Audra McDonald finally has made it to the West End after pregnancy delayed her debut and it is incredible to me that she isn’t more of a household name. Her claim to fame is her 6 Tonys, won for both musicals such as Carousel and for dramas like Raisin in the Sun. She remains the only actress to have done this. An achievement for any performer but unprecedented for a woman of colour. Her West end debut is a revival of one of her award winning performances as Billie Holiday. She plays Billie towards the end; tired, addicted and a bit of mess. She often reminded me of Amy Winehouse, a singer I adored who was always destined for a sad end. McDonald not only embodies Holiday’s emotional destruction through casual chat and casual drug use but also her unique voice. It felt like watching Holiday rather than watching an actress playing Holiday

The fabulous set helps, with on-stage seating and some of the seats removed for stalls tables, it feels less like a theatre show and more like a late night jazz show in Philadelphia. McDonald is aided Shelton Becton as her pianist Jimmy, whose frustration with Billie felt so real. There is an awareness that she is real talent (a songwriter as well as singer), who tried to break down racial barriers with her work with Artie Shaw and her bold songs like Strange Fruit but a woman who never stood a chance.

This is where I have mixed feelings on the play; a woman telling us about her life, even a fascinating one, doesn’t always work and Laine Robertson’s 1986 work seems less groundbreaking in a world of Wikipedia. The play is as good as its performers and this would work less well if there weren’t the songs. That isn’t to say the stories are played well; Holiday’s haunting relationship with her mother (“The Duchess”) as well as her failed marriages, relationships and her sadness at never becoming a mother feel like a woman confusing all before it is too late.

I came away moved but with a skip in my step. It is a rarity to see such a moving, skilled performance from an actress that makes you forget you are watching a matinee in London and not a woman falling apart. I hope Audra makes a return to the West End in a role that showcases her humour, her voice and her talent, as well as this, has.

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill at

Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday and Shelton Becton as Jimmy Powers in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 9 September 2017. CREDIT Marc Bren

Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 9 September 2017. CREDIT Marc Bren

Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 9 September 2017. CREDIT Marc Bren

Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 9 September 2017. CREDIT Marc Bren

Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 9 September 2017. CREDIT Marc Brenner

Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 9 September 2017. CREDIT Marc Bren

Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 9 September 2017. CREDIT Marc Bren

Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday and Shelton Becton as Jimmy Powers in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 9 September 2017. CREDIT Marc Bren

First performance: 17 June 2017

Final performance: 9 September 2017

Press Performance: 27 June 2017

For full performance schedule see website: LadyDayWestEnd.com

Tuesday to Saturday at 7.45pm

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Website: LadyDayWestEnd.com
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Guest Review by Jake Laverde

Originally produced at Hampstead theatre, Richard Bean’s Kiss Me is making its west end debut. Kiss Me is a two hander set entirely in one London bedroom 10 years after the first World War.

In the opening moments, we see Claire Lams as “Stephanie”, a stiff cardigan in the shape of a woman, nervously preparing herself and her room. At one point folding over a duvet corner as if to welcome someone in before changing her mind. A smartly dressed Ben Lloyd-Hughes enters the scene and we work out exactly why, all stiff upper lip and sense of duty as he does his part to help with the re-population of the country. A medically prescribed gigolo in other words.

Richard Bean wrings out every last drop of bathos and pathos over the next hour and a bit. Claire Lam is all nerves and twitchiness in the opening scenes while Ben Lloyd-Hughes acts like he’s preparing to perform a chore. Carrying out his seduction like a well trained mechanic opening the bonnet of a car.

As both “Stephanie” and “Dennis” carry on their meetings, they open themselves up to each other. “Stephanie” literally sheds her uptight appearance, an uptight skin cast off. “Dennis” too opens up and soon his braces are hanging by his sides.

Though only running at around 70 mins, it’s possible to find yourself lost in Richard Bean’s dialogue. Flowing elegantly, touching on the absurdity of the social niceties of the time. However when Bean reaches for philosophical musing it falls a little flat and at times you can hear his voice creeping into “Stephanie’s” observations. Kiss Me touches on many themes but never seems to explore them. Not least the rather unusual relationship that develops between the leads which would have raised many eyebrows at the time.

But it’s the chemistry and tension between Lams and Lloyd-Hughes that carries this bittersweet 70 minutes. Both leads infuse their performances with their characters guilt. “Stephanie’s” nerves and “Dennis’s” stiffest of upper lips both mask and betray their pasts. Between them, they transform a small studio into the only space that matters. With each other they find a small freedom from everything else going on in the world but like all good things, it can’t last.

Kiss Me may not bring any big surprises but as a gently humorous and bittersweet tale, it delivers on all counts. A delicate and sweet thing, sort of like love really.

A play with political themes is always risky but in the last year, there have been so many political shocks that any playwright writing a politics based piece better like regular script changes.

Matthew Campling’s work is set during Brexit and just before the 2017 election (presumably so we can all have a night off from wondering if Theresa May will still be Prime Minister tomorrow) and focuses on the biggest Leave area in England; Boston Lincolnshire, an area which voted a whopping 76% leave and the couple that live there Marie (Anya Williams) and Jake (Jake Williams). Two outsiders (She went to Boarding School and he is from the North) they are jobless and bored; with their town and with each other. When Andre (Andrew Jardine), a British-born man raised in Post-Apartheid South African looking for (cheap) isolation.

He embarks on an affair with both and this could become some bawdy sex show but Campling takes his characters seriously and it is always tasteful. It is a little too serious though. The whole menage a trois scenario is as campy as hell but instead, it is a look at belonging; with some excellent points made about that area of the country’s fear of not just the outwardly foreigners but men like Andre, a man who is typical of the southerners buying second homes. Maria and Jake’s relationship could be explored further. It is never truly explained why they stay there, jobless and lonely, which is a real shame that it becomes about their sexual obsession with Andre because this has the brewings of a story about loneliness as much as sexuality.

Jardine’s Andre is a complex man, facing up to his past as well as his future. Confident in his sexuality (he reminded me of a young Rufus Sewell) and lacking confidence in relationships it felt as though Campling focused too much on Andre and not the characters and backdrop of Brexit, which was a much an emotional outburst than an informed decision on both sides. Campling’s previous experience as psychotherapist means he understands people so it was a real shame that dialogue at times jarred using terms like “archive” to discuss suppressed memories and feelings, which people just don’t do.

It is a strong work, despite at times feeling like it has too much it wants to say in its 80 minutes. I really enjoyed Rachel Adams’ set, which seemed to embrace the theatre’s small space than fight against it.  I look forward to his forthcoming piece, The Secondary Victim, which explores his psychotherapist routes further.

The English Heart is on Etcetera Theatre, Camden from 13 June – 2 July. Tickets can be purchased here https://www.ticketea.co.uk/tickets-theatre-english-heart/

Matthew’s play The Secondary Victim is on at Park Theatre 14 November – 9 December. Tickets are available now https://www.parktheatre.co.uk/whats-on/the-secondary-victim