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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,
Henry Hitchings's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Alexander Summers.
Cast: Colm Gormley, Nicole Dayes, Sean Murray, Anthony Ofoegbu, Amanda Boxer
Description: JQ Productions presents Nigel Planer's surreal black comedy about writer Robert Louis Stevenson and artist Paul Gauguin preparing for their deaths. Alexander Summers directs.
Trains: Tube: Earls Court 
Phone: 0844847 1652
Website: www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Extra info: Food, Pub
Stylish musings: Death of Long Pig
“Each of us has two sides,” says Robert Louis Stevenson in Nigel Planer’s new play, and the imagery of Jekyll and Hyde percolates through this claustrophobic study of flawed, bedevilled creativity.
What kind of twilight awaits the artist, Planer wonders, and does our preparation for death colour everything that leads up to it?
The play is a diptych portraying the moribund agonies of two white men who have pickled themselves in the exoticism of the South Pacific.
The “long pig” of the title equates to the Polynesian word “paheka”, meaning “white man”.
First we see Robert Louis Stevenson, coughing himself to pieces in Samoa and bungling his relationships with his wife (a huskily emotional Amanda Boxer) and beautiful serving girl; then an impoverished Paul Gauguin in Tahiti, glugging back booze and obnoxious medicines.
Haunted by their ancestry and a sense of missed opportunity, the two are in their different ways “condemned to life”.
The more optimistic Stevenson hears in the tropical surf a “ceaseless requiem”: the bleaker Gauguin imagines the natives feasting on his corpse.
Sean Murray plays both in impressively full-bodied style. Yet his are the only rewarding roles. The other characters seem indistinct, and although Planer’s diligent research is obvious, its fruits have little sap.
There are some stylish musings, and Alex Marker’s neat design intensifies the sultry atmosphere, but the exposition is cumbrous, and the dialogue too often either strident or meandering, stretching credibility while failing to explore the more salient connections between Stevenson and Gauguin.
Until 1 August (0844 847 1652).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
