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Review: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

May 12, 2026 at 6:04 am · Filed under Drama, Theatre, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Promotional image for the play 'The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher' by Hilary Mantel, adapted for the stage by Alexandra Wood, featuring two characters looking through a window, with event details for Everyman Theatre in Liverpool.

The play is set in 1983, the year before the real attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher with the IRA’s Brighton bomb.

The plot is simple enough. Caroline, a middle aged divorced, childless black woman living in an upstairs flat in plush Windsor, lets Brendan, a young twenty-something male with a Liverpool accent into her home because she believes him to be the plumber she’d been expecting to fix her boiler. He is carrying a bag that she assumes contains his tools.

It soon emerges the bag in fact contains a rifle, and her flat had been selected because her window provides the ideal vantage point from which to shoot Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as she leaves an engagement visiting a hospital across the road. Brendan was to await three rings of Caroline’s telephone as a signal that Thatcher was leaving the hospital, at which point he would ready himself in position to fire.

Format

The play is a two-hander between 0’ Neil as Brendan and Reynolds’ as Caroline, with them also briefly taking on some minor parts towards the end.

The stage is arranged as a studio flat, simple but nice, and suitably vintage, with a kitchen area, a small table with two chairs, a double bed, and a bathroom/toilet behind a door.

Act One features a near-continuous dialogue between the two characters, with much witty dialogue. Through this we learn all we need to know about their respective lives.

At one point, Brendan does briefly tie Caroline’s hands to prevent her escape while he uses the toilet. He also threatens to gag her and makes it clear that he prepared to use violence against her if necessary, and does use some mild violence when she tries to thwart his plan by hiding the magazine from his gun in the sugar bowl.

But it’s always clear that he doesn’t really want to do this and, although he responds to her raising the possibility of him hitting one of the nurses or doctors by mistake as they shake hands with Thatcher as merely ‘collateral damage,’ he obviously doesn’t want this to happen either. His target is Thatcher, and nobody else.

Both Brendan and Caroline are, in different ways, both very sympathetically written and portrayed.

Themes

Brendan’s motivations are revealed through his dialogue with Caroline. Though the organisation he is working for is never named, he speaks passionately of the IRA Hunger Strikers, rattling off their names when Caroline insists that, besides Bobby Sands, nobody even remembers them. But mass unemployment, which then stood at three million in the UK, and the lack of a future for young people like himself and his nine-year-old nephew are also revealed as primary motivations. The previous years Falklands War is also referenced, the sinking of the Belgrano as it was sailing away from British forces, and the sinking of HMS Sheffield in response by the Argentinians.

A sub-theme is of how the relationship between a captor and a hostage can develop into a bond. Understandably, Caroline is at first terrified at finding she has invited an armed would-be assassin into her home. But as the play develops, this bond between the two quickly grows. She takes an interest in his life, making it very clear that she is no lover of the Prime Minister herself.

The casting of a black woman as Caroline is in itself interesting, undercutting Brendan’s inverted snobbery against the sort of people who live in leafy Windsor, far away from the problems of both working class Liverpool and the ‘Troubles’ in Ireland. Brendan expresses no racism towards Caroline, but he is clearly surprised that she is able to identify a poem he quotes to her as being by Yates (which cues up a good line from Caroline about Yates believing in fairies, and thus, ‘not the ideal person to take political instruction from’). It would have been easy choice to have the character of Caroline be the sort of upper class or upper middle-class woman we imagine lives in Windsor. Making her black added an extra dimension to the story, which I assume is also the case in Mantel’s original source material.

Although she attempts to dissuade Brendan from his chosen path through verbal persuasion, as well as the physical attempt by hiding his magazine, it’s also clear that she is increasingly excited by suddenly finding herself at the centre of a potentially historic moment. When Brendan tells her that, when the time comes she can wait in the bathroom until it’s all over, she responds with, ‘No, I want to see it! I’m not missing this,’ which received probably the biggest of many laughs from the near packed theatre audience.

Another theme that is present is the question of whether individual acts of violence, no matter how justified or heroic, ever really change anything. ‘So, you kill her, they put in Willie Whitelaw or ‘On Your Bike’, and everything carries on as before.’

Tonal Shift

Brendan was resigned to his mission being a suicide mission. He had no plans to escape, and fully expected to be shot dead as soon as he exited the building after the deed had been done. But he shows openness to Caroline’s suggestion that the possibility of escape may exist through leaving her flat and entering an adjoining flat via two doors linked by a passageway, although she has never personally made this journey.

As the two leave the flat, the play takes a surrealistic turn that closes Act One and continues through most of the shorter Act Two.

Here we see the two actors play out, in increasingly rapid succession, each one punctuated by several effigies of Thatcher crashing to the floor of the stage from above, various alternative scenarios. These include, Brendan really missing his shot and hitting a surgeon rather than the Prime Minister, Brendan indeed being shot dead as he leaves the flat after a successful assassination, Brendan being visited in prison by his uncomprehending nine-year-old nephew, who has been established as the one person Brendan truly loves.  In another universe, a grown-up version of the nephew poses proudly for tourists by a Bobby Sands-style mural for his martyred uncle (it might have been better if we’d seen this mural, but this is a minor criticism).  In yet another possible world, Caroline has become something of a celebrity in the aftermath of the event, expressing her surprise at being interviewed by David Frost, and also finding herself being condemned as a ‘terrorist’ herself for her refusal to condemn Brendan. I thought there was an implied criticism of the recent proscription of a certain pro-Palestinian organisation here, especially as Caroline chants ‘Fight this law!’ at the audience.

This sudden tonal shift from the almost homely scene in the flat was disconcerting, making for feelings of shock and unease among the audience, or so it seemed to me, but it was very effective.

Finally, this bombardment of the senses is resolved and we end up back in Caroline’s flat, as the phone rings three times and the shot is fired.

Conclusion

This is a very political play, but one which offers no easy answers or moral certainties.

I won’t give away the ending, of whether or not Brendan is successful or not in his mission. I’ll simply finish by saying that this was a great play, superbly written and directed, gripping, humorous and thought provoking. Full compliments to all concerned, especially to our two actors.

After they had taken their well-deserved standing ovation, O’ Neil spoke briefly but movingly about how seeing a play a play at this theatre as a young working class kid twenty-years ago had first raised in him the possibility of, and desire to become an actor. The Everyman is a superb venue and theatre company, and has been the starting point for many great Liverpool actors, including Julie Walters, Bill Nighy, Pete Poselthwaite, Stephen Graham, Alison Steadman, David Morrissey and Ken Campbell with his legendary Science Fiction Theatre in the early 1960s (a topic which deserves its own article).

Long may it continue.

Anthony C Green, May, 2026

The play continues at the Everyman until May 23rd, and will hopefully soon be touring across the country.

Promotional image for the novel 'SPECIAL' by Anthony C. Green featuring the book cover and the text 'BUY NOW'.

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 War Of The Worlds: a play reviewed

March 13, 2026 at 3:19 pm · Filed under Theatre ·Tagged , , , ,

Written and performed by Imitating The Dog, supported by Lancaster Arts and Cast, Doncaster.

(Play review, Liverpool Playhouse, 04/03/26)

Introduction

I knew I wasn’t going to like this play within the first minute of the start. The following nine-and-a-half hours (or so it seemed) did little to change my mind.

Poster for 'War of the Worlds' by Imitating the Dog, featuring a dramatic depiction of a ruined cityscape and a large, ominous robot. The text includes details about the show dates and location at Liverpool Playhouse.

To begin, I’ll give a brief overview of the creator of the original source material.

H.G. Wells was an English Fabian socialist whose first five novels, or, more accurately, novellas, written in the closing years of the Victorian era, virtually invented modern Science Fiction, or Speculative Fiction as it was known at the time. These five short books, each of which I’ve read at least twice, dealt with space travel, about a decade before the Wright brothers first man-made flight (The First Men On The Moon), the dangers of scientific hubris (The Invisible Man and the Island of Doctor Moreau), time-travel (The Time Machine. Many argue that even the concept of travelling through time didn’t exist before this book), and, of course Alien invasion in War of the Worlds.

It should be noted that Wells himself was a strong supporter of the liberating potential of scientific progress. His elitist, statist idea of socialism saw the men of science and reason as something akin to the Philosopher Kings of Plato’s Republic. Later, he would meet with Stalin, and entertained the idea that he and the Soviet Communist Party were accomplishing the realisation of his ideas in practice.

Fo a time, he also had high hopes for Mussolini’s Fascista and Hitlers NSDAP. He soon pedalled back from this, as he did, to a lesser extent on the USSR. However, in common among much of the British Left in his era, he was a great believer in eugenics (the subject of The Island of Doctor Moreau), until the Nazis went and ruined by taking the idea to an extreme.

He was also very much a man of his time in believing in the civilising mission of British Imperialism.

The biography of Wells by former Labour Party leader Michael Foot, who was friends with H.G. from the 1930s up until Wells’ death in 1945 is well worth a read, though it does somewhat gloss over those aspects of Wells’ thought that didn’t quite fit with those of the Left in the 1980s and 1990s.

In contrast, whomever wrote this play, and it’s credited to a collective rather than an individual, appear to be very much the modern, ultra-liberal left types. I could almost smell the Refugees Welcome banner lurking unseen behind every scene and every word.

It no doubt seemed a good idea at the time, ‘Mm, War of the Worlds, alien invasion, attitudes to mass immigration. Surely there’s room for adapting it as a modern allegory on the dangers posed by the rise of the Far Right?’

It probably could be done, and done well. But it seemed to me that the concept began with the idea, with little thought as to how it might work in practice.

So, to that opening. We begin with a man in pyjamas, henceforth known as MIP, as it is, it  seems not to have occurred to the creator(s) that giving characters names helps to build audience engagement, awakening on a bare stage, with enough props to signify a hospital. He is clearly confused and disorientated. The large screen behind him, and to each side of the stage, inform us that we are in Britain 1968. Black and white Footage and photographs of a Trafalgar Square ‘Far Right’ rally appear while the vice of Enoch Powell intones excerpts from his famous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech (Like the Roman, I see the Tiber foaming with much blood…In thirty-years-time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man’ etc), something that will continue periodically throughout the play.

Two problems here. 1) I knew immediately we were in for far too much bleeding-heart liberalism for my taste, and 2) The rally seems to be from an earlier period, perhaps the one that took place on the day I was born, July 1st 1962, addressed by would be British Fuhrer Colin Jordan, though, the Mosely Speaks banner that can clearly be seen, suggest one of post-war Mosely’s dismal election campaigns, maybe from his parliamentary bid for a seat in Notting Hill (which sparked race riots) in 1959, or one of his last attempts to get back into parliament, 1964 or 1966.

For all his faults, of which being an early adopter of what would later become Thatcherite economics is, in my view, the worst, Powell was an erudite intellectual, a High Tory, not given to rabble rousing speeches at mass rallies. In this respect, the play was symptomatic of the Left’s inability to distinguish between different strands of Right-Wing opinion, so that staunch Zionist globalist Farage is routinely referred to as a ‘Nazi’. Mosely, Powell, Farage, Rupert Lowe, all the same, right?

Not really, no.

Returning to the time the play is set, we see among MIP’s belongings as he prepares to leave the hospital, a National Front badge. The NF had only been formed in 1967, from a collection of disparate Nationalist/Patriotic groups. It was hardly a thing in 1968, and Powell had no connection with it, though there’s no doubt that his interventions on the subject of immigration helped it to grow.

As the story, such as it is, evolves, MIP flees the hospital after discovering all around him within it are dead, and goes on the run. We learn that his injuries were sustained after being kicked by a horse at the Trafalgar Square rally. He dislikes immigration, and therefore is an Unsympathetic Character.

He meets up with his wife (who, I seem to remember, was given a name, Eve). He learns, and we learn via the screens, that Britain, at least, has indeed been invaded by alien war machines containing slivery snake-like aliens.

MIP and Eve head for France hoping that thins might be better there.

They hope to get there via a small boat.

What else?

Eve does not share her husband’s views on immigration and foreigners, a point hammered home by some exposition heavy dialogue between the two.

MIP has become a refugee fleeing for his life.

Oh, the tragic irony.

They meet some black people along the way.

Rather bizarrely, they too are Unsympathetic Characters. 

I won’t spoil the play for anyone by giving away the end. But it doesn’t end well.  

And involves water. 

Positives

I don’t like criticising fellow creatives, so I do try to highlight positives, where possible.

There were some.

The actors themselves did the best they could. Thy earned their money and the polite round of applause from the well-attended but not full Playhouse for this opening performance was well-deserved.

The two black actors, one male, one female, played two or three different roles each, though MIP was always MIP. I have little criticism of them, except to say that black man character (1) kept giggling inanely. Presumably, the invasion and the devastation they had caused to our once Green and Pleasant Land had driven him insane.

MIP was played competently, and I thought Eve stole the show, though whether she stole anything of value is another matter. She’ll do better. They all will.

Bless.

The interplay between the actors and the screens was actually quite creatively done. So, for instance, MIP would run on the spot on the stage, and this would appear on the screen as though he was running through the desolate streets. Or, he would stand rotating a detached steering wheel in his hand, and this would seem as if he was driving a car through a deserted road.

If you suspended your disbelief and concentrated on the action on the screen rather than the actors on the stage, it looked good sometimes though, from seat in the front row, constantly looking up at the main screen gave me neck pain.

The actors were filmed live by the other actors (and there were only four of them in total) not needed in that scene. So, credit to them, and for the Director in making good use of obviously limited resources.

Other people were manipulating the imagery on screen from period looking consoles at the side of the stage. It was well done, from a technical point of view, but I did find myself examining and trying to work out the mechanics of the production almost as much as I did the play itself.

The Alien War Machines, though we didn’t see much of them, on the screen, naturally, looked as they should, that is like they did in the excellent 1953 film production (which is better than the one with Tom Cruise, though that’s OK too).

It was suggested that the aliens came from Andromeda rather than from Mars as in the original story. I suppose because it was considered to be a settled matter that Mars couldn’t support life by 1968. I don’t think this mattered much.

Negatives

It’s difficult to pinpoint isolated instances of what was wrong with this play, because it’s the whole concept that was, in my opinion, misguided.

I’m quite capable of watching something, a play, a film, whatever, that advances a message I fundamentally disagree with disagree with, and still enjoy it. I can also watch something that is full of glaring faults, but still conclude that it was worth making, and that I am glad I saw it. See my recent review of Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”. Anybody with any familiarity with source material, or even only of previous adaptations would conclude that it was full of misguided ideas and that it missed or misunderstood many of the central themes of the novel. But I still admired its ambition, and its visual and sonic beauty. I could see what Fennell was trying to do, and enough elements remained for it to be worthy of the title.

But with this adaptation of another great book, I left the theatre with literally no idea of what message the writer(s) were trying to convey, what message it was trying to convey, whether I agreed with it or not.

What were we supposed to make of the constant use of excerpts from Powell’s most famous speech, the most obvious excerpts?

What had this to do with the actual and clearly hostile extra-terrestrial invasion that was an on-screen backdrop to the ‘action’ on stage?

Since Powell’s time, immigration into Britain and the resulting demographic change has accelerated exponentiall, especially during the last thirty years; at a pace that Powell himself would have thought fanciful.

So, one conclusion might be that the central character’s fears about ‘coloured’ immigration has been proven to be correct, that, to coin a phrase used in the play and which was current at the time it was set, when dockers and London meat porters marched in his support, ‘Enoch was right.’

But clearly this wasn’t what the creators were hoping for.

The only clue, as far as far as I could tell as to what we were meant to take from the play comes near the end, when liberal wife says to MIP, “Did you never stop to think that your attitudes might have consequences?”

So, his ‘racism’ somehow brought about the coming of the Andromedin invasion? That this was justified retribution?

How, exactly?

Or is it that, yes, there are problems associated with immigration, but only because we weren’t more welcoming.

OK, I’m not sure that works in the case of East Pakistani rape-gangs, but it’s an argument that many share.

She also said, ‘There never was an us, pure and separate.’

Of course, that is factually true. My own DNA is a mix of English, Irish, Scandinavian, and other European. And I have added to the mix by marrying ‘out’ and adding South East Asian to my bloodline via our two sons. But there has long been an English people and a British nation, and at the end of World War Two it was 98% white. I don’t know the figure for 1968 but, growing up in the 1970s, I still remember a time when it was a rarity to see a ‘person of colour’.

It is not racist to remember and to notice.

In any case, what has this to do with War of the Worlds, written, we should remember, by a supporter of Empire who would likely have been horrified by mass immigration? If they should arrive from the skies, should we wave ‘refugees welcome’ banners at fearsome tripod war machines as they vaporise our cities and our people?

If an Alien Invasion was to happen for real, then perhaps we really would unite, all races, our unity as human beings overriding our tribal separation. There’s a point to be made there, but the play fails to make it.

In any case, liberal wife would still be wrong. There would still be an ‘Us and Them.’

Conclusion

A bold and brave re-imagining of a timeless and ground breaking classic of English literature? A thoughtful work that forced one to reevaluate one’s attitude to the challenging issue of immigration and forced migration, especially at a time of a new and devastating war of imperialist aggression in West Asia?

No, and no.

It was reasonably executed, but if the aim was analogical, then it needed a lot more thought.

It just didn’t work.

The play has finished its run at the Playhouse now, but it might be coming to a theatre near you soon. See it, if you like. Maybe I’m missing something.

Anthony C Green, March, 2026

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Culture Vulture Special — March London Shows & Happenings

February 23, 2026 at 5:15 pm · Filed under Culture Vulture, Theatre

Culture Vulture Special — March London Shows & Happenings

Voiced by Ryan Written by Pat Harrington

Hello and welcome to a Culture Vulture Special. I’m Ryan, and today I’m taking you through everything London has to offer this March — the shows, the exhibitions, the oddities, and the cultural currents running through a city that’s shrugging off winter and pretending it’s spring. Or at least pretending hard enough to justify leaving the house.

So settle in. This is your March guide to London’s cultural bloodstream — a Culture Vulture Special.

Let’s start in the West End, where The Picture of Dorian Gray has arrived like a beautifully dressed existential crisis. Sarah Snook is playing everyone — every character, every emotional register — and the whole thing feels like Oscar Wilde trapped inside a social‑media algorithm that’s slowly eating itself. It’s a show about beauty, decay, and the curated self, which is to say: it’s a show about now. It’s selling out fast, so if you want to witness the chaos up close, move quickly.

And then there’s Hadestown, back again and somehow even more relevant. It’s myth, politics, romance, and New Orleans heat — but underneath all that, it’s a story about labour, power, and the cost of hope. No wonder it lands so hard with British audiences in 2026. It’s a reminder that the people who build the world rarely get to run it.

Meanwhile, The Lehman Trilogy returns for a short run at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, offering three actors, 150 years of capitalism, and a quiet, devastating reminder that the system always eats the people inside it. It’s like watching a Greek tragedy performed by accountants — and I genuinely mean that as a compliment. It’s sharp, it’s elegant, and it leaves you with that familiar feeling of “oh right, this is why everything is on fire.”

If you head off the main drag, things get even more interesting. Over at the Almeida, The Moors is serving queer gothic chaos — Brontë by way of existential dread, with a dog that may or may not be a metaphor for everything you’ve been avoiding. It’s the kind of show where you walk out thinking, “I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I’m definitely changed,” which is exactly what fringe theatre should do.

Southwark Playhouse, never one to behave, is back with Public Domain 2.0 — a musical about influencer burnout, algorithmic identity, and the internet eating its young. Southwark remains the home of “shows that shouldn’t work but absolutely do,” and this one feels like a mirror held up to the parts of ourselves we pretend aren’t there.

If galleries are more your speed, the Tate Modern is hosting Bodies in Motion, an exhibition about protest, movement, and the politics of the body. Expect suffragette banners, contemporary dance loops, and a lot of people standing very still in front of video screens trying to look like they understand what’s happening. It’s the kind of exhibition that makes you want to stand up straighter and also dismantle something.

The V&A, meanwhile, is offering ReFashioned: Clothing the Future, a look at sustainable couture and what fashion might become if we stop treating clothes as disposable. Spoiler: the future only works if we stop pretending fast fashion is harmless. It’s beautiful, it’s provocative, and it’s a little bit accusatory — which is exactly what it should be.

And because March in London is never just theatre and galleries, there are the oddities — the things that make the city feel alive in a way that’s hard to explain. The London Bookbench Trail is back, scattering artist‑designed benches shaped like open books across the city. It’s whimsical, civic, and a perfect excuse to wander without looking like you’re lost.

The Barbican is hosting a 24‑hour film marathon — classics, cult favourites, and films that should probably come with a therapist. If you’ve ever wanted to lose track of time in a concrete labyrinth while questioning your life choices, this is the place.

And Camden’s Night Market returns for its spring edition: street food, zines, handmade jewellery, and the best people‑watching in London. Enough said.

March in London is basically a cultural buffet — theatre, art, oddities, and the occasional existential crisis. Which is exactly why we love it.

Thanks for joining me for this Culture Vulture Special. I’ll be back with more stories, more shows, and more reasons to leave the house even when it’s raining sideways.

Bye for now.

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Shake It Up Baby! At the Epstein Theatre, Liverpool

October 13, 2025 at 3:26 pm · Filed under Theatre ·Tagged , , , , ,

Written by Ian Salmon

Directed by Stephen Fletcher

Starring Andrew Schofield

Reveiwed by Anthony C Green

Introduction

The reopening of the Epstein Theatre in September, following a two-year hiatus due to funding issues, is a cause for celebration. It’s a great little theatre, run by great people, and I hope its launch will prove to be a success.

The size of the audience on this night, with the theatre all but full, suggests it will be.

It was good to be back in one of my favourite places in Liverpool and, as a big Beatles buff, for my own return to be at the opening night and World Premier of a play based on the Beatles’ formative Hamburg period, 1960-62, was a bonus.

The play was written by Ian Salmon, who also wrote Girls Don’t Play Guitars, the story of Merseybeat all-girl group The Liverbirds. That was also promising, as I’d enjoyed that, as can be seen from my review from earlier this year Experience ‘Girls Don’t Play Guitars’ at Liverpool Royal Court | Counter Culture

As with his earlier work, the format of the play was of music performed live by local actor-musicians, interspersed with dramatised scenes, linked together by a narrative delivered by one of the central characters.

The decision to use former Beatles manager Allan Williams, played here by the excellent Ian Schofield, was a good one. Williams was an engaging local character who was never short of a witty line or anecdote or two, as can be seen in many YouTube interviews and clips.

He set the tone early, by introducing himself as ‘The man who will forever be known as The Man Who Gave Away the Beatles, which is my own fault, because that’s what I called my book’ (a very good book, which is sadly hard to find nowadays, unless you’re prepared to take out a bank loan).

Positives

That’s the first positive, excellent narration by Schofield in the voice of Williams, some fine dialogue, and the story of the period delivered more than adequately. At least, for non-Beatles buffs. Not quite so much for obsessives like me, who’ve read all the books and enjoy little more than picking up on inaccuracies. I’ll return to that later.

The music was also excellent. It can’t be east to find six young local lads who can not only act, but resemble the boys themselves (I’m counting Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best as Beatles here, because they were, in Stu’s case for a part of the period covered and in Pete’s for almost all of it) enough to at least get away with it, and who also have the musical and vocal chops to deliver excellent versions of the rock ‘n’ roll and standards covers that made up the vast majority of the band’s set at this time. But this was a task that the production team was able to deliver on.

The sparse set, a musical stage set up with suitably vintage instruments and microphones, with a small table and four chairs up centre, where non-musical scenes could be played out, worked well, as it had in Salmon’s earlier work.

Aside from Schofield, and bearing in mind that most of the cast took on multiple roles at different parts of the play, the standout performance, for me, came from Connor Simpkins as Sutcliffe.

Stu’, the talented painter and reluctant bassist who died of a brain haemorrhage aged only twenty-one in April 1962, has always fascinated me. I’ve visited his humble grave in Huyton, and even once started a Beatles Alternative History novel called Sutcliffe Remembers, based on the premise that he lived to a ripe old age, a project I hope to revisit.

It was through Stu’ that the two emotional high-points of the evening were delivered.

The first of these was when he serenaded new girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, with Love Me Tender.

Astrid was one of the three ‘Exis’ (short for Existentialists) along with Klaus Voorman and Jurgen Vollmer, who did so much to spread the Beatles’ appeal in Hamburg beyond that of drunken sailors and ‘women of the night’ towards a more art-school type crowd. It was Astrid who took the first iconic photographs of the Beatles, and eventually provided them with their iconic ‘Mop-Top’ hairstyle.

Love Me Tender was indeed the only Sutcliffe lead vocal (that we’re aware of) included in the band’s set. Sadly, no recording of this exists, despite his sister’s attempt to pass off a string-laden version that can still be found online as genuine. Her credibility was not exactly helped when, at the height of Britpop, she ‘discovered’ a cache of ‘lost’ Lennon-Sutcliffe lyrics which she attempted to sell to Noel Gallagher…

But the rendition here sounded much as I would have expected it to sound, and to see it sung as the two gazed lovingly into one another’s eyes, with the knowledge of the fate that awaited him, was genuinely touching.

Emotional punch number two was the moment, as the band returned once more to Hamburg, came when Astrid broke it to John (played by Michael Hawkins) that Stu’, arguably the first of three Lennon artistic soul mates, Stu, Paul and Yoko, was dead.

Arguably, dramatic power might have been added by seeing John’s reportedly hysterical reaction, which was so extreme that those present didn’t know whether he was laughing or crying, enacted on stage. But hearing Astrid’s words, a postscript from Williams and then a final song before the interval dedicated by John to his ‘best friend’ was powerful enough.

It was nice to see some rather neglected figures in early Beatles lore portrayed. This was especially true of Williams’ first wife, Chinese Beryl (‘Chinese’ because his second wife was also called Beryl – Allan seemed to have very niche requirements when it came to his spouses), because she did indeed play an important role in securing the Beatles work at this time, and was probably the level-headed sidekick that Scouse Del-Boy Williams required.

Beryl was well depicted by Jess Smith.

It would have been nice to see Mona Best, Pete’s mum, similarly portrayed, as she too was an important figure in this period. But so were a lot of people, and you can’t have everything.

Overall, both in terms of music and acting/dialogue, the play is a solid, enjoyable ensemble piece.

Negatives

I should preface this section by acknowledging that I’m not really the ideal audience for a show like this. If you’re a casual Beatles fan, and/or a fifties rock ‘n’ roll aficionado, then the likelihood is that you will leave the theatre happy and appreciative, and with substantially more knowledge about the Beatles in Hamburg than you did previously.

But we Beatles buffs are a pedantic bunch, and a lack of attention to detail can have a disproportionately negative effect on our enjoyment of any portrayal of the band.

I could cite numerous examples from the otherwise decent early Beatles movies Backbeat and Nowhere Boy, but I won’t, other than to say that they were good films which would have been better if they’d stuck to the facts as known at the time they were made.

For this play, local early Beatles historian David Bedford (not that one) acted as ‘Beatles historical advisor’, and, to his credit, out-and-out glaring errors were rare, though I’ll mention a couple that somehow slipped through shortly.

But my main problem with the play was that the story at the centre of the Hamburg period was lost, I suspect not through a lack of knowledge, but a lack of nerve, of a willingness to take chances.

The real story in a nutshell is that the Beatles were just one of many mediocre Liverpool bands who’d transitioned from skiffle to rock ‘n’ roll at the time of their first series of Hamburg engagements in August 1960. The anecdote that the leader of Derry and the Seniors, the first of the Merseybeat groups to make the trip, objected to the Beatles being sent out because they were ‘The worst band in Liverpool’ , and as such risked ruining the scene for everyone else, is well-worn, but almost certainly true.

But, through performing six to eight hours per night, night after night, for weeks on end, fuelled by booze and ‘Prellies’ (Preludin, a readily available amphetamine pill in Germany at the time), and the constant demands to ‘Mach Schau’ (Make Show) they got better and better, broadening their stage repertoire and their stage presence, progressing through the clubs, from the depressing Indra, to the slightly better Kaiserkeller to the Top Ten, to, in their final visit in December 1962, the prestigious Star Club with each visit and, as has been mentioned, also broadening their appeal beyond the usual rowdy Reeperbahn crowd.

In the play, however, the music was just as good at the beginning as it was at the end. Thus, hearing the famous remark by Derry out of Derry and the Seniors being made after a blistering performance of Johnny B Goode or whatever was incongruous.

I can certainly see the thinking behind this. Would a theatre audience want to sit through some raw, stumbling, sub-standard versions of songs before they reached an acceptable level?

Maybe some wouldn’t. But, for the story to work, I needed to see the improvement, the transition from the ‘worst’ to the best band in Liverpool, and I think it could have been done without testing the patience of the audience too much.

The sound of the band was augmented by a girl playing an electric keyboard. I don’t have a problem with this, but having her visible stage left, playing a very late-twentieth/early-twenty-first-century instrument was an error. Surely, the intent had to be to give the impression that we really were watching the formative Beatles in action? Her presence somewhat shattered the illusion, making the necessary suspension of disbelief impossible.

The decision to have the cast play multiple roles was also problematic at times. The same actor, Nick Sheedy, transforming himself from Pete Best to Ringo Starr was fine. A quick ruffle of the hair and a deepening of the voice, and job done.

And Andrew Cowpothwaite was fine as Lord Woodbine early on. But as a black Jurgen Vollmer, the third Exi? No, sorry.

The actor who played Klaus was also good in that initial role, but I wasn’t at all convinced by his later reappearance as George Martin.

When it comes to historical inaccuracies, I only spotted two.

The first of these concerned the first time that John, Paul, George and Ringo played together on record. This did indeed happen in Hamburg in 1960, two years before Ringo became a Beatle proper. It’s also true that a drunk Williams left his only copy of this record in the back of a Liverpool taxi. Neither this copy nor any of the other five acetates allegedly produced has ever resurfaced and would be worth a fortune today. The song in question was the old standard Summertime, though some also cite Fever and September Song as having also been recorded.

But they weren’t acting as the backing band for Rory Storm, the leader of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, the band Ringo was a member of at this time. They were backing the bass player out of that band, Lu Waters, who Williams thought he could possibly promote as a solo crooner.

The other error concerned the famous last chance ‘audition’ they did for George Martin at EMI.

Old George trotted out this anecdote for so long that there’s little doubt that he really remembered it as an ‘audition.’

But Mark Lewisohn’s epic Tune In, volume one of his planned three-volume Beatles biography, 1700 pages, and only up to January 1963, proved beyond doubt, with primary documentation, that it wasn’t an audition at all. The Beatles had already been signed, on the strength of the publishing rights to John and Paul’s original material.

I suppose, such things don’t matter much in the scheme of things, and I get poetic licence and all that, but I don’t see much value in continuing to recycle old tales once they’ve been shown to be inaccurate. Even if only a tiny percentage of the audience is able to spot such things, the appreciation of that tiny percentage adds a depth to a work which is otherwise lacking.

 Conclusion

As far as I’m aware, all Beatles films, plays etc have concentrated on the early days, when they were mostly a covers band, because of the notorious difficulty in getting the necessary permission to feature original Beatles material. So, it was a nice surprise when, as an encore, we were treated to a medley of Beatlemania period hits, I Want To Hold Your Hand/From Me To You/Please, Please Me/I Saw Her Standing There.

I’m not sure how the producers swung this, but I’m glad they did. The Beatles in their first flush of British fame, was a good place to end, and the performance looked and sounded authentic, and had most of the audience on its feet.

I still wish we’d seen something of the process of how they got from Point A to Point B in a mere thirty months, but, as I’ve said, I suppose I’m not really the target audience.

A good night out.

The play concludes its run at the Epstein on 11th October, but will no doubt be appearing at a theatre near you soon.

Anthony C Green, October 2025

Book promotion for 'Better Than The Beatles!' by Anthony C. Green, featuring bold text and a blue sky design.

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Artistic Obsession and Despair in Hunger

August 21, 2025 at 10:26 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , ,

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The stage adaptation based on Knut Hamsun’s Hunger is a raw, unrelenting descent into the mind of a man undone by poverty and obsession. From the opening moments, where the Writer looks back at Oslo (then Kristiania) as he sails for England, the production plants us in the uneasy space between memory and creation. What unfolds is not simply the story of physical hunger, though that is always present, but the spiritual hunger of a man who longs to transform the chaos of his suffering into literature. This tension between torment and creativity drives the piece forward, and the audience is asked to endure the same turbulence of mind and body as the Writer himself.

Two performers on stage holding different handmade masks, with dramatic lighting highlighting their faces.

Roland Reynolds takes on the role of the Writer, and his performance is nothing short of magnetic. He begins with energy and confidence, full of the hopeful arrogance of youth, but as hunger and humiliation corrode his spirit, we see him unravel with painful precision. Reynolds gives us a man torn between lofty artistic dreams and the cruel demands of survival, and he makes the audience feel every pang of his descent. Around him, Zaza Bagley, Angel Lopez-Silva, and Anastasiya Zinovieva each step into multiple characters with fluid ease. At times comic, at others brutal, they shape the shifting landscape through which the Writer stumbles—landladies, sailors, strangers, and the enigmatic Ylajali all appear and vanish in their hands, adding to the hallucinatory feel of the piece.

Visually and physically, the production is relentless. Movement is choreographed to reflect the pulse of a restless city and the jolts of a nervous system under siege. At times the stage feels like a crowded street, full of noise and agitation, and at other moments it collapses into stark silence and stillness, a reflection of the Writer’s isolation. Lighting and sound deepen the hallucinatory quality, sometimes overwhelming in their intensity, at other times fading into shadow as the character drifts further from reality. The piece offers no easy relief or moments of sentimentality; instead, it insists on immersing the audience in the exhausting repetition of despair, humiliation, and fleeting hope that defines the Writer’s days.

What gives the production its force is its absolute refusal to soften the source material. This is not an easy watch, nor is it designed to be. It is as if the audience is being asked to inhabit hunger itself: the gnawing absence, the disorientation, the obsession with scraps of food or words or moments of connection that quickly turn sour. That relentlessness is both the production’s greatest strength and, at times, its weakness. Some might long for a pause, a breath, a moment of counterpoint that never comes. Yet to insert such relief might betray the integrity of Hamsun’s vision, which is about the endurance of suffering without escape.

There is, too, an unease that hangs over the work because of Hamsun himself. His later support for fascism and Nazism casts a long shadow, and the adaptation does not explicitly engage with that fact. For some, this absence may feel like a glaring omission. But perhaps the choice is deliberate: to focus solely on the psychological terrain of Hunger, rather than the politics of its author. The result is a piece that remains faithful to the original novel’s intensity while leaving the ethical questions hovering unspoken in the background.

In the end, Hunger is both a brutal endurance test and a strangely exhilarating work of theatre. It strips away comfort, forcing the audience to confront the raw edges of desperation and the dangerous allure of artistic obsession. Reynolds holds the stage with a performance of fragile brilliance, while Bagley, Lopez-Silva and Zinovieva conjure a city that both feeds on him and reflects his collapse. Watching it is not a pleasant experience, but it is a powerful one, and it lingers long after the lights fade. As if to underline that impact, Richard Demarco himself was in the audience, shouting “Bravo!” at the end—a fitting endorsement from a man who has championed challenging art for decades. It is a mirror held up to anyone who has ever felt unseen, unwanted, or consumed by the need to create, and it leaves you shaken by its honesty.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

More information and tickets here

Read an interview with Roland Reynolds here

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Exploring Madness in Paperlight Theatre’s Caligari

August 20, 2025 at 7:11 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , ,

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Paperlight Theatre’s Caligari takes the 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and reshapes it into something strange, witty, and unsettling. It keeps the expressionist spirit of the original but adds humour, modern touches, and a knowing edge. What might have been a simple retelling becomes a theatrical experiment that unsettles and amuses in equal measure.

The performers involve the audience from the beginning. They break the fourth wall, step out of character, and share the mechanics of the play. For many this gave the show a fresh spark, a sense of intimacy. For others it may have felt jarring. But it worked, for me, as a way of pulling us into the bizarre world being created. The police were played for laughs, bumbling, ineffective, figures of satire, which added to the sense of rebellion and increased the sense of helplessness and drift.

A stylized puppet figure stands in front of the title 'CALIGARI', evoking themes of manipulation and expressionism.

The piece did not lose sight of its darker roots. The theme of circularity ran through it, with characters repeating themselves as though trapped in a nightmare loop. This echoed the unease of the original film and gave the show a dreamlike, haunting quality. Yet one weakness was the depiction of Caligari himself. In the film his obsession was clear, half-academic curiosity, half madness. Here his motivation was less sharp, leaving a gap at the centre. Nonetheless, Tyler Raines delivers a chilling glimpse of a manipulative mad man.

Even with that flaw, the staging was inventive, the play of light and shadow effective, and the cast strong. The whole thing had a surreal atmosphere, laced with comedy and unease. You leave amused and unsettled, with the sense that the madness and manipulation of Caligari is not so far from our own time. It is more than homage—it is a clever, memorable reinvention of a classic story, well suited to the spirit of the Fringe.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

More information and tickets here

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Achilles, Death of the Gods – Edinburgh Fringe 2025

August 18, 2025 at 10:14 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , ,

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Jo Kelen’s Achilles, Death of the Gods is a work of stripped-back theatre that puts one performer centre stage and demands our full attention. She commands it from the first moment. Through voice and gesture alone she conjures a whole world of war, love and grief. It is difficult to take your eyes off her. Each shift in tone or movement brings a new character into the space, whether Achilles raging in battle, Patroclus offering tenderness, or Briseis speaking of the horrors endured by women in war. Without props or spectacle, Kelen holds the audience in the palm of her hand.

The story is well known, but here it becomes something more than myth. At its heart lies the question of choice. Achilles chooses to seek vengeance and it leads to desecration and destruction. Later he chooses to relent, and that moment too has consequences. Every action reverberates, reshaping lives and altering destinies. Kelen makes this theme clear without ever lecturing us. Instead, it emerges naturally in the flow of storytelling, as we watch each decision tighten the knot of tragedy.

This is not an easy piece, nor is it meant to be. The language is lyrical and often brutal, with images of violence and violation that are hard to hear. Yet within this darkness lies a kind of honesty, a reminder that actions carry weight and that power unchecked corrodes the soul. By the end, we are left with more than a retelling of Homer. We are left reflecting on our own lives, our own choices, and the shadows they cast. It is powerful spoken-word theatre, delivered with an intensity that lingers long after you leave the snug confines of Paradise in Augustines.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

Tickets and more information here

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Review: Fun at Parties – Berlin Open Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025

August 17, 2025 at 9:19 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , ,

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Graphic text that reads 'FUN AT PARTIES' in a translucent, bubble-like style, set against a black background.

Performed by a diverse, Berlin-based ensemble, the production uses costume changes to signal character shifts, with four actors portraying a wide range of roles. This fluidity reflects the transient nature of club culture, though it occasionally leaves the audience grasping for narrative clarity. Breakout monologues punctuate the action, offering glimpses into personal histories and emotional stakes, but the lack of a strong throughline can make the piece feel fragmented. Still, the staging and lighting are evocative, capturing the neon-soaked intensity of Berlin’s nightlife with flair.

Berlin Open Theatre’s Fun at Parties is a kinetic, emotionally charged exploration of the city’s legendary club scene, where the pursuit of euphoria collides with the realities of burnout, legacy, and cultural preservation. Set in the underbelly of Berlin nightlife, the play follows a rotating cast of organisers and partygoers—some chasing transcendence on the dancefloor, others fighting to keep the dream alive for future generations. The show’s premise is clear: while the music thunders and bodies move, the real drama unfolds behind the scenes, where community, identity, and exhaustion intertwine.

What makes Fun at Parties compelling is its refusal to romanticise the scene. Instead, it interrogates the emotional labour of those who build and sustain spaces of joy. The all-female cast brings depth and nuance to a world often flattened into cliché, portraying friendship, vulnerability, and resilience with raw honesty. This is not just a celebration of club culture—it’s a reckoning with its costs and its legacy.

For anyone who’s ever danced till dawn or wondered what it takes to keep the music playing, Fun at Parties is a must-see. It’s a love letter to the scene, written in sweat, light, and longing.

Reviewed by Maria Camara

More information and tickets here

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Fringe Review: Iago Speaks

August 17, 2025 at 4:36 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

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Iago Speaks is a riotous, resonant post-Othello two-hander that gives voice to one of Shakespeare’s perpetual shadows: the jailer. A stock figure who lingers at the edges of tragedy—arriving too late, speaking too little—he’s reimagined here as a philosophical clown, a reluctant midwife to Iago’s final confession. Daniel Macdonald’s script is both homage and critique: it honours the Bard’s architecture while gleefully dismantling its hierarchies.

Promotional image for the play 'Iago Speaks,' featuring two male actors in vibrant costumes, with bold text overlay displaying the title and a review highlight.

Joshua Beaudry’s Jailer is the soul of the piece. He stumbles, cajoles, philosophizes, and—at one point—professes love to a bewildered audience member, a moment that had me laughing out loud. His register shifts are dazzling: Shakespearean gravitas one moment, crude vernacular the next, always with a glint of mischief. He’s one of “the others” in Shakespeare—the unnamed, the unacknowledged—and his growing awareness of this status gives the play its emotional charge. He’s not just comic relief; he’s a someone developing an understanding of power in society.

Skye Brandon’s Iago is true to form: a master manipulator whose weapon is language. In Othello, he engineers tragedy through insinuation and rhetorical sleight of hand—planting the handkerchief, whispering doubts, and coaxing Othello into murderous certainty. Here, he remains coiled and calculating, his silence broken not by remorse but by provocation. Brandon plays him with snake-like charm—amiable on the surface, but always circling the truth with menace.

The language play is exquisite. Macdonald’s script gallops through slapstick, existential dread, and dramatic irony, never losing its rhythm. It’s a world where words are weapons, lifelines, and punchlines—and the audience is invited to wield them too.

Whether you’re a Shakespeare devotee or a Fringe wanderer, Iago Speaks is a must-see. It’s funny, philosophical, and fiercely original—a celebration of the overlooked, the absurd, and the power of words and their danger.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

More information and tickets here

Read our interview with Daniel Macdonald here

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Supermarket 86: A Raw Exploration of Female Friendships

August 15, 2025 at 5:57 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , ,

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Supermarket 86 – Dream House | theSpace @ Surgeons Hall

In the flickering fluorescence of a small-town convenience store, Supermarket 86 unfolds like a memory half-recalled—warm, awkward, and tinged with regret. It’s 2007, and a blizzard has swept through Ithaca, New York, closing the roads and trapping five young women overnight in a supermarket that feels more like a liminal space than a retail outlet. What begins as a weather-induced inconvenience becomes a crucible for confession, confrontation, and quiet catharsis.

Mia Pelosi’s script is deceptively gentle. It doesn’t shout its themes—it lets them seep in slowly, like the chill through the automatic doors that never quite close. As Rose, the weary cashier with a voice like gravel softened by honey, Pelosi anchors the piece with a performance that’s all restraint and resonance. Her ex walks in just before the power cuts, and the emotional voltage spikes. What follows is a series of revelations—some whispered, some shouted—that feel earned, even when the plot leans on coincidence.

The ensemble cast includes four other women—Jules, Tasha, Lena, and Morgan—each drawn with care and played with conviction. They blow in with the storm, bringing unresolved histories, half-healed wounds, and the kind of emotional shorthand that only comes from years of shared summers and broken promises. The chemistry between them is electric—so natural, so unforced, it feels less like theatre and more like eavesdropping. Their dialogue crackles with authenticity: half-finished sentences, private jokes, and moments of silence that speak louder than words.

A young woman sitting at a supermarket counter, looking contemplative, with shelves of products in the background and a snowy effect overlay, promoting the play 'Supermarket 86'.

For some audience members—particularly men—there’s a voyeuristic thrill to this intimacy. All five characters are female, and the show offers a rare window into the emotional terrain of young women navigating identity, legacy, and longing. It’s not exploitative, but it does evoke the same curiosity that once made Cosmopolitan a guilty pleasure for male readers: a sense of listening in on conversations not meant for them, and being moved by what they hear.

Director Ellie Aslanian keeps the staging tight and intimate, using the confines of the Stephenson Theatre to evoke both claustrophobia and closeness. The set—a lovingly cluttered supermarket aisle—becomes a metaphor for emotional detritus: the things we carry, the things we discard, and the things we pretend not to see.

What elevates Supermarket 86 beyond its premise is its emotional honesty. It’s a play about young women navigating the messy terrain of friendship, grief, and self-definition. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves to survive, and the ones we finally dare to share when the night is long and the exits are blocked.

The show never overreaches. It stays grounded in the human, the awkward, the tender. And in doing so, it reminds us that even the most ordinary places—a supermarket, a snowstorm, a game of “Truth or Dare”—can become sacred when we choose to show up fully.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

Tickets and more information here We interviewed Mia Pelosi here

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