I am ashamed to say that, until yesterday, I had never seen The Killing of Sister George. \u00a0I don’t know why – the opportunity had never arisen, I suppose. \u00a0But the Artful Theatre production of the play at the Eel Brook (fabulous name!) in the New King’s Road SW6 was well-worth waiting for.<\/p>\n
I arrived twenty minutes of so before the start to find a rather noisy charity auction going on in the pub which forms the ground-floor of the theatre building. \u00a0But producer Justin Savage was very assuring that the auction would end at 3pm, which was when the curtain was due to go up. \u00a0And it did.<\/p>\n
The set was simple and effective; little touches here and there created the 1960s beautifully, although the play itself could have been set in almost any decade since, even the present day, with our ever-increasing obsession with celebrity and the killing-off of favourite soap characters. \u00a0It is a fabulous vehicle for female actors – I can’t understand why it isn’t being performed continually throughout the country. \u00a0Or the world! \u00a0I found myself mentally \u00a0adapting and staging it in Antigua on the 22 bus going back to Sloan Square – but I digress!<\/p>\n
Each actor was strong and confident in their role and I found my sympathy frequently veering from one character to the other in the space of seconds. \u00a0Sioned Jones beautifully portrayed the ‘schizophrenia’ of June\/George showing how the lines between the actor and the character become completely blurred. \u00a0She slipped into George with ease and together with Mrs Mercy Croft, a delightful, middle-class Face of the BBC (played to perfection by Sarah Shelton) brought the radio soap Applehurst alive for us. \u00a0June was positively vile to Childie, but as the play progressed, Childie turns out to be shallow and dislikeable and all credit to Briony Rawle for making her totally believable. \u00a0And popping in and out throughout is the colourful, funny, eccentric clairvoyant Madame Xenia. \u00a0Janet Amsden, who I worked with briefly recently on a pilot, was outstanding in this role.<\/p>\n
It was theatre as I enjoy it and I thoroughly recommend this show. \u00a0It’s on until \u00a021st November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am ashamed to say that, until yesterday, I had never seen The Killing of Sister George. \u00a0I don’t know why – the opportunity had never arisen, I suppose. \u00a0But the Artful Theatre production of the play at the Eel … Continue reading