Shouts and Murmurs - February 4, 2025
No paywall this week! Possibly the best show I have ever seen! The reviews of Inside No. 9 in the West End! An awkward interview with Brie Larson! Did I mention there was no paywall this week?!
Hello, and welcome to Shouts And Murmurs, a weekly email for paid supporters of The Crush Bar, written by me, Fergus Morgan.
Every week, I round up the best theatre writing elsewhere - news, reviews, interviews, opinion pieces, long-reads - plus any other interesting or inspiring theatre stuff I find.
Usually, you can only read the top section for free, but have to become a paid supporter - £5/month or £50/year - to read stuff on the other side of the paywall. This week, though, as a special treat, I have removed the paywall so free subscribers can see what they are missing.
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Previously in The Crush Bar:
I am worried that anyone that subscribed to this newsletter in the last fortnight will think it is always so upbeat about theatre.
It isn’t. Normal, miserable service will be resumed next week, I promise. For now, though, I remain full of enthusiasm and optimism for the performing arts industry.
Partly, that is because I spent the second half of last week in London, catching some of the extraordinary shows I spend my life writing about but rarely see, being based in Edinburgh, and am freshly galvanised by the power of theatre as a result. They were: The Invention Of Love (brilliantly, indulgently cerebral, my big interview with Simon Russell Beale here); The Lonely Londoners (joyous, heart-breaking, excellent use of Michael Kiwanuka, my interview with director Ebenezer Bamgboye here); Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet Of 1812 (obviously incredible, what a song this is by the way, my interview with Maimuna Memon here); and The Years (possibly the best show I have ever seen, Eline Arbo is a genius, my interview with Anjli Mohindra here).
And partly, it is because Scottish theatres will be (comparatively) flush come April, after Creative Scotland’s new Multi-Year Funding programme was unveiled and was not anywhere near as bad as everyone thought it might be. In fact, I think it was pretty damn good. There were frustrations (an unforgivable untruth at the top of the press release, the cutting of Cumbernauld Theatre from the portfolio, the fifth successive rejection of Dogstar Theatre, a question mark over the Traverse Theatre) but the big headline is that more arts organisations will get more money than ever: £200m shared by 251 organisations, including Summerhall Arts and Capital Theatres, over three years. I have spent most of the last four days writing about this (when I wasn’t being freshly galvanised by the power of theatre) and have no energy to go over it all again here. You want more? Well, see me here, here, here, and here in The Stage…
“Scotland now distributes more money via its flagship funding programme for organisations per capita than any other UK nation by some margin: approximately £12.18, compared to £9.44 in Wales, £7.79 in England, and £6.90 in Northern Ireland.
Some have grumbled that Creative Scotland could have gone further and been bolder somehow. I would argue that, for once, the government and Creative Scotland have done their bit. They have provided the cash. Now it is up to the industry to think big.”
Not everyone is as cheerful as me. Outgoing Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy, who will be replaced by Tony Lankester this Spring, wants governments to stump up for her, too; some unfortunate people live in England, where the new Labour government has forgotten about the arts in favour of catapulting the planet further into the climate crisis; some unfortunate people are performing arts PRs and have to reply to emails from annoying people like me for a living; and some unfortunate people work for drama schools, which will soon be a thing of the past. Spare a thought, too, for Zinnie Harris, Louis Barabbas and all the artists connected to Coraline: A Musical, which has been cancelled after producers realised that the sexual assault allegations against Neil Gaiman had become too obvious to ignore.
Still, though, there’s going to be a revival of Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice at the Donmar Warehouse! Have you seen Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice? It’s really good! And they are going to film Hadestown! Have you seen Hadestown? It’s really good! And Shakespeare’s Globe is going to do Romeo and Juliet in the style of The Assassination Of Jesse James? Have you seen The Assassination Of Jesse James? It’s really good!
The week in reviews: Inside No. 9: Stage/Fright, Play On!, and We Will Hear The Angels.
Extraordinary Gentlemen Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s said goodbye to their spooky, silly cult television show Inside No. 9 after nine seasons last year. Now, the duo are back, leading a ten-strong cast in a stage spin-off, Inside No. 9: Stage/Fright, which reworks some of the same macabre material from the series, but also incorporates some metatheatrical fun featuring a fictional ghost that haunts Wyndham’s, the West End theatre in which the show runs until April. It gets four stars from The Guardian’s Brian Logan, The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish, TimeOut’s Andrzej Lukowski, and The Financial Times’ Sarah Hemming, who calls it “wildly clever, madly innovative and suddenly moving.” Others, including The Times’ Clive Davis and The Standard’s Nick Curtis, find it more of a chore. It is, writes Curtis, “a smirk-along for the fans” over-reliant “on rehashed TV material, metatheatrical jokes and pop-culture references” that will baffle “anyone under 50.”
“It’s a Frankenstein’s monster of a show: a portmanteau assemblage of jump scare, Grand Guignol, old-school variety double act and campy, comic schlock horror… Stories nest inside each other, like unusually grotesque matryoshka dolls. On top of that, it’s all wrapped up in metatheatrical jokes and settings, with nods the the Wyndham’s own history and ghost, Bloody Belle.”
At the Lyric Hammersmith, about fifty different theatres and companies, including Talawa Theatre, have co-produced Play On!, a touring jazz musical reworking of Twelfth Night set in 1940s Harlem. Creators Sheldon Epps, Cheryl L West and Michael Buffong strip back Shakespeare’s story, set it in the famous Cotton Club, almost entirely overwrite his text, reimagine Orsino as Duke Ellington, stuff it full of reworked versions of his songs, and wash it with bold colours. Somehow, though, the surging spirit of Shakespeare’s play remains. It is “warm, vivacious fun” for The Stage’s Dave Fargnoli, “carnivalesque” for The Standard’s Nick Curtis, and “richly enjoyable” for LondonTheatre’s Matt Wolf, who all give it four stars.
“[Designer] Ultz’s strong evocation of the Cotton Club, where black artists performed to a white audience in 1940s Harlem, is not painted in predictable monochrome: beats of violet and azure are framed by a scarlet proscenium arch… Yet the play’s moods of rapture, longing, discontent and sudden surges of energy are gorgeously present, woven through the evening by an onstage band who deliver wonders by Ellington, from Take the “A” Train to It Don’t Mean a Thing.
To Scotland, to Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery, and to multi-disciplinary company Magnetic North’s We Will Hear The Angels, a meditative hour of experimental performance about heartbreak and how it finds expression through music, inspired by the final moments of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and by Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Created by Nicholas Bone and Marisa Zanotti, it features five actor-musicians strutting and fretting across a circular stage, delivering sparse, sad monologues, and ultimately bursting into beautiful song: Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Orange Juice, and more. The Observer’s Clare Brennan gave it a positive three stars. I found it fairly moving and gave it four stars in The Stage, as did Joyce McMillan in The Scotsman.
“Through such a subtle and intelligent combination of words, movement and music, the piece achieves a lot with surprisingly little. Its four snapshots of everyday folk surviving heartbreak with the help of music add up into something rich and deep: an exquisite evocation of how longing and loneliness are bittersweetly transmuted by song.”
Next week: Elektra starring Brie Larson, Second Best starring Asa Butterfield.
The week in interviews: Khawla Ibraheem, Mike Bartlett, Jared Harris, Brie Larson, and more…
“I come from a place where war has recently become a state of mind.” Writer and actor Khawla Ibraheem - a Syrian theatremaker living in the occupied Golan Heights - has spoken to Gloria Oladipo in The Guardian as her one-woman play A Knock On The Roof, a portrait of a Gazan mother living under Israeli bombardment that ran at the Traverse Theatre during last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, opens in New York. It arrives at the Royal Court Theatre in London later this month.
“I was right about some things and some things didn’t happen.” Playwright Mike Bartlett has spoken to Sarah Hemming about his acclaimed plays King Charles III and The 47th, plus his new West End drama Unicorn, in The Financial Times.
“If you encountered the ghost of your dead father, who confirmed all the things you’ve done wrong that you’re going to pay for in the afterlife and finally goes, ‘I want you to go and kill the bastard who killed me’ — it would f*** your mind.” Actor Jared Harris has given a great interview - including a wonderful anecdote about Philip Prowse - to Ed Potton in The Times, ahead of him playing Claudius at the RSC.
“Besides, being a “son of” can work against you. Harris did a series of auditions early in his career “for directors my father fired” including Philip Prowse, who at the time was a co-director of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. “I walked in and he goes, ‘Good Lord, are you?’ He looks at my headshot. ‘Oh my God, you are.’ He turned his chair to face the wall and would not look at me for the whole audition.”
“What I would like you to see is that by continuing this conversation, you are putting me in connection with something that is nothing to do with me.” Hollywood star Brie Larson is about to star in Daniel Fish’s staging of Elektra in the West End. She gave a somewhat, um, awkward interview to The Telegraph’s Claire Allfree.
“I think it is a real shame when an incredibly special show comes around but the cheapest seat is £50. It makes me question what the overall point of all this is.” Actor Aisling Loftus, meanwhile, is starring in the regional premiere of Dennis Kelly’s Girls and Boys at Nottingham Playhouse. She chatted to me for The Stage.
“It was promoted as a romp through the backstage antics of a rehearsal process. That was the producers’ strategy. It didn’t work. So a lot of the audience felt duped.” Now he has calmed down a bit, musician Rufus Wainwright has reflected on Opening Night and why it flopped in an interview with Craig McLean in The Telegraph.
Further reading: new artistic directors, Daniel Evans on Hamlet, a big year for the National Theatre of Scotland, and more…
“I see it as 10 years to fundamentally change the culture of playwriting in this country.” Susannah Clapp and Killian Fox have surveyed the recent wave of new artistic directors - although none of those in Scotland - in The Observer, including Indhu Rubasingham at the National Theatre and David Byrne at the Royal Court.
“Rylance spent the majority of the play in his striped pyjamas. At one point, he mooned at Polonius, which at 14 I just thought was the best thing ever.” RSC artistic director Daniel Evans has written about Hamlet, his favourite play, in The Stage.
“NTS needs to start delivering again if it is to remain an institution of which Scotland can be proud.” Last week, I wrote about the National Theatre of Scotland, its celebrated history, its disappointing recent form, and its exciting 2025 in The Stage. This is the piece I was referring to in this Exeunt bit about covering theatre in a small community, and finding the courage to be critical about nice people.
“Under Vicky Featherstone, NTS churned out hit after hit, growing from one woman with a mobile phone into an internationally acclaimed organisation within months… Those heady days feel a long time ago now… Finally, though, NTS is showing promising signs. Its calendar is full of exciting projects…”
“To live in Cape Town is to inhabit haunted spaces.” Playwright Amy Jeptha, whose satire A Good House is running at the Royal Court before it transfers to Bristol Old Vic, has reflected movingly about her life in Cape Town in The Guardian.
Podcast corner: Lauren Drew, Matthew Zajac, and the RSC’s new season…
The latest episode of The London Theatre Review features reviews of Cymbeline and Inside No. 9: Stage/Fright, plus a chat with Titanique star Lauren Drew…
RSC artistic director Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey discuss their new season in the latest episode of The WhatsOnStage Podcast…
BBC Radio 4’s Front Row featured a few theatrical chats last week. Here is Matthew Zajac of Dogstar Theatre discussing the tour of The Testament Of Gideon Mack…
That’s all for this issue of Shouts And Murmurs. Thanks for reading and for supporting this newsletter. I’ll be back in your inboxes on Friday.
If you want to get in touch with me about anything at all, just reply to this newsletter, email me at fergusmorgan@hotmail.co.uk, or find me on BlueSky, where I’m @fergusmorgan.
Have a good week.
Fergus