GIRLS LIKE THAT (Synergy Theatre/Unicorn Theatre)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx2KDNusk9E

HD Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p1sF0Xtlyk

Available until: Unknown

Girls Like That is a very good play about what school can be like if you’re a girl. The title means ‘girls who behave in a particular way’. The phrase is mentioned a lot during the play. It’s not complimentary.

The play is about a group of girls who met at primary school and then went to secondary school together. It’s mostly about what happened at secondary school, but there are scenes set in primary school too and one set in the future.

THESE FOLK (Boulevard Theatre)***

 

By Jack

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyxi6Szbr-o&feature=emb_logo

Available until: no idea

I’d like to go to an improvised show. As soon as they ask for audience participation I’ll think of something impossible for them. Like if they asked me what mundane thing I’d done today I’d tell them I did a poo. Even if I didn’t. It’s not like they can check, is it? Then I’d sit back and wait to see if they go with the motion. I personally think most people do a great impression of a poo. With some people all you have to do is mention poo and they flush. And that was joke number two. Just dropping it in there. Yes I am talking ****.

FIDELIO (Royal Opera)****

 

By Megan

Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000l9rq/beethovens-fidelio-the-royal-opera

Available until: July 2021

Beethoven only wrote one opera but he worked really hard on it. There are three slightly different versions of the opera and four different overtures. Some of the music was written for a different opera which Beethoven didn’t finish. The overtures are played quite often in concerts by orchestras and sometimes Leonore Overture 3 is played in the second act but nearly all the performances are of the last version of the opera. There is a really good recording of the first opera which is conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner but I have never heard the second one.

ACT TWO - AN EVENING AT JOE’S (Joe Allen TV)*****

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTL8QqaxR0Q

Link to Act 1 (a separate concert, but I’m posting the link as you know what some people are like, if you give them Act 2, they always want Act 1 too. Some people are so greedy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEtPaI_0iRw&t=1s

Available until: They decide to take it down. How am I meant to know?

Joe Allen (the restaurant in Covent Garden not the star Wales footballer, I’m extremely fond of both, but you get bigger eyelashes in the restaurant) claims to be the stagiest place in London. I completely agree, at least if you discount whichever place I happen to be in. It is a fun and fabulous venue which has been very much missed during lockdown and it was wonderful to see the Act 1 concert a couple of months ago. The restaurant is full of theatre memorabilia and theatre people and I could basically just live there, if my husband would like to buy it, I will happily move in whenever he likes. (And he says I never let him decide anything.)

MISSING PEOPLE (Leeds Playhouse/Kani Public Arts Centre)****

 

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USAMQlXkILc&feature=emb_logo

Available until: 21^st September 2020

Missing People is a very interesting play by Brad Birch with parts translated into Japanese by Keiko Tsumeda. I think the title refers to a few different things. The characters miss the people who aren’t there. They have also missed the people they haven’t seen for a long time. But I think maybe it’s also about the fact that sometimes, we don’t always see people as they are and that could be a sort of missing people too because we’re missing what is really going on in their lives.

THE ROYAL OPERA LIVE IN CONCERT****

 

By Imogen

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/the-royal-opera-live-in-concert-1/videos/the-royal-opera-live-in-concert

Available until: 30 days’ time, I think it costs about £10 to watch but it’s worth it.

It is so amazing seeing the auditorium of the Royal Opera House again! I could really feel the tingly excitement as soon as the ROH orchestra started to play. The orchestra were in the front of the Stalls (they got rid of the seats) and the Chorus were up in the Circles and the singers were onstage. The orchestra was socially distant which means they got to have their own music stand. I hope it will be like that for my school orchestra, it always annoys me to sit next to inferior flautists and the trouble with being the best is that everyone is inferior. But it will be annoying having to turn the pages myself. The Chorus sounded great and my mum thinks she recognised Louise Armit who she really rates, she saw her at Glyndebourne in solo roles. She has really nice hair.

THE LIE (Made in Manchester)****

 

By Tommy

Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000m4dc

Available until: 28^th September 2020

The Lie is a radio play rather than a staged drama, but I believe it may be of interest to theatre fans. The considerable success of The Mousetrap, which ran for almost seventy years until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of all theatres, and also of the much more recent production of Witness for the Prosecution, which had been playing at London’s County Hall for almost three years, suggest there are many fans of Agatha Christie amongst the theatregoing public –but some will be unfamiliar with this play.