Author Archives: Nick Hennegan

Writer and creator of The London Literary Pub Crawl.com. and a few plays. BohemianBritain.com. Event and Theatre Producer. Done quite a bit on the wireless too!

The Terrific Tabard Theatre’s Superb Shavian Show!

Rating: 🍷🍷🍷🍷 and one pint of Porter, 🍷

4 (5) out of 5. Glasses of Champagne and one pint of Porter, 🍷 obs!

Francesca Ottley as Elisza Doolittle

Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw.

Theatre at The Tabard, Bath Road, Chiswick, London W4

It’s been a couple of years since the copyright on Shaw’s plays ended and most people will have seen ‘My Fair Lady’, but the newly reopened Tabard Theatre have pulled off a coup by bringing the touring company DOT Productions into town with their refreshing reboot of Shaw’s play. Hence the alliteration in this headline. It’s exciting!

Now, to be honest, having worked in professional theatre for years, I’ve never actually heard of this company, but based on this showing, I shall keep an eye out for them. They perform mainly in outdoor venues – and it’s a bit obvious with their vocal projection in a tiny studio theatre like the Tabard, but I’m being picky!

I’ve also been reminded about how good George Bernard Shaw is – was – as a playwright. This production is more true to the original and focuses on Higgins’ story. In his own way he’s a complete monster, yet we can’t finally help but sympathise with him. Shaw was a master at realising – a bit like George Orwell perhaps – that social comment can be far more powerful if it entertains.

The company has had to reduce an 8-hander down to 5 actors, which is not too much of a problem for me, having reduced the 32 characters of Shakespeare’s Henry V down to just one!

And they do it so very well. Director Pete Gallagher hits a nuanced tone – he focuses on the key conflicts and ensures a brisk tempo throughout. And all the actors are outstanding. Francesca Ottley as Eliza Doolittle is mesmerising and completely nails both pre and post ‘treatment’ Eliza. Christopher Walthorne as Henry Higgins is the genius who becomes a little boy and never misses an emotional beat. Andrew Lindfield as Colonel Pickering grows into his kindliness and Cassandra Hodges plays all the dominating women – Mother and housekeeper – with deft, certainty and incredible definition.

Jack Matthews’ performances as an aristocrat and then the cockney dustman Eliza’s Dad stay just the right side of pastiche, even though his stuck-on sideboards are beautifully ridiculous. But it doesn’t matter here. It adds to the fun! The production is beautifully balanced.

Shaw based his play on the classical tale of Pygmalion – a sculptor and King who hated women, but then sculpted a woman and then fell in love with her.

Get to the Tabard Theatre in Chiswick for this Pygmalion. You’ll fall joyfully in love too.

Back to Stratford-upon-Avon. Baby!

Summary;

After the Edinburgh Festival Fringe finishes, Nick Hennegan revisits his old haunts in Stratford-on-Avon near the Royal Shakespeare Company, where his theatre ventures first began – back in the 1990’s! . #rsc — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bohemianbritain/message

Pubs at Risk? Ask ‘The Choir of Man’..!

The Choir of Man in their onstage pub ‘The Jungle’!

I first saw the singing lads in their fictitious on-stage pub The Jungle, a few years ago – I think it was one of their first performances – at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Fringe.

It’s one of the few benefits of being a Fringe performer. As long as you have your performers pass, if there are any unsold seats at ANY of the other productions hosted by your venue, you can get in for free

I’d produced versions of the plays Road, Strippers and Shakers and I’d had an idea for a new production – a sort of girls club – with songs – set in a specific place, maybe a pub. So when I saw The Choir of Man I was both delighted and disappointed! But watch this space!

And the sentiment here is entirely true. There are a number of brilliant pubs that are having their leases snapped up by (Greedy?) property developers who know that they will turn a much quicker profit by turning pubs into luxury flats. And I know of at least two brilliant, busy pubs in Birmingham that have been forced to close because developers have built luxury flats either next to, or opposite them. The pubs have then had to close due to complaints of noise by the new flat dwellers!

And I think since the pandemic, we’ve all come to realise the value of pubs. Of being able to be together again. Traditionally for the working-class (which is great for me as I AM traditionally working-class! THAT’S why I’m in the pub so much. Honest!) there are few places like a pub. For meeting and greeting. Occasionally talking with strangers. All types of people are at a single destination for a million myriad reasons. It’s really not all about the alcohol. There was a brilliant piece in a Birmingham Irish newspaper about ‘The Irish Govt is concerned at the lack of old fellas in pubs! There’s a shortage of old Gray-haired men, sitting at the end of the bar, supping a single pint for hours and dishing out unwanted advice to anyone who passes by!’ I’ll try and find it again.

But the reality is that even without the current crises we’ve all gone through recently, according to Altus, 400 pubs in England and Wales closed last year and some 200 shut in the first half of 2022 as inflation started to eat into their profits.

And Bohemians have always been attracted to pubs. Places to talk, discuss, disagree and fall in and out of love. The French House, Norman’s Coach and Horses, Gerry’s in Soho. The Newmans Arms, Fitzroy Tavern and The Wheatsheaf in Fitzrovia. Brilliant pubs with a great Literary history (it’s why I wrote the London Literary Pub Crawl by the way.) Recently in Edinburgh, I was able to see the brilliant author Ian Rankin in the equally brilliant Oxford Pub – review to follow soon. And I write a lot in pubs. Usually, The Raven in Hammersmith, but also The Cross Keys, Black Lion, George 4th and The Tabard in Chiswick and I wrote most of my second Shakespeare adaptation, Hamlet – Horatio’s Tale in The Station, Hare and Hounds and Red Lion in Kings Heath, Birmingham. I like to write in pubs because you can be in a crowd and connect with ‘real life’ yet be isolated and undisturbed.

So thanks to Nic Doodson and Andrew Kay for The Choir of Man – and this very relevant speech. Go see the play. Then go to the pub afterward!

Cheers!

Week… oh heck.. the last day!

Summary:

Nick Hennegan’s VERY Rough Guide to the Fringe. He presents quick updates from the World’s Biggest Open Arts Festival – the Edinburgh 2022 Fringe! Also at BohemianBritain.com — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bohemianbritain/message

The Appraisal, Review. Edinburgh Fringe ’22.

Rating: 🍷🍷🍷🍷

4 out of 5. For now. But will soon, we think, be the Full bottle!

The World Premiere of a tense, relatable, British thriller.

There’s a kind of genius with this new play, written and directed by Fringe stalwart, Tim Marriott. And, full disclosure, not only do I now know all those involved with this production, but watching this world premiere in the small container-case theatre on Princes Street, I shockingly realised that I’ve led such a chaotic (bohemian?) life, I’ve NEVER actually had a work appraisal! Although judging from the knowing chuckles from the rest of the audience, I am very much in a very small minority. And I’m not SO excluded from ‘proper’ life that I couldn’t relate to the corporate jargon and H.R. ‘speak’. After all, I’ve had to do risk assessments for theatre!

But what Marriott has done is create a British Theatre piece that keeps us guessing. It’s not as dark as, say, Mammet’s Oleanna. And there isn’t the variety of situations we might find in Russell’s Educating Rita. And this is its genius, I think. We almost instantly know these characters! They are us. There’s a glorious, Brechtian theatricality to their non-theatricality.

The play sees Jo (Joe?), the line manager of Nicky (Niki?) conducting her annual work appraisal. No big deal, right? It happens every year to millions around the world (apart from me..!) So what could go wrong with this routine occurrence? And that’s the clever bit. We’re in a theatre watching a drama but the drama forms from its inherent normality.

Brilliant performances from Angela Bull and Nicholas Collett allow us to relate to the characters like easy friends. In other plays and circumstances, when manager Jo stands uncomfortably close to Nicky, we’d be expecting an inappropriate, dramatic act. But here, Nicky feels uncomfortable and just moves away. Like we all would. No drama! We believe that Nicky is just going through the usual corporate game. And we believe that Jo genuinely cares about his employees.

So when normality starts to deteriorate, gently and almost accidentally, the cracks appear. Things escalate and we’re horrified for these ‘normal’ people suddenly dealing with life changing situations.

And there’s a twist at the end.

But is it the end? Even though it stands on its own, I found out that this acclaimed piece is apparently only the first half of a planned two-act play!

I look forward to seeing the full production. And ticking that box. I hope my line-manager agrees!

Day four… no! Week 3!

Summary:

Nick Hennegan’s VERY Rough Guide to the Fringe. He presents quick updates from the World’s Biggest Open Arts Festival – the Edinburgh 2022 Fringe! This time, Sir Ian McKellen, Sherlock Holmes and Scrummie Mummies!

Also at BohemianBritain.com — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bohemianbritain/message

Horse Country.

Rating: 🍷🍷🍷🍷

4 out of 5. Almost the Full bottle!

Surreal, smart and unpretentious.

It’s one of the glorious, great things about the Edinburgh Fringe that you can be in the Assembly Club Bar tapping away on a laptop, when Guy Masterson, my ‘A Christmas Carol’ actor and Fringe stalwart, comes up to me and says, “What are you doing? Close that laptop and come and see a play. Here’s a free ticket.”

I first met Guy when Griff Rhys Jones arranged a Dylan Thomas Centenery celebration in Fitzrovia. He’s a great ‘Artrepreneur’ and is presenting this play, along with another… about circles? (I’ll see it this week and know more soon!) So you can’t really say no to him. Plus, in spite of Directing AND Producing ‘Winston And David’ at the Underbelly Dairy Room, (1.25pm every day! Come and say hello! Plug over, loves..!) I’m really in Edinburgh for the art, so its great to see stuff now my show is ‘bedded in’ as it were.

Horse Country by C.J. Hopkins, won all sorts of awards when it first appeared at the Ed fringe in 2002. And I kinda see why. Eventually. As I was given a direct invitation to see this first production, I’d not even read the flyer and it kept me guessing for a while. But two things became rapidly obvious from the start. The quality of the cast – and the quality of the direction. And when they got to the joke about “How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?” (“The answer? Fish. Of course!) it started to dawn on me what was going on. And later, as I was buying Guy a drink in the bar afterwards (See! There’s NO such thing as a free ticket!) and I met the cast and crew, I realised what a quality offering this is.

Bob (Dan Llewelyn Williams) takes the straighter role of the two, but perfectly foils, criticises and lovingly relates to the more clownish Sam, played brilliantly and touchingly by Michael Edwards.

Director Mark Bell gives the surreal show a solid base, with inspired movement and physicality. Mark is perhaps best known for directing The Play That Goes Wrong, so has a deft and talented touch. Which means that even if you don’t get the twenty year old references to capitalism, it’s worth the price of a ticket for the magic, missing playing cards, fishing and sea lions. Oh yes, and genocide. And Adolph Hitler makes an appearance too.

How many brilliant actors, directors and presenters does it take to make a fine, fantastic, surreal Edinburgh Fringe production? The answer is obvious. Fish. No, sorry… Horse Country.

Watson – The Final Problem

Rating: 🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷

5 out of 5. The Full bottle!

We all know about Sherlock Holmes and his arch-enemy, Moriarty. And we all know about Holmes’ best friend, Watson.

But do we?

Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street is a world-wide Literary Legend. Indeed, I’ve quite recently interviewed an author who has been commissioned to write new Sherlock stories. Have a fumble through this blog and you’ll find it!

But here, at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, Watson is touchingly alone. His beloved wife Mary and the great Sherlock Holmes are both gone. London seethes with false reports and rumours. So it is time to set the record straight.

What the hugely talented Tim Marriott has done, with co-writer and director Bert Coules, is give us a fresh and fantastic take on the whole Sherlock Holmes and Watson story and what really happened with the two friends from Watson’s partisan point of view.

You need no previous knowledge of Sherlock Holmes. Tim (forever famous for playing Gavin in the rather brilliant BBC sitcom The Brittas Empire) takes us on an adventure that is both epic, yet strangely emotional. Watson, the now lonely old soldier, is very keen to do the right thing by everyone – especially Holmes. Marriott brings a very relevant characterisation to a fictional conceit and plays the various characters – including of course, Holmes – with a nuanced talent which is both intimate yet expansive.

Watson, the old soldier, has a story to tell. And we get an entertaining Boys-Own romp with an adult and emotional heart.

Elementary, my dear Marriott.