Morning:
14°c
Some fares could fall by more than a third when Oyster is extended to every national rail station in London, it has emerged
More...
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,
Fiona Mountford's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Anthony Clark.
Cast: Susannah Harker, David Kennedy, Jonny Weir
Description: A comedy written by Alexis Zegerman following a group of people from different classes, waiting to take part in a televised social experiment.
Trains: Tube: Swiss Cottage 
Phone: 0207722 9301
Website: www.hampsteadtheatre.com
Falling out: Tom (Jonny Weir) and Alan (David Kennedy)
Long before the onslaught of reality television, Granada launched its pioneering Seven Up! series, tracing the lives of a disparate group of children every seven years from 1963. Using this concept as a starting point for fiction, Alexis Zegerman has crafted a fitfully entertaining, sporadically convincing comedy.
In a soulless television studio, we meet working-class Alan (David Kennedy), middle-class Tom (Jonny Weir) and upper-class Catherine (Susannah Harker), known as “princess” to the two men.
Anthony Clark’s production struggles with the fact that the actors look oddly unbelievable at all the ages they’re meant to be portraying, especially the two key points of 21 and 49. The more the timeline whizzes between these eras, the less we buy into the increasingly frantic parallels it tries to draw.
The initial set-up of the middle-aged trio glancing back over entire lives lived under television’s microscopic glare is ripe with potential, yet there is a growing sense that Zegerman doesn’t know where to go with her narrative.
Much as Catherine, Alan and Tom talk of marriages and jobs, we are not persuaded that these sketchily drawn characters actually have lives outside their seven-yearly trips to recordings. Their assertion that the programme is to blame for a panoply of ills appears even more unsubstantiated.
The actors work hard and Harker has a fine line in haughtiness, but Zegerman hampers them with her unlikely plot twists. The most intriguing person, disconcertingly, is the one we don’t see, namely the manipulative director of these documentaries.
Until 22 November (020 7722 9301,
www.hampsteadtheatre.com)
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
