on the Zocalo

Six - pop musical where Henry the Eighth’s wives finally get their say. I went in without knowing any of the songs and liked this a lot. It’s short (80 minutes), punchy, emotional, and although it’s also not remotely subtle, I was hooked as soon as they started playing a techno version of Greensleeves on the intro :D (the four on-stage musicians are, like the cast, all women/nonbinary). My favourite song was Catherine Howard’s All You Wanna Do, because I am a sucker for repetition showing how relationships twist over time, the things we seek out originally becoming the same things that harm us etc (see also my otherwise inexplicable fondness for Nickelback’s Figured You Out), but I also like Catherine of Aragorn’s Beyoncé-ish No Way and Anne Boleyn’s Don’t Lose Ur Head (Anne of Cleeves goes completely off-script with a song about how fabulous it is to be wealthy and single in her own palace, postdivorce, which was also great). The audience were super enthusiastic, with quite a few in costume, and it was at the Civic, which is always an excellent venue.

Murder on the Orient Express - sometimes I just want to see a solid theatrical production with a great set, and this thoroughly delivered. It’s a relatively recent adaptation and it cuts down the number of suspects to eight, as well as removing some of the red herrings and not requiring the audience to actually study the train compartment diagram they’ve put in the program (it does, however, keep that fantastic bit of stage/detective craft with the wire mesh from the hatbox and the mostly burned letter, which I’ve always loved). The costumes are fabulous, as is the set - although we attended a preview and they had to stop twice in the first act because the carriages weren’t moving as planned - and it’s stagey without falling over too far into mockery, and Poirot manages to convey clearly the between wars setting and his own concerns about how justice is best served. Rima Ti Wiata is incredible as the much-divorced American actress, but I also really liked Sophie Henderson as Countess Andreyni, with her accent falling apart as Poirot confronts her with her past.

There were a few changes that didn’t work for me, and these were all more the adaptation rather than the performances. At one point someone said it was three years since Daisy’s death, which may have been a mistake but if not is way too recent, and the timing of the snowdrift stopping the train versus the murder itself seemed off, and there’s a key bit in the Countess’ speech that isn’t followed up on in the denouement. But I enjoyed it. It’s directed by Shane Bosher, who used to be the artistic director of the Silo Theatre from 2001-2014, who consistently put on the sort of excellent modern theatre that is the other thing that I want to see and that there seems to be a dearth of in the city nowadays. The ATC's next production is the latest Roger Hall, which I would not go to if you paid me (I haven't seen it but I have disliked his plays for ages) - they do have a Mary Shelley piece coming out in August, tho', which I could be persuaded to try.