Black Comedy

by Peter Shaffer

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 2 July 2026

Caroline Steinbeis directs Joe Bannister as Brindsley Miller, Leah Haile as his fiancée Carol Melkett, Jason Barnett as her father Colonel Melkett, Julia Hills as Brindsley's neighbour Miss Furnival, Simon Manyonda as his other neighbour Harold Gorringe, Patricia Allison as his former girlfriend Clea, Chris Chilton as Schuppanzigh (an employee of the London Electricity Board) and Javier Marzan as Georg Bamberger, a wealthy recluse, in Peter Shaffer's one-act farce Black Comedy.

The action takes place on an evening of chaos (naturally): Brindsley and Carol prepare to dazzle her father and Baumgartner who are about to visit Brindsley's down-at-heel flat. To do this they have surreptitiously "borrowed" impressive items - furniture and knickknacks - from Gorringe's flat in his absence. Suddenly the entire building suffers a blackout during which unexpected visitors turn up and complicate the situation in the ridiculous way in which farces usually operate.

The dazzling visual technique by which all this is managed for the audience's benefit is that the opening scene in which there is electric light is played in total darkness, while the scenes in blackout are played with full stage lighting so we can see all the characters blindly feeling their way about the room. Striking a match or clicking on a cigarette lighter reduces the lighting to a subdued glow. This witty convention allows for any number of tremendous sight gags as characters try to find one another, hand out drinks, or in Brindsley's case try to move furniture into and out of the room. The arrival of a new character can be "concealed" until he or she chooses to speak, providing yet another avenue for laughs.

The physical comedy is rendered even more remarkable as the play is here performed in the round, so the gags have to be convincing from multiple angles; the small acting space means that drinks are occasionally passed in error to members the audience, and some are directly addressed by characters who mis-place where other people are in the room.

The cast and creative team (set and costume designer.Simon Daw, lighting designer Elliott Griggs and physical comedy consultant John Nicholson among others) have done the play proud, and have revealed the astonishing variety of Peter Shaffer's talent - he wrote this play within months of the epic The Royal Hunt of the Sun. Yet though this seems far removed from the high seriousness of his full-length dramas there remains beneath the surface a strong undercurrent of uncertainty and betrayal; Brindsley is tying himself in knots and unwittingly causing damage to himself as well as those around him as he persists in seeing himself only as a victim of circumstances. However, the strongest impression is of immense theatrical fun.

Hedda

by Tanika Gupta inspired by Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond on 21 October 2025

Hettie Macdonald directs Pearl Chanda as Hedda, Joe Bannister as George (Jörgen) Tesman, Milo Twomey as John Brack, Bebe Cave as Alice Smith (Mrs Elvsted), Jake Mann as Leonard (Ejlert Lövborg), Rina Fatania as Shona (Berte) and Caroline Harker as Aunt Julia (Juliane) in Tanika Gupta's adaptation of Ibsen's 1890 play Hedda Gabler, cleverly re-imagined as taking place in London in 1948.

In this setting Hedda is a film star of the 1930s and 40s determined to retire rather than keep up the pretence of her public persona. The social constraints which suffocate the original Hedda are here replaced by the trauma created by long suppressing her identity as an Anglo-Indian in order to succeed in a film world bedevilled by ingrained racism (the parallel with the careers of such stars as Merle Oberon is obvious). Aristocratic hauteur is replaced by Hedda's consuming insecurity masked by reserve, but the consequent ruthlessness remains as formidable as ever.

Around her the constellation of hapless academics - her second-rate husband and the fragile alcoholic genius - are replaced by rival screenwriters, and the calculating judge Brack by a powerful film producer. In perhaps the boldest realignment, the household servant becomes Hedda's ayah; the menfolk and Aunt Julia cannot understand the hold this figure has on her mistress, but there is a clever twist which explains all to us but remains opaque to the characters. on stage

The great scenes of the original - the disparaging of Julia's hat, the condescension towards George, the manipulation of Alice and the corruption of Leonard, Brack's machinations - all survive and thrive in this new atmosphere, and the cast deliver exemplary performances in a fascinating variation on Ibsen's themes. The evocation of the prejudiced world of glamorous film-making is transmitted with shocking directness when the men talk contemptuously about half-castes, and the threat to Hedda's position is made abundantly clear when the details of Leonard's screenplay are discussed - he has used Hedda's own story in fictional form to create what the others see, without irony, as a masterpiece of cinema, where she sees only an unforgivable personal betrayal. (In the original the details of Lövborg's manuscript are not revealed.)

There is thus slightly more melodrama in the situation, but nonetheless this was a fascinating evening.

As You Like It

by William Shakespeare

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 15 December 2015

This modern-set production is directed by Polly Findlay with sets designed by Lizzie Clachan and it features Rosalie Craig as Rosalind and Joe Bannister as Orlando, with Patsy Ferran as Celia, Paul Chahidi as Jacques, Philip Arditti as Oliver and Mark Benton as Touchstone.

Banks of computer desks on a carpet of brightly-coloured rectangles greet us, with many besuited employees busy hot-desking. In a nice nod to the later pastoral setting, the screen savers are of lush English trees and the post-it notes are all green; there are bonsai trees on every desk. A young man in overalls arrives with a toolbox and starts tinkering with a machine, then polishing some glass.

Suddenly, he is Orlando, bemoaning his lot, a mere drudge in his brother's prosperous IT firm. Soon, the same set, without the bonsai and with less idyllic screensavers, is the domain of Duke Frederick, and somehow (despite the implausibility) there is a wrestling match set up in front of all the desks.