"Kinky Boots" / "Grit"

Still running, as I write, at the Wales Millennium Centre is “Kinky Boots”, the Broadway/West End hit stopping off as part of an extensive U.K tour. This tale of a struggling Northampton shoe-making factory which saves itself by starting to cater to the drag queen market features a dazzling central performance from Kayi Ushe as Lola (aka Simon), and a mercifully non-musical-theatre-esque song score by Cyndi Lauper. And without getting bogged down in debate, Harvey Fierstein’s script provokes discussion about the nature of masculinity.

Kayi Ushe in "Kinky Boots" (Photo: Helen Maybanks)

The night after seeing this, I went to a preview of a show at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of scale – a one-man play on a post-apocalyptic theme, which is being taken to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. “Grit”, written and performed by Benjamin McCann, is a highly accomplished production – it will be interesting to see how the Edinburgh run goes.

"A Prayer For Wings" / Garbage

Last week, I paid a rare visit to Swansea, to see West End/Broadway director Sean Mathias’ production of the play which kick-started his career in the mid-1980s, “A PrayerFor Wings”, performed in his home town for the first time, at the Volcano Theatre. The play itself was beautifully performed, and stood up very well, but one was inevitably distracted by the presence of Sir Ian McKellen and Frances Barber supporting their old friend in that intimate, rough-and-ready space; Kevin Allen who played the male role in the original Edinburgh production was also in attendance.

"A Prayer For Wings" production team (photo: Swansea Grand Theatre)

Sunday night saw a long-awaited event – the visit of Garbage to Cardiff, several years after a previous date was cancelled when the band went on hiatus. In support, in the Great Hall at the Students’ Union, was DuBlonde, featuring guitar heroine Beth Jeans Houghton leading a classic rock trio with a stripped-down, sensitively punky set, mostly comprising new material; and she even manned the merch stall during the interval.

The headliners were in imperious form, singer Shirley Manson in chatty mood as she admitted being more at ease playing in a relatively intimate space than during other recent shows. With the augmented classic line-up missing only drummer and super-producer Butch Vig (rotator cuff injury), the set focussed on the  second album “Version 2.0”, the current tour marking the 20^th anniversary re-release; but newer songs such as “Blood For Poppies” got an airing, as well as classic early singles “Vow”, “Only Happy When It Rains” and “Stupid Girl”. One forgets how massive Garbage were in the 1990s, with the world ready for a female-oriented, electronica-inflected take on grunge, and Manson is certainly an authoritative but somehow relatable frontwoman. This was a propulsive, 80-minute set, and I felt the absence of some of their more poignant songs (“Cup Of Coffee” excepted), but it was rounded off with an ironic encore of “When I Grow Up”, delighting a crowd many of whom were not in the first flush of youth.

The show provided a fittingly feverish end to a day of remarkable televised sport (England’s men winning the Cricket World Cup; Djokovic beating Federer in the longest ever Wimbledon final).

"Yesterday" / "Seen" at The Other Room

Richard Curtis is adept at spinning an entire comedy screenplay out of a one-line idea. “Yesterday” is his latest, based on the idea that after a freak, worldwide power-outage, only one person – failing singer-songwriter Jack Malick, played by Himesh Patel – is able to remember that the Beatles exist, and is thus in a position to pass their classic songs off as his own. Patel is charmingly dorkish and even Ed Sheeran is effective in a cameo (as himself), but the heart of the film is Lily James as Malick’s (inexplicably single) friend/manager. There are plentiful cheesy moments, and the premise isn’t fully explored (perhaps because this would complicate things hugely), but the whole thing is lifted by director Danny Boyle’s trademark visual flourishes. “Yesterday” is really all about the love and power of music, though, and it is this spirit which elevates it into feel-good territory.

"Yesterday" poster

I got the chance to get some more theatre-directing practice this past weekend, working on a short piece by Mike Leitch for an evening of readings, under the “Seen” banner at The Other Room Theatre. In collaboration with young actors Geri McNamara, Robin Harper and T.O.R.’s Nerida Bradley, I think we managed to make the most of an emotionally resonant script, one of diverse trio of shorts (the others being by Nicholas Currie and Claire Boot) which played, as it turned out, to a full house, which was very gratifying.