilliantly. It’s a two hander, pitting an effortlessly brilliant Graves (like honestly, it looked to me like I was expending more energy sitting in the audience than he was on the stage) against a joyously exasperated Colin McFarlane. It’s a hugely entertaining - and, thanks to Graves, surprisingly affecting - little thing that I really enjoyed.

Family Voices switches the tone back to black but is a gorgeously sad piece of writing (with an actual, comprehensible set up). It features the performance of the evening from Luke Thallon who effectively plays six characters, by my count, with distinct personalities, voices and mannerisms. Five of these are essentially comedy parts, the sixth - and main - is the big meaty emotional one, and he’s great at them all. It’s a fantastically compelling piece of work, backed up by a tremendously sad and bitter Horrocks and an all too brief, though brilliantly charismatic, cameo from Graves.

Overall, I enjoyed Pinter 5. The quality of work after the interval more than made up for the tedium of the first piece, and it’s never less than brilliantly acted. Worth a look, if you happen to be free on Saturday afternoon.

There’s one more performance of Pinter 5, at The Harold Pinter Theatre, on Saturday 26th January at 2:30. There are tickets.

I sat in seat T1 in the stalls for this (good view, good legroom, annoyingly close to a door onto the street so take your Pinter with a side of central London street noise) which cost £28 via TodayTix.

Theatre Review: Violet

'Kaisa Hammarlund stars in a musical by Jeanine Tesori' is one of the latest entries on my list of phrases that will definitely get me to buy theatre tickets. I mean come on guys, the last time it happened was Fun Home. And that was an absolute triumph for both of these exceptionally talented women.

Whilst Fun Home was something I'd heard of and immediately wanted to see regardless of cast, venue, ticket price or anything else, the newest collaboration between the two is something I'd not heard of at all: the musical Violet.

The plot of Violet - girl with severe facial scarring goes on a cross-USA bus trip to be healed by a TV evangelist, meets a boy and discovers that she never needing healing in the first place - is hardly going to win any awards on its own. The way that it is told in this show, however, elevates it to something really quite lovely, with huge emotional impact and a surprising timeliness. Brian Crawley's book and lyrics are sweet and tender, yes, but they're also never uncomplicated or trite. There's an unflinching honesty to them too, which allows him to capture feelings of being an outsider and being 'ugly'. The pressure of female beauty standards (regardless of any scars you may or may not have) is never far away and Crawley succeeds in both showing how ridiculous they are and how deeply felt they are too, and what the impacts of that can be. Mercifully, he also rings some darkish humour from this line of thought (I loved the line that went something like 'Ingrid Bergman has made a career out of good cheekbones').

Jeanine Tesori's music is a gorgeous hotchpotch of styles of the American south: country, bluegrass, blues, soul and gospel. The score really reflects the literal journey that Violet goes on as well as the idea that the people she meets along the way (love interests Monty and Flick, the latter being black) are introducing newness and change into Violet's life. It's a really clever and successful piece of musical storytelling.

On top of which there are some just absolutely great songs. My favourite is All to Pieces which for me represents the best example of music, lyrics and story coming together as Violet takes Flick and Monty through the individual bits of her body she'd like to change. It's funny at first, but quickly becomes more sinister. Never has the phrase 'love me to pieces' seemed so malignant.

Violet is a co-production between Charing Cross and Japan's Umeda Arts Theatre, directed by Shuntaro Fujita. Fujita has a very clear and confident idea of what this story can be in today's climate and directs with a real sense of care for both the characters and the show. For me, the most impactful artistic decision he takes here is not to show Violet's scar - there is no trick makeup or facial prosthesis to be found on his set. Although it took me a minute to adjust to this, ultimately I felt it gave the story a hundred times the resonance than it would otherwise have had. It plays up and draws out the idea of the ludicrous weight of beauty standards that the book and lyrics also examine. A simple step (and good god I hope it was intentional and not just that someone forgot to put them on the actors in the performance I saw!) but an effective one.

Morgan Large's set - and, I gather, reworking of the performance space in the theatre) is also very effective, bringing the audience in and making great use of a revolve to really show off the cast. Howard Hudson's lighting is great too, with an interestingly frequent and ballsy use of darkness as well as light. It's a good looking thing, this show.

Finally there's the cast, who are excellent to a man, woman and child. I've already mentioned that Kaisa Hammarlund having another go at Jeanine Tesori was the main reason I booked to see this show and she did not disappoint. She's perfectly cast in the titular role: brave, honest, funny and heartbreakingly vulnerable with a voice that owns every note. Easily worth the price of a ticket alone. Jay Marsh, as love interest Flick, is fantastic too. He absolutely nails the cocky swagger of a soldier and the conflict inherent in being a young black man in the American south in the late 1960s, without ever over cooking it. He also has a kickass, achingly soulful voice. In some of the smaller roles, each with a massive solo though, Anjelica Allen and Simbi Akande absolutely shine. These girls can SING. There's morally ambiguous charisma and fun from Kenneth Avery-Clark as the Preacher too (and I love that the show stops short of simplistically making him a villain or anything close to it).

For a show which I didn't know at all and had no expectations of, I was really taken with Violet. It's a sweet but uncompromising show, immaculately performed and cleverly staged, that hits you in all of the feels. It will also make you feel happy, and who  doesn't need that in January?

Violet is at the Charing Cross Theatre until 6th April.

I sat in D10 in the stalls for this show, of which I saw the penultimate preview, and paid £20 via an offer from WhatsOnStage. The seat would normally cost £35.

Theatre Review: Anomaly

One of the (many) things that happened in the wake of Harvey Weinstein being exposed as a massive scumbag, to put it rather mildly, that I found puzzling was the fact that it almost instantly destroyed his wife's fashion business, Marchesa. 

Once an absolute powerhouse of the red carpet and associated thin rich women industry, anyone who was pictured wearing a Marchesa gown was now apparently condoning everything Weinstein had done. Now don't get me wrong, I'm as anti that human stain accumulating any more money as anyone else. But it just seemed odd to me that punishing the career of a woman who happened to have the considerable misfortune to be married to him was completely fine and normal. 

And the furore over Marchesa did give me pause to think, each time another horrific man in a position of power was exposed, what was going to happen to the family he was leaving in his wake?

Apparently this was not as original a thought as I liked to think it was. Because Anomaly, WildChild Productions’ new triple hander at The Old Red Lion Theatre, tackles exactly this question. When a fictional movie mogul falls spectacularly from grace, what happens to the three famous daughters he leaves behind? All have built their lives, for better or worse, around his name and his presence. What will happen to them now that his name is a curse and his presence nonexistent?

It surely goes without saying that this play is a tough watch, I mean the subject matter - privilege, celebrity culture, everyday sexism - is hardly laugh a minute. But it's also gripping, necessary and just a straight up great piece of writing. Liv Warden's script is fantastic, fizzing with energy, ideas and freshness. Her focus on her female characters is laser sharp - men intrude into her space only to remind us that the patriarchy is awful. And the three characters are remarkably diverse and well developed for a play that lasts only just over an hour. 

Philosophically I am so here for a play that tells this sort of story with female voices, all of whom are different and none of whom are just victims. The small, subtle ways that Warden shows that every facet of these innocent women’s lives being open to intense and insane judgement versus the apparent l’aissez faire treatment of their father’s many misdeeds (to a point) is so well done. It’s often utterly depressing in many ways to watch, because it rings so true, but the writing is always so good that you sort of don’t mind. 

There is also humour built in too, predominantly of the pitch black variety that I particularly enjoy. Borrowing very much, I think, from the Mel Brooks school of 'laugh at your enemies, it'll drive them nuts', much of the humour is derived from the nonsense of modern celebrity culture and its treatment of women. It's very much a laugh at, rather than laugh with, sort of thing; Peep Show-esque in its discomfort at times. Nevertheless, it cuts through the darkness and gives the piece a mischievousness that totally works.

The production is top class, remarkably effective for a pub production. Director Adam Small really sets the piece loose in a minimal but clever set (can pub theatre sets be anything else if they're going to actually work?) by Charlotte Dennis. The structure of the play is almost a set of interlocking monologues and lighting designer Holly Ellis brings this together beautifully. The use of recorded voice overs for unseen characters, which could be annoying if misjudged, is well done too. 

Finally, the three women assembled to bring Anomaly to life are just brilliant and all deserve to go on to exceptionally good things. Alice Handoll has the most fun part (well, after a fashion) as troubled Polly and delivers impish charm that makes her eventual Big Reveals (no spoilers) and dramatic change in tone all the more arresting. Natasha Cowley as Daddy's business heir apparent Piper gives us the perfect balance of steel and heartbreak, her commitment to her family and sacrifices for her/their career totally relatable. Katherine Samuelson rounds out the trio as Penny, the actress with shades of Kardashian, and makes her character more sympathetic, complex and strong than that summation could ever suggest. They're a hell of a team, these three. Squad goals.

Anomaly is a really exciting play. For all that it's hard to watch and challenging to process, it is immensely rewarding and a great hour of theatre all round. It's also an amazing showcase of young, female talent doing stuff on their own terms. And I think we can all agree that's A Good Thing.

Anomaly is at The Old Red Lion Theatre (WHICH HAS A RESIDENT DOG and how did I not know this?) until 2nd February.

My ticket for Anomaly was kindly provided by the production. An unreserved seat would normally cost £17. 

Theatre Review: War Horse

Somehow, despite the fact it's been around for about a billion years, it's taken me until 2019 to finally see War Horse on stage. Weird right? It's done the National Theatre, it's done the West End, it's done Broadway, it's done countless other countries around the world and tours around the UK but I've always missed it. 

In the time that I've been busily not seeing it, the show has become iconic. The book on which it's based has been made into a Hollywood blockbuster (which I did see). Everyone knows roughly what the Joey puppet looks like. He's probably one of the British stage's most instantly recognisable stars. 

All of which made me head into the Lyttleton theatre at the NT, to see one of the last London performances before Joey hopped in his horse box to head back out on tour, with a general expectation that I would enjoy the show, and be amazed by the puppets, but otherwise not be blown away by it. I was wrong on that count: I was completely blown away by it. Nothing had prepared me for how powerful this show is.

What makes blogging about War Horse a bit weird, though, is that I imagine most of you reading this already know every single reason why I was blown away by it. Because unlike me you probably didn't wait since the show's premiere in the Jurassic age to see it. I'm not sure, at this stage, what there is left to say about why War Horse is the phenomenon that it rightly is. 

But I do want to say something, however brief and repetitive it may be. Deal with it.

Mercifully for you lot, there are only three points I really want to make. The first is that Michael Morpurgo's brilliant book provides one of  the most poignant, arresting and humane stories told in any medium, ever. But it works particularly well in the theatre, I think, because it allows the audience to fill in so much with their own imaginations. The bigger dramatic sweep that theatre allows for fits it very well. Also, it's just a bloody good story and a completely unique way of telling a very well told one (that of the First World War).Through taking the human perspective away and making Joey the horse the centre of everything, it instantly removes all human notions of what that war was about allowing the stupidity and brutality of the way it was fought to come to the fore. This makes it even more touching. By which I mean you will cry. And, if you're me, you will cry - and I do mean cry; ugly, shoulder heaving cry - for approximately 80% of the show. I'm not sure I trust anyone who can sit through this show and not cry to be honest. Like, are you dead inside or what?

The second point I want to make is the one that needs making least of all, which is that the puppetry, courtesy of the Handspring Puppet Company, in War Horse is literally insane. It's no wonder Joey has become such an icon - it's utterly unbelievable how much of a 'real' horse he is. You forget more or less instantly that he is in fact three men in a frame, he is so lifelike (another thing that makes the story all the more face moistening). It's the detail that does it; the way he can flick his ears and rustle his tail. Shout out also to the goose puppet, who provides some much needed light relief with his implausibly credible and sassy antics.

Finally, this production is just absolute genius. Marianne Elliott was the original director - how much do I love that woman - and what she has devised is brilliant. Much of the credit belongs to designer Rae Smith whose sparse, beautiful set and innovative use of stage dressing give sthe show a thrilling immediacy. The sum total is a production that feels real and immersive: you utterly believe not only that those three men in a frame are a horse but that those two spirally strands of wire are no man's land. Some of the scenes terrified me to the point of barely being able to watch them (this is a family show and I am 32 years old). The two cavalry charges and, especially, the bit where Joey is trapped in the barbed wire will never leave my memory. They are phenomenally technically accomplished, brilliant storytelling and also Original Watership Down levels of traumatising. 

Even if it's taken me far too long, I'm so glad I finally managed to see War Horse. It's precisely as good as everyone says it is, if not better, and the best possible way to have started my theatrical 2019. 

War Horse has now completed the run at the National Theatre that I saw, but the production is back on tour and you can find details at www.warhorseonstage.com

I saw War Horse at the NT and sat in D19 in the circle, which cost £45 (more than I would usually spend, but the trip was my Christmas present to my parents and, regardless, was worth every penny).

The Best Theatre of 2018

It’s mid-December, I’m more mince pie than human and I only know what day it is based on which Christmas lunch I’m going to. This can only mean one thing: it’s time for my annual theatrical year in review post.

Now, normally I do two of these: top ten shows and top ten performances. But since no one ever actually reads the performances version this year I’m combining the two - plus some sundry other awards for which the winners receive precisely nothing   into one. Consider it my Christmas present to all of you. You’re welcome.

So, without further ado, and without Rita Ora being here for some reason (looking at you, Evening Standard Awards), let’s get stuck in.

Top ten shows

1. The Jungle
(Young Vic/West End, now at St Ann’s Warehouse in New York)
Not only the best thing I’ve seen this year, but the best thing I’ve seen this lifetime. Everything that theatre should be: relevant, challenging, innovative, human, perception-shifting. My number one regret for 2018 is that I didn’t get to see it more than once.

2. Julius Caesar
(The Bridge)
The only production I’ve ever enjoyed enough to see three times. Revelatory staging, the perfect cast and arguably the best piece of Brexit theatre to date. Completely changed my perception of the play and what Shakespeare can and should be.

3. Company
(West End - still playing)
A revelation from start to finish, Marianne Elliott’s gender swapping production deserves every single accolade it has already received - and then some. A game changer for women in theatre, and indeed women in general, and just a bloody brilliant staging of a bloody brilliant musical.

4. The Inheritance
(Young Vic/West End - still playing)
I loved every minute of each of its seven hours. Funny, incisive and profoundly moving, this belter of a play stays in the mind long after the lights come up. Not an easy watch, but a deeply rewarding one.

5. My Name is Lucy Barton
(The Bridge - returning in 2019)
To be honest, a one woman show starring Laura Linney was never not going to appear on this list. But my god Lucy Barton is an astonishing show. Linney will return later in this blog post, but actually it was the beautiful writing that gets this production on this list. It broke my heart pretty conclusively.

6. Hamilton
(West End - still playing)
I mean, do I need to explain? No, I don’t. Believe the hype.

7. Sylvia
(Old Vic)
I doubt this unfinished, lovable mess of a production will make many ‘professional’ critics’ top tens but I fucking loved it. An absolute riot of a show that deserves a future AND A CAST RECORDING FFS. An incredible piece.

8. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
(West End - still playing)
The most uplifting show I’ve seen in years, featuring a genuinely diverse and utterly kick ass young cast and music so catchy you’ll be singing it for months afterwards. A joy.

9. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
(West End - still playing)
Again, do I really need to explain? Magical theatre, in many senses, and much more moving than I ever expected. A repeat viewing is very much on my 2019 to do list.

10. The Lehman Trilogy
(National Theatre - transferring to the West End in 2019)
The most imaginative show about international finance you’ll ever see. Entertaining, sad, amazingly staged and with probably the best cast in London. It’s another long one, but worth every single second.

Also 10. Hadestown

(National Theatre - still playing)

It’s my blog and I’ll have two 10s if I want to. I just couldn’t have this list without Hadestown. A brilliant, life affirming, hope generating show with the most amazing music.

Top ten performances

1. Laura Linney (My Name is Lucy Barton)
Laura Linney is an utter legend for a reason. This incredible performance playing multiple characters in a one woman show genuinely broke me a bit. Haunting.

2. Arinzé Kene (Misty, The Bush/West End)
Misty may have narrowly missed out on my top ten shows but Kene’s performance was an absolute knock out. Acting, writing, rapping, singing, emerging from a massive balloon - there was nothing that he couldn’t and didn’t do.

3. Patsy Ferran (Summer and Smoke, Almeida Theatre/West End)
Another show that narrowly missed out on my list, but features an absolute gem of a performance from Ferran. Surely a star making one to boot. She certainly deserves for it to be.

4. Kyle Soller (The Inheritance)
The top highlight in a cast full of highlights, Soller anchors The Inheritance with a performance of huge empathy, depth, complexity and heart.

5. Adjoa Andoh (Julius Caesar/Leave Taking, The Bush)
Cheating slightly, I couldn’t pick which role of Andoh’s I loved her in more. Just a really fucking excellent actress tbh. I didn’t really know her before this year and now I’m a bit obsessed.

6. Rosalie Craig (Company)
Showing absolute zero signs of the weight of expectation on her shoulders, the first ever female Bobbie was so good you forgot the part had ever been played by a man. Perfect casting.

7. Vanessa Redgrave (The Inheritance)
Redgrave is in, like, two scenes in seven hours of The Inheritance but for me she almost stole the whole show with a performance so moving I cry just thinking about it. She’s still got it.

8. Ammar Haj Ahmad (The Jungle)
The Jungle is really an ensemble piece, but a performance as beautiful and humane as this was will always stand out. You’ll struggle to find an actor more invested in their character too.

9. David Morrissey (Julius Caesar)
In truth, I’ve always thought Mark Antony is a bit of a dick but THIS Mark Antony I would follow into battle. Probably the most modern take on a Big Shakespeare Part I’ve seen and certainly one of the most charismatic. At least 75% of the reason I saw this show three times, if I’m honest. Probably more.

10. Ben Miles (The Lehman Trilogy)
It’s so difficult to pick just one actor from the trio of utter class that is The Lehman Trilogy’s cast, but for me Ben Miles’ easy charisma and charm is always a winner. One of those performances you can hardly take your eyes off - even when he’t not doing anything.

A few other awards for which there is no prize

Best Season: has to be Tyhe Bush for their zero fucks given attitude to commissioning.

Best Outside London: Bold Girls, Theatre By The Lake

Best Director: Marianne Elliott for Company (obviously)

Best Design: Bunny Christie for, amongst other things, Company and Julius Caesar

Best Choreography: Alistair David for Chichester Festival Theatre’s Me and My Girl

Best Music: Hadestown. I cannot stop listening to it. Seriously, it’s becoming a problem

Best Tour: my beloved This House

Worst Show: a few contenders this year, but David Hare’s dreary I’m Not Running at the NT just takes it

Biggest Disappointment: the waste of potential excellence that was the NT’s abomination of a Macbeth still makes me angry

Theatre Review: The Tragedy of King Richard the Second

High on the list of phrases that are likely to make me instantly book tickets to see a show is ‘starring Simon Russell Beale’. If this is preceded somewhere in the advertising blurb by the phrase ‘by William Shakespeare’ then more’s the better. Two of my absolute favourite humans, present and past, the combination seldom fails to deliver.

Currently my favourite partnership is at work in The Tragedy of Kind Richard the Second (or Richard II if you prefer, and as the person typing this I very much do) at The Almeida. A story of a country divided, ruled by weak leaders and people who’s ambition and personality outstrips their ability by several miles, it could not be a more timely choice for a revival. All that’s missing is some leopard print shoes and a twat in double breasted pinstripe.

Richard II isn’t a play I know well, but even I can pick up that this is a very particular version for this production. The timeline is chopped and changed and there is a heavy emphasis on rhyming couplets which I rather suspect is not so in more traditional productions and versions of the text. For me as a stranger to the play I did find bits of it quite hard to follow as a result and though the rhyming gives the piece pace it also makes it feel a bit, well, panto. If you’re an RII fan though, fear not: the classic bits of text (the ones even I recognise) are all present and correct and untampered with. As far as I can tell, anyway.

Some of the quirks of this production become instantly more understandable once you know that Joe Hill-Gibbons is directing. I am, broadly, a fan of Hill-Gibbons’ work. I like that he is unashamedly modern, not afraid to experiment and, most of all, that he always has a clear and distinct vision for his productions. He also isn’t easy to define by one style or show off-y trick. His vision is very much in evidence here and the resulting production, reservations about some of the textual changes aside, is unique, punchy and a lot more fun than I suspect this play usually is.

There are moments when things start to feel ominously like a poor man’s Ivo van Hove (I won’t spoil anything, but keep an eye on the buckets) but actually the overall mood of this production - sparse and threatening, but still irreverent and slightly tongue in cheek - works. It’s helped a lot by a strong, bleak and ballsy design by ULTZ’s which is a great canvass, and a great salesperson (salesthing?), for the rest of the production. It took me a while to make my mind up, but ultimately I did rate the technical bits and pieces of this production a lot. I also rated the fact that it didn’t overplay its topicality card, even if I would have given Richard a pair of leopard print trainers if I’d done the costumes. This is, mercifully, not William Shakespeare’s Brexit: The Play.

One thing I had no doubt about from curtain up to curtain down was the casting decisions made here. First of all, credit to Hill-Gibbons for casting an older Richard against a younger Bolingbroke. Richard II is so often the play where a young up and comer gets to make their Shakespearean name. As accurate to the character as that may be, I really enjoyed the shift in the dynamics of the play that having an older King Richard versus a young upstart rebel Bolingbroke brought about. Quite apart from the resulting actor, it gave the play a type of depth and poignancy that I really hadn’t expected.

That that ‘resulting actor’ is Simon Russell Beale is what really gives this production its wings. SRB is obviously a joy of an actor to watch do anything, but his Shakespeare isn’t just anything. It’s very much something. His performance here is majestic. He nails RII completely, with exactly the right mixture of divine right vanity and human vulnerability. The result is someone surprisingly sympathetic and empathetic too. I sort of wanted him to win in the end. As Bolingbroke, Leo Bill also turns in a strong performance. He brings an unexpected and altogether believable nervousness to the young man who would be king as well as a clarity of both belief and purpose. The scenes where these two battle it out, often physically stalking each other around the stage, are by far the best of the night.

Perhaps this version of Richard II isn’t the best telling of the story - and in truth I don’t the play well enough to say either way, only that it wasn’t as narratively clear as other Shakespeare I’ve seen - but it is certainly a distinct, innovative and raw telling. It’s always entertaining, and the quality of the acting shines through every moment. Worth your time.

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second is at The Almeida until February 2nd.

I sat in seat A33 in the circle for this one, which is justifiably sold as restricted view - a good third of the back of the stage is invisible even if you lean forward. It cost £10, for a preview showing.

Theatre Review: Hadestown

When you’re watching a musical and find yourself thinking ‘I imagine this is what a musical written by Bruce Springsteen would be like’ you know you’re on to a winner.

And there, in two lines, is the most concise review I’ve ever written. If you stop reading now I won’t blame you. If you’ve got some time to kill though, and since you’re already here, allow me to expand.

Hadestown is the new(ish - it’s been through two productions in North America already) musical at the National Theatre, which is a rare and beautiful thing in itself. Written by singer/songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, it tells the rather well worn story of Orpheus and Eurydice (off of the ol’ Greek mythology) but in an entirely new, contemporary and just really fucking excellent way.

What Mitchell has chosen to do with the story is to turn it into a contemporary morality play and a hymn to the power of music, love, hope (remember that?) and resistance. It made me cry multiple times. It made me laugh. It made me feel slightly less miserable about the state of, well, everything. And let’s face it, that is a significant achievement at the moment given everything is basically on fire. It is a hearty two fingered salute to everyone who thinks that musicals are just fluff. It’s something really quite special.

Mitchell’s writing is beautiful. The show is more or less through sung - something that can very much go one of two ways I find - but here works really well and keeps the action moving along at a whip. The music has a sort of folksy/country/New Orleans jazz-y feel and the songs are just gorgeous. All I’ve Ever Known and Wait For Me are perfect love songs, Way Down Hadestown is maddeningly catchy and must be used for someone’s Charleston on the next season of Strictly, Why We Build the Wall is frighteningly clever, and If It’s True a joyous song of resistance. I found the soundtrack on Apple Music within minutes of leaving the theatre. I’ve listened to it about five times in 24 hours. I have a new obsession.

This production is a joy too. Rachel Chavkin directs with absolute clarity and conviction. She knows completely what this show is and where its power lies and delivers on both to perfection. Rachel Hauck’s set (lots of Rachels on this one, something of which I wholeheartedly approve) is stunning and epic and, like, really clever. She makes brilliant use of the Olivier’s massive stage and, especially, the revolve and drum. David Neumann’s choreography is lean and muscular, more concerned with showing the strength of the performers than looking pretty - which is very definitely a compliment even though I realise it may not sound like one.

An absolute belter of a cast has been assembled to complete the triangle of good things that this production is. It’s a small one, especially for such a huge stage, but perfectly formed. Everyone on that stage has amazing energy, including the musicians who are pleasingly not hidden away in a corner, and just seems really damn happy to be there. I mean they should be, but it’s still lovely to see. There isn’t a weak link amongst them but there are some particularly strong ones: Andre de Shields mischievous Hermes, owner of ALL the swag, Reeve Carney’s rockstar Orpheus, Eva Noblezada’s honey voiced Eurydice, and my absolute favourite, Patrick Page’s achingly cool and charismatic Hades - with the best voice in the whole universe. Not even exaggerating.

Hadestown is a gift of a show, just in time for Christmas. It’s a joy to watch and a joy to listen to. I left the theatre with a spring in my step and that rarest of feelings at the moment: hope. Surely worth the price of a ticket for that alone.

Hadestown is in the Olivier at the NT until 26th January, after which it transfers to Broadway.

I sat in F2 in the circle for this one - no such thing as a bad seat in the Olivier - which cost me £32. Money very well spent.