The BIG sensation in London Theatre at the moment is the young playwright James Graham. In a few short years he’s gone from pub theatre to having two major plays running in the West End, in neighbouring theatres on St Martins Lane.He really is an extraordinary talent and his work is incomparable with anyone else. He is fascinated by, and writes primarily about, landmark moments in British politics. Rather than this being as dull as it sounds his work not only brings recent history to thrilling life but he makes the monstrous egos of those drawn to this world, real, human, fallible and utterly compelling.
If you’ve two evenings to spare I thoroughly recommend you catch both of his current hits.
INK at the Duke of Yorks Theatre, about the rise of the Sun newspaper, is not just an entertaining and enthralling account of how two egotistical outsiders made the tabloid newspaper a phenomenal and powerful success, it also boasts a magnificent production directed by Rupert Gould.
It’s staged amidst an ant hill of grubby, nicotine stained, 1970s office paraphernalia, enhanced by thrilling use of projection (designer Bunny Christie) and opens with a meeting between the taciturn prospective editor of the sun, northerner Larry Lamb and the reptilian, Australian businessman Rupert Murdoch. Both regard themselves as outsiders in an industry previously run by the British upper class. Murdoch is planning to buy the ailing newspaper and employ’s Lamb to mastermind operations.
The play dramatises how the uncompromising Lamb draws together a bunch of misfits and moulds them into a winning team. Time and again he ruthlessly crosses the boundaries of taste and decency to make the newspaper irresistible to readers with low intellects and an appetite for the salacious. Even Murdoch is shocked at the force he has unleashed.
The play vividly captures the pre-computerised newspaper industry and the cut-throat nature of fleet street, and you can expect Richard Coyle and Bertie Carvil to be nominated for every acting award going for their irresistible, ugly and uncompromising portrayals of the irresistible, ugly and uncompromising Lamb and Murdoch.
Just up the road at The Noel Coward Theatre people are being just as enthusiastic about another James Graham play, LABOUR OF LOVE. The setting is the Nottinghamshire office of the Labour party and centres around the prickly relationship between David, an MP and Jean, his campaign manager and agent.
Simply put they represent the clash between ideology and pragmatism which has constantly threatened to split the party over the past 27 years and the play includes pivotal debates and events embracing Tony Blair’s New Labour through to more contemporary developments.
Fortunately the pair are so much more than symbols and audiences have been equally engaged by the political history and the chemistry between the engaging and witty central couple, as played by Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig.
Catch both shows for a fascinating history lesson in contemporary British politics that also includes plenty of laughs, stylish theatricality and wonderful performances.
In Memory Of Leaves, written and performed by Natasha Langridge, is floating on its performance barge on to London communities affected by gentrification: Kensington, Camden, Hackney. Taking the form of diary entries written from 2014 to the present day, it follows Natasha in her storyteller persona as she is propelled on a journey from being evicted from her flat, to protesting with the Occupy movement, to volunteering in the Calais jungle, to watching the fallout of the Grenfell Tower disaster, all against the backdrop of a pair of love affairs.