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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Sean Holmes.
Cast: Andrew Buchan, Felix Scott, Michelle Terry, Nigel Cooke, Shaun Dingwall, James Hayes, Mark Lewis Jones, Aidan Kelly, Gary Lilburn, Roy Sampson, Sandra Voe
Description: Classic American drama about a man's attempt to change his fate. Written by Arthur Miller, directed by Sean Holmes.
Trains: Tube: Covent Garden 
Phone: 0870060 6624
Website: www.donmarwarehouse.com
Victims of fate: Hester Falk (Michelle Terry) and David Beeves (Andrew Buchan)
There is something seductively self-mocking about the sound of an Arthur Miller play entitled The Man who had all the luck. For Miller's usual heroes are cursed by misfortune and fatal character flaws, or ruined by the inability to control their own lives.
Here, though, the playwright attempts something philosophically different. In Sean Holmes's dynamically charged production of Miller's first, rarely-revived, Broadway play, a work of confident immaturity, you witness a neurotic young garage owner, David Beeves, the balance of whose mind is disturbed by a surfeit of luck. Miller proposes it's absurd to live in wait for catastrophe and best to shape your own destiny.
These ideas, which are not that dramatically or convincingly embodied, must surely have struck an absurd, offensive note when the play premiered in 1944 and ran for just four performances. Millions of Miller's fellow Jews, already gassed by Hitler, did not exactly enjoy the luxury of personal choice. There is, though, an interesting vein of comic irony running through this fable-like play and which Holmes sometimes neglects. Good luck just will not leave Beeves alone.
The play, atmospherically staged in Paul Wills's fine, wooden-slatted design, traces the line of Beeves's success. Hardly has the father of David's childhood sweetheart, Michelle Terry's emotionally boisterous Hester, expressed opposition to the couple's marriage than he is run down and killed.
Shaun Dingwall's Austrian Gustav appears in the middle of the night, as in a dream, while David struggles to repair a car. He takes over the job and becomes Beeves's business partner. When David cultivates minks, he saves them from death and himself from financial ruin by pure chance. Andrew Buchan's Beeves maintains an air of bemused grace as fate rains down the blows of success upon him until the climactic moments when it seems his wife will give birth to a dead child.
It is difficult to be riveted by relentless outbursts of good fortune. Holmes's production, though he achieves high-wire tension in the scene of childbirth, stirs serious emotion only once. David's brother, Felix Scott's impressive Amos, whose life has been dedicated to becoming a professional baseball player, discovers his father's training has wrecked his chances. Scott weeps authentic tears and collapses - epitome of a man not controlling his own life. This is minor but intriguing Miller.
Until 5 April (0870 060 6624).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
