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The Twilight Saga: New Moon
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A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
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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
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London,
Nick Curtis's rating
Reader rating
Taking care in the community: the cast and audience of Soho Streets wander around the district while a battalion of minders placates the locals they obstruct
Sometimes it feels like I’m strangling puppies. This promenade through Soho’s streets and its history is sweetly well-meaning but executed with thudding clumsiness. The aim is to celebrate Soho Theatre’s 40th anniversary by weaving together stories from different generations and immigrant communities. There are odd striking moments but Theresa Shiban’s script deals in cliché before getting lost in sixth-form sloganeering. Worse, being herded around this melting pot of iniquity is an oddly infantilising experience, especially as there’s forced jollity and audience participation involved.
First, we’re split into four supposedly decade-defining groups: Hippies, punks, Goths, ravers (cringe!). Then it’s off on a stop-start tour of the life of young Wei, aka Will, born here to Chinese parents in 1969. We see his dad killed by a slum landlord, his mum befriended by an Italian waitress, who is friends with an elderly Jewish tailor and who then marries a black electrician, and so on. Three women in vaguely tarty white costumes hang about, possibly representing prostitutes. But where are the artists, the writers, the reprobates? The gay community gets a look-in only at the end.
Clearly, Soho is too sprawling and inconsistent a subject for Shiban. After a while, she starts writing exclusively about protest — first against racism, then violence to women, ending up with an anti-Iraq march staged on Bourchier Street by precisely three actors. Eh? Throughout this shambling, two-hour theatrical conga, I felt sorry for the poor cast, for the relentlessly perky guides, for the battalion of helpers placating the people we obstructed. But I also had some sympathy for the man who yelled “F*** off! Stop shouting!” from a hostel window.
As I said, there are striking moments: a floodlit drama in Ham Yard, a sneaky intrusion into a gated community courtyard, a pretty finale by St Anne’s church. But really, you’d learn more about Soho from a bog-standard walking tour. Or reading a book. Or just going out there and getting drunk.
Until 2 May (020 7478 0100, www.sohotheatre.com).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
As a regular theatre goer I found this show to be very enjoyable. I thought it was a very tight performance that offered insight into a side of Soho often brushed over or ignored. It explored the area as a living, breathing entity with a wealth of history rather than merely a place on a tourist map. I can honestly say that to produce something on this scale, out on the streets must have been a logistical nightmare but that the director executed it admirably. This aside, I think that over all this was a great night out and left me feeling quite buoyant with a big smile on my face.
- Alexander Hearst, London
