Exeunt recommends...
Our writers pick the shows they're most excited for in December - plus gossip, reviews round-ups, and a spotlight on Julia Masli
From meditations on life and death to super soaker-powered pantos, Exeunt writers pick their favourite festive (and not-so-festive) shows
Lily Levinson: Ruination – Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, London
I saw Ben Duke in Lost Dog’s Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me) at Battersea Arts Centre in 2016, and although I think my memory might now have become muddled with the archive photographs – a wooden chair; sheets of falling paper; a man with a self-deprecating smile – I’m sure that I loved it. So, in the midst of this Autumn/Winter season of Greek tragedies, I’m looking forward to Ruination, Lost Dog’s dance version of Medea, directed by Duke. Reviews of its last outing in 2022 were really great, and suggest that, for a tale of vicious hatred and infanticide, it will be surprisingly Christmassy. 2 December to 4 January
Holly Williams: Little Shop of Horrors – Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
The Crucible know how to stage a big jolly Christmas show – but where last year’s White Christmas was almost tooth-achingly festive and glittery, this year’s offering promises a little more bite. And I’m here for it: Little Shop of Horrors, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s B-movie style comedy rock musical about a hungry plant is reliably camp fun, but should also be tart enough to counteract the cloy that can come from a surfeit of Christmassy content. Feed me Seymour! 7 December to 18 January
Ben Kulvichit: Notting Hell – Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol
The Wardrobe Theatre's annual pop culture comedy mash-up is Bristol's great festive theatre tradition; previous iterations have included Goldilock, Stock and Three Smoking Bears, Muppets Die Hard and Little Women in Black. I'll confess to being a mite disappointed when I realised this year's edition marries the 1999 Richard Curtis classic Notting Hill not, as I had initially assumed, with the 2004 Guillermo del Toro classic Hellboy, but rather with the general, copyright-free concept of hell. Regardless, it promises to be raucously family-unfriendly alternative fare, perfect for the twee-averse. Till 18 January
Hannah Greenstreet: Ballet Shoes – National Theatre, London
As a panto scrooge, in December I’m looking for alternative festive fare. This year I’m taking my dad to Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre. As a child, I had a cassette tape of Ballet Shoes and loved to immerse myself in the world of the Fossil Sisters. I identified most strongly with Pauline (big older sister energy) but I did sometimes like to think I could be Posy with her special feet – despite my lack of talent – or Petrova the budding mechanic once I decided I had no interest in ballet. I was thrilled to rediscover Ballet Shoes in an Airbnb a few years ago and devoured it again. Now, the National Theatre is putting on a new version of Noel Streatfeild’s book, adapted by Kendall Feaver. The trailer promises a colourful take on the classic, embracing the fun of dressing up and trying out who you want to be. Till 22 February
Matt Barton: Blue Now – Southbank Centre, London / Factory International, Manchester
I look out for the season’s leftfield shows… and a great production team has staged singular British artist Derek Jarman's acutely personal and characteristically poetic film Blue about mortality and blindness (literal and societal), here performed live by Travis Alabanza, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Jay Bernard and Joelle Taylor. I missed its short tour last year, but it seems like the perfect poignant tonic to all the festive schmaltz.
1 December in London; 8 December in Manchester
Frank Peschier: Rapunzel – Liverpool Everyman
The Everyman Rock‘n’Roll Panto is a Scouse institution, like Coleen Rooney, Merseybeat, not buying The Sun, and Brookside. There are EXPECTATIONS that come with the Ev Panto; glitter, catchphrases, baddies who can shred a guitar or blast a saxophone, and compulsory water pistols. It doesn't matter if you're sat in the balcony, Adam Keast (on his 22nd panto – oh yes he is) has a super soaker and he's coming for you. It's like a festive Children of the Corn situation, the children of Merseyside must be wetted and then egged on in ritualistic dance to ensure the harvest. Written this year by Jude Christian and directed by Francesca Goodridge, with an incredible cast of actor-musos, Rapunzel is guaranteed to be the product of lots of brilliant, clever people making wonderful messy nonsense. Just don't get a blow dry before you go. Till 18 January
Tracey Sinclair: Seagulls and Sad Sad Stories – Laurels, Whitley Bay
The winner of Laurels’ theatre’s £10k Richard Jenkinson Commission, Sarah Bond’s Seagulls and Sad Sad Stories debuts at the venue this December. This story of three North East lads facing their futures marks the end of another ambitious year for this relatively young fringe theatre, which has already staged an impressive roster of new writing. 9 to 23 December
Rosemary Waugh: Robin Hood – The Egg, Bath
The country is awash with family Christmas shows but, like Judith Kerr’s Mog, I’d rather have an egg. Or, more accurately: The Egg. Each year, Bath’s children’s theatre hosts a reliably excellent shake-up of a classic tale. 2024 is the turn of Robin Hood by Daniel Bye with an anarchic youth-centred take on social justice, a baddie king and some brilliant-sounding set design. 29 November to 11 January
Holly O’Mahony: Cyrano – Park Theatre, London
Actor-writer Virginia Gay's gender-flipped, light-touch take on Cyrano de Bergerac was a highlight of this year's Edinburgh Fringe, and now it's headed for London's Park Theatre. There's not a prosthetic nose in sight, nor much rhyming, but Gay's Cyrano is as witty and charming as they come, wooing her audience as well as Roxanne. It's far less morbid than Edmond Rostand's original, maintaining a fizzy, fit-for-Christmas joyfulness until the end. 11 December to 11 January.
Oh the drama
Of course the arrival of Wicked is too big not to spark controversy. Director Jon M Chu told fans to ask cinemas to turn the volume up – to 7, rather than 11, alas – while online “debate” is “raging” over whether it’s ok or very very very annoying to sing along in a cinema. In the blue corner, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is encouraging people to “sing!” at screenings of his own movie Moana 2, while in the red corner, there’s the American woman who hired an entire cinema to ensure an uninterrupted, singing-free screening… including banning her own children from attending.
The latest in an illustrious subset of shows ‘about America by Brits that Americans absolutely fucking hated’, Tammy Faye announced it was closing a mere five days after opening. And hardly surprising, given the savagery of some of the reviews – Johnny Oleksinski’s in the New York Post called it “godawful … amateurish with lots of dead air and little focus”. We may wince, yet we also gobble up the gory details… There’s been breathless coverage of Tammy Faye’s demise, even prompting pieces like this handy primer of previous commercial disasters. Apparently nothing makes people get out the popcorn like a very public Broadway flop.
It sounds like something from a teatime drama: anonymous poison pen letters have been sent to board members of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund. Actually, it’s a pretty grim escalation of in-fighting that’s been going between different factions among the trustees over several years. One former trustee, James Bolam, suggested the Fund’s West End headquarters had gone from “a place of creativity and goodwill” to being “more like Bleak House”. Way to prove your benevolence!
Furry vulvas and singing nuns: recent openings and reviews
We’re in the slight lull between the madness of Big Autumn Openings and the snowy avalanche of Christmas Shows – but a fair few new productions have won critics’ hearts.
Plucky musical The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – re-locating F Scott Fitzgerald’s short story to Cornwall, with a rousing, folksy score – seems to have prompted swoons all round. Tim Robey’s 5* review in The Telegraph compared it interestingly – and very favourably – to the ill-advised Brad Pitt movie, but it was the effusive discussion of the show between Nick Clark, Nick Curtis, and Nancy Durrant on their now fully independent podcast, The London Theatre Review, that really reeled me in. The podcast is a great home for their lively reviews-as-discussion format – something we’re obviously fond of too, here – so it’s cheering to see its recent return.
It's all change at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, with artistic director Elizabeth Newman heading to Sheffield, and being replaced by the Alan Cumming, no less. But it sounds like The Sound of Music is a pretty glorious swansong for her, with warm reviews like this one by Joyce McMillan in The Scotsman praising the production – as well as providing a handy potted history of Newman’s impressive tenure at the theatre.
All’s Well That Ends Well is frankly no-one’s fave Shakespeare play, but most people seem to think Chelsea Walker has done a smart job of finding the comedy in this “hot moral mess”, as Andrzej Lukowski puts it in his review of her Sam Wanamaker Playhouse production for Time Out. “People have spent centuries fretting over the right tone for All’s Well That Ends Well, but Walker makes it look effortless,” he adds.
Mixed reviews for the RSC’s The Red Shoes – but I loved this fascinating write-up by someone who really knows her dark fairytales, Susannah Clapp: “In one disputed interpretation of Cinderella it is claimed that the slipper is not really glass at all but fur – and really a reference to the heroine’s private parts. Could there be a similar suggestion here? The evening closes on a memorable scarlet image, in which the red stage is ripped by a streak of brightness like a lightning flash. Vulva anyone?”
Holly Williams
Spotlight on… Julia Masli
By Kate Wyver
Proooooobleeeeeeem?
Estonian clown Julia Masli has spent the last year collecting awards, five-star reviews – and other people’s problems. She trained at the École Philippe Gaulier, created her knockout success show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha with performance artist Kim Noble, and won the Comedian’s Choice award at the Edinburgh Fringe 2023.
Proooooobleeeeeeem?
The first time I watch her, it is a revelation. The broken chair, the golden leg, the shock of the salad. It is sometime after midnight at the fringe in a thin, stuffy basement and Julia Masli has us howling as she roams among our tightly packed chairs, demanding we share our troubles so she can fix them. There is an electric feeling of what the fuck is happening, a giddy delight at having squeezed into this sweaty room with tipsy, elated strangers to witness this strange, compassionate parade of problem-solving.
The second time, it is a treat to share. Word spreads and the show comes to Soho. It feels familiar but freshly imagined. Some of the same tricks are reused, yet every time Masli stares at the person speaking, it’s like no one else exists in the world. People at the back think they’re safe until she brings out the headtorch. My brother gets called up to be her assistant. His girlfriend gets tied up onstage.
The third time, it is a puzzle. Can I guess which route she’ll take towards an answer? Where she’ll think on her feet and where she’ll recycle something she’s used before? This audience are bewilderingly unhelpful; for a show that breathes participation, they may as well have stayed in the bar. But still, Masli’s beaming face, her quick-thinking, her alien earnestness, remain unfazed.
This is a show built on surprises, no matter how many times you see it. But what sticks on repeat viewing is how similar our problems are: food, money, love, loneliness. And how what we want and need can be satisfied so succinctly: nourishment, generosity, community. Plus an occasional invitation to laser tag. I can't wait to watch Masli again.
Julia Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha is at Soho Theatre, London, 3 December to 11 January
Great read and as someone who works in the arts, but doesn't live in London, it's refreshing to see recommendations and news from across the UK's theatre scene. Looking forward to the next edition.