Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare, directed by E. R. Kinnear for GRADS at the New Fortune Theatre

I have never written about a GRADS play before, as I am a long-time (very long-time) member, and am currently on the committee. However I have had no involvement with the current production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the New Fortune, as I have been working on another play, and so I went to see it with no idea of what to expect. This is not so much a review as a series of thoughts aroused by a fascinating production.

I am familiar with the story of Julius Caesar, but not with the play in its entirety, of which I have seen only bits and pieces - bleeding chunks - over the years. Enough to make me feel like I knew it, but I didn’t. What a fascinating play it is, quite unlike other Shakespearian tragedies. It was fascinating to watch it unfold - under the night sky with the sleepy peacocks (and some scurrying rats at the back of the stage) - without a clear idea of its dramatic strategies, at least in the second half.

It is an oddly dispassionate play, but not in a bad way. There is a prevailing sense of dignity and lucidity. The characters are all noble (more or less) and there is no villain (more or less). Everybody is well-behaved - even when the conspirators are (spoiler-alert) killing Caesar, they do it in a business-like, almost embarrassed way. Antony’s speech over Caesar’s body is a masterpiece of measured rhetoric, never giving way to anger, even when it is rousing the plebs to anger. The politics are never clear-cut, but never cynical. When characters engage in passionate argument, as they do, they are soon looking for opportunities to reconcile. Neither military side when it comes to the fighting seem to really hate each other. And all the deaths eschew melodrama, with the curious and moving exception of the death of Titinius, a ‘minor’ character.

I haven’t yet done any research into the play or its reception, but I suspect that its tone is a reflection of the Renaissance perception of the Roman era as one of intellect, elevation and nobility.  Elizabethan playwrights like Ben Jonson focussed on this element, making their Roman plays quite unlike their squalorific, earthy, satirical contemporary plays. Except for a brief opening scene with comic underlings (tradies) Julius Caesar exists on a rarefied dramatic plane. Shakespeare must have been trying to go up-market.

Ellis Kinnear’s fluid and intelligent direction brings out this quality well, without dialling back on the high drama. The characters move and interact with precision and speak the verse eloquently. Entrances and exits are well-drilled, which is essential on the huge New Fortune stage. If the nature of the play itself never allows the production to raise the stakes to the highest level, it is nevertheless consistent and coherent and often very moving, and the casting choices work well.

Grace Edwards gives a strong and honorable performance as Brutus, a kind of Macbeth without the witches and with the very best of intentions. Her scenes with Cassius are absolutely splendid and beautifully delivered. Cassius is far from a weaselly villain. Although he is the most morally ambiguous character in the play, Jason Dohle plays him with force and feeling. 

Prasanth Gunasekeran is a charismatic and likeable Caesar, relaxed after his military exertions and letting his guard down. As the conspirators plotted his downfall I was reminded almost of Othello. (And when the conspirators dabbled their hands in his blood - quite matter-of-factly - I couldn't help thinking of Macbeth.)

Nick Mountain as Mark Antony seems to show genuine emotion over Caesar’s death, but his extended speech over Caesar’s body, which opens Act Two, is a fascinating example of populist demagoguery, embracing his demotic accent for the crowd.

Gabriele Maluga and Jess Wake as Calpurnia and Portia, the troubled wives of Caesar and Brutus, have ominous and neatly balanced scenes of foreboding. Jade Chilcott is an elegantly sinister Casca, then as Titinius (a character rarely if ever mentioned in Shakespeare talk, at least when I’m around) has a death scene which is an unexpected emotional high-point of the play.

Most Shakespearian tragedies and histories devolve at the end into a series of quick battle scenes, soldiers running on and off, skirmishes and reports of skirmishes, offstage shouting, duels and deaths, and Julius Caesar is no exception, although it is handled here with effective stylisation. All the important deaths are self-inflicted.

Roisin O’Neill, Mitch McAullay, Elysha Hayes, Barrdia Babaei, Francesca Yovich and Jo Lamont make up the ensemble, and all have great theatrical moments.

I have gone on rather longer than I planned and have probably lost everyone by now but I found this production intriguing and enjoyable, and wanted to get my thoughts down. See it soon - it's on tonight and tomorrow and then that’s it…

Table Manners, by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Barry Park at The Old Mill Theatre

 Alan Ayckbourn's 1975 domestic comedy Table Manners may be the last significant play written in the latter part of the twentieth century in which table manners and dressing for dinner really mattered. The central scene of the play, in which the house-guests argue about who should sit where and then proceed through an extended dinner sequence which descends into squabbling and fisticuffs, is a theatrical tour-de-force which deconstructs a traditional polite dinner party, such as might occur in a Noel Coward play, in the context of the 1970s relaxation of cultural niceties. 

In Barry Park's production of Ayckbourn's play for The Old Mill Theatre this dinner scene is the fulcrum around which the action of the play revolves, and it is a bravura piece of comic theatre, hilariously unfolded by the cast. The jokes just keep coming, along with the ghastly food. It is a technically briliant scene, and a real crowd-pleaser.

Emily Howe is cast delightfully against type as Annie, a worried and sensible woman who has devoted her life to caring for her invalid mother and just wants a holiday.  Her weary devotion and loneliness is portrayed amusingly and touchingly, and her rare emotional outbursts have impact. She is being courted by the local vet, Tom, played with engagingly clumsy charm by Samuel Yeo. For all his stolid decency Tom is really pretty hopeless, so Annie has in desperation agreed to a dirty weekend in East Grinstead with Norman, the scruffy and lecherous husband of her sister Ruth. 

Norman is played with comic brio by Ian Staunton, a gangling, grinning scarecrow of a man with 'a beard that you could lose a badger in'. His success with women has nothing to do with charm and everything to do with bloody-minded persistence and the fact that he is the only male character in the play who has any real agency and presence. Louise Fishwick is Ruth, Norman's long-suffering, short-sighted, business-like wife, conveying nicely their marital distance.

Chris Hill plays Reg, Annie's brother, and Alinta Carroll is Sarah, his wife. Sarah is a brittle domestic micro-manager whose increasingly desperate attempts to keep things 'civilised' ultimately end in a scene of emotional breakdown which is moving and funny. Reg really just wants a quiet life and would rather be at home, locked in his study, building balsa-wood planes and retreating into childhood.

Alinta Carroll reminded me very much of '60s and '70s English actresses like Jill Bennett and Rachel Roberts, which is exactly right for the part. Chris Hill reminded me of Tom Courtenay. It's hard not to make comparisons with a play that has showcased so many eminent British actors over the years - Penelope Keith, Felicity Kendall, Richard Briers, Penelope Wilton, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Tom Conti...

The play was originally performed as the first instalment of a trilogy, The Norman Conquests, showing the same action from different viewpoints - the dining room, the living room, the garden. Presented on its own, as it is here, Table Manners is a little more conventional, the characters a little less rounded. The original trilogy is a technical marvel of interlinked and gradually revealed plotting and characterisation. The first play on its own, orphaned as it were, is still a hugely enjoyable night out; funny and expertly constructed, well-directed and lovingly acted, the full house clearly enjoying every minute of it. It is fascinatingly on the cusp between traditional drawing-room comedy and theatrical modernity, looking backwards and forwards at the same time.

(It does rather show its age in the latitude allowed to some pretty appalling male behaviour. My companion gasped audibly at one particular instance of this but explained that the strength of her reaction was driven by the fact that she was so engaged by the characters.) 

This is a relaxed and enjoyable entry into director Barry Park's recent series of thematically linked plays, which I have written about elsewhere - see my review of Hansard on this site. Table Manners is quite the palate-cleanser after the intense and emotional Breaking the Code at Melville Theatre. Table Manners lacks the complex subtexts of other plays in the series, but fits neatly into the social milieu. And it's funny.

The cast is stylishly dressed by costumier Merri Ford, as if every costume was made from a vintage 1970s Butterick sewing pattern...

Captain Moonlite, by Jye Roberts, directed by Ruhama Rowe at Melville Theatre

I am a shameless old folkie, and to walk into the auditorium at Melville Theatre and see and hear a full folk band playing - fiddle, accordion, flute, keyboards, percussion and double-bass - was a real pleasure. The band remain on stage throughout the performance, providing a joyful backing to the action and the songs. Following on from the full brass band that accompanied the recent Brassed Off, this kind of live musical accompaniment has become quite a feature of Melville’s performances.

The play, by Jye Bryant, tells the story of ‘Captain Moonlite’, George Scott, soldier turned lay-preacher turned alleged bank-robber turned barrack-room-lawyer turned convict turned prison-reform-activist turned vagrant turned bushranger, focussing on his romantic relationship with his young colleague James Nesbitt. The book and lyrics nicely catch the linguistic mannerisms of the era and the show is peppered with rousing songs that are a mixture of folk and Broadway.

Jamie Lea plays the main role with full-bearded charisma and full-throated delivery. He is on stage for the whole play and is rarely in the background. He powerfully establishes Moonlite’s extravagant, self-mythologising character, delivering speech after self-justifying speech in a fine Northern Irish brogue - one gets the impression that he is not an entirely reliable narrator of his own adventures, that his constant protestations of innocence may be a little forced, but the point is really the legend, not the man. He may have been a man forced to take on his own legend, but he seems to have done so with relish.

The play opens with Moonlite in his prison cell, railing against 'fake news' in the colonial press. The role of newspapers and crowds is an ongoing theme, as it was with the contemporary career of Ned Kelly. (Apparently Moonlite offered to join Kelly's gang, but was rudely rebuffed.) Moonlite's work as an activist for prison-reform seems to have been one of his most admirable actions in a life made up of many regrettable decisions.

Moonlite's relationship with James Nesbitt, which is the emotional centre of the story, is not explored in depth, in the sense of how such a relationship might have actually played out at the time, but it is a poignant interlude. Perhaps the more poignant for the fact that its 'transgressive' nature is not foregrounded. Corban Featon plays James with unassuming gentleness.

The rest of the cast assume a wide range of characters. Craig Menner has a number of amusing roles, including a judge who sings a cleverly pastiched Victorian patter-song with Gilbertian panache.

Ruhama Rowe’s fluid staging, using projections and a scrim, keeps the action moving, focussing on broad comedy in the earlier stages but rising to a degree of seriousness at the climax. In the end this is a popular musical, a crowd pleaser, with comic turns and catchy songs, splendidly accompanied by the band, and a main character whose extravagance is of the essence. 

Australian bushrangers of this era certainly were a loquacious bunch...

Photos by Alan Gill, Curtain Call Creatives

Breaking the Code, by Hugh Whitemore, directed by Barry Park at Melville Theatre

You've only got a few more nights to see the Melville Theatre production of Hugh Whitemore's Breaking the Code, directed by Barry Park. Don't miss it.

This really is a splendid production, beautifully directed, flawlessly cast and fluidly staged. 

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It tells the story of Alan Turing, the British cryptographer who (arguably) won the Second World War for the Allies but was subsequently pilloried and humiliated for his sexuality. In the lead role, Thomas Dimmick gives a remarkable and moving performance, conveying by way of his physicality and delivery a sense of passionate discomfort and social unease, along with an impossibly deep love of the mathematics which is the only part of life he has got together. He differentiates Turing at different ages with subtlety. This really is acting of the highest quality.

Anna Head is wonderfully warm as his well-meaning, uncomprehending mother, and shows how important hair-arrangement can be to a role. Her hair made me smile twice! Patrick Downes is the Northern English policeman who uncovers Turing's secret. He plays the role with a solidity and nuance and decency that is a pleasure to watch. 

Grace Edwards is lovely as a fellow cryptographer at Bletchley Park, the only one who really understands Turing and tolerates his foibles. Martin Forsey plays Turing's academic boss with a genial tweedy intelligence that covers up for a few secrets of his own.

Jack Riches, who has recently been seen in comic roles, delivers a strong performance as Turing's working-class lover, the catalyst for the play's crisis, moving convincingly from casual opportunism to self-serving anger. 

In smaller roles, Nate Tonkin plays Turing's university friend who died young with a charm that justifies Turing's lifelong memories; Nicholas Mountain plays a government minister (with a forgettable name) whose accent at first seems mannered - but that's how some men actually spoke at the time. Listen to recordings. Jamie Brooker is a Greek youth who drapes himself languidly across the stage like a young Saint Sebastian.

In my review of Barry Park's production of Hansard at Garrick Theatre I wrote:

This links the play to a remarkable sequence of plays that Barry has directed over the last five years. Taken together they represent a sort of informal historical pageant that covers the development of modern sexual attitudes - the early sixties (The York Realist); the late sixties (The Boys in the Band); the early eighties (The Normal Heart); the late eighties (Lisbon Traviata & Hansard); the nineties (Beautiful Thing). And that's not to mention adjacent plays from earlier periods by Coward and Rattigan. It has been a pleasure to watch this sequence play out, and I am sure more is to come. 

This play is certainly a worthy addition to that sequence...

A Song at Twilight, reviewed by Virginia Moore-Price

NOEL COWARD'S 'A SONG AT TWILIGHT', DIRECTED BY BARRY PARK AT THE OLD MILL THEATRE, MARCH 2026, REVIEWED BY VIRGINIA MOORE-PRICE

This is my first attempt at writing a review—offered with full consent (and what I can only assume is a brave sense of curiosity) by director Barry Park.

By all theatrical logic, Barry and I should be rivals. The kind who exchanges tight smiles in foyers while quietly drafting each other’s artistic demise. We ought to be sharpening our critiques like knives, ready to pounce on the smallest misstep—even, if necessary, condemning the very fact that the other continues to breathe within the same creative ecosystem. It would, undeniably, make for far more delicious reading.

But no.

Instead, we find ourselves in the far less convenient position of understanding one another. We walk in the same shoes—though where his are polished, deliberate, and sensibly paired, mine are something of a mismatched experiment: a slipper, a Croc, and an optimistic sock, somehow passing as intention.

Perhaps it is this difference—or reluctant kinship—that makes me all the more delighted to turn my gaze toward his work and offer a review of A Song at Twilight.

Walking into this production feels like stepping into a beautiful, expensive trap. George Boyd’s set: lush indigo blues, gold detailing, and that glorious bay window is opulent with a pulse - It draws you in before you realise you are not meant to get out. Elegance with intent, and just enough cruelty to make it interesting. Merri Ford’s costumes follow suit; Hugo’s dressing gown is so enviable you find yourself coveting it. And Mark Nicholson wraps it all in a warm, inviting glow which, of course, is part of the trap.

Neale Paterson is splendid as Hugo Latymer. Not showy, restrained, which is far more dangerous. He plays Hugo with precision: never loud, always lethal. This is a man who has spent a lifetime perfecting the art of hiding himself. Every line is placed with intent, every barb lands cleanly, and the fleeting cracks he allows through are handled with control. A masterclass in self-preservation, he does not ask for sympathy, he dares you to find it.

Jennifer van den Hoek’s Hilde is beautifully judged. She begins almost like a receptionist rather than a wife, efficient, contained, and present. It is only in the last moments that her true purpose becomes clear, and the shift is all the more powerful for its repression.

Jack Riches’ Felix is standout; I have never seen a champagne bottle wielded with such innuendo; the cork pop alone deserves a standing ovation. His timing is impeccable, and his suggestive glances are enough to leave the audience weak at the knees.

Emily Howe’s Carlotta brings clarity, wit, and force. She does not just match Hugo- she dismantles him. Cutting through his deflections with precision and intent, she delivers Coward’s language with bite and skillfulness. Wit with purpose, and a clarity that slices clean through pretence. She drives the play exactly where it needs to go.

Director Barry Park shows a deep understanding of Noël Coward. There is respect here for the text, for the rhythm, and for the discipline it demands. No flapping, no indulgence, just precision, pace, and expertise. 

The tension builds to a crescendo, and then Barry dares to pause……. A moment between Hugo and Carlotta so perfectly held it steals the air from the room.

The lines then snap:

“You’re bluffing.”


“So are you.”


“Vile seducer.”


“Musty, ancient soul- searching…”

This is a play of letters, regret, revenge, and that deeply human need for clarity. What follows is the slow, delicious unravelling of façade. Hugo’s comeuppance does not explode, it tightens.

And then—nothing left to hide.

Hugo, reduced. Pathetic. A man left with only the version of himself he can no longer sustain.

The final image: distance, stillness, no theatrics - just quiet heartbreak that lingers longer than it should.

A love story, perhaps, but one that never fully understood itself, and is all the more bitter for it.

Noël Coward would have approved.

Virginia Moore-Price

Who's Afraid of Maggie Thatcher? A review of the play Hansard, by Simon Wood, directed by Barry Park for Garrick Theatre

The title Hansard might suggest the dryasdust transcript of a parliamentary debate, but the debate in Simon Wood’s play is more intimate and explosive; the funny and angry record of a decaying marriage and a painful family secret set against the politics of late 1980s Britain.

This is an extraordinary play: ninety very funny but increasingly emotionally-charged minutes in which the actors are onstage the whole time; bickering, squabbling, criticizing, arguing, amongst the psychic ruins and coffee cups of a marriage - building up to an ending that is unexpected and overwhelmingly poignant, and which asks us to re-evaluate what has come before.

Barry Park's production for Garrick Theatre features the almost unrecognisably smooth-cheeked Grant Malcolm as a Tory minister in the later years of Margaret Thatcher's leadership (no member of the Iron Lady's all-male cabinet would have been permitted facial hair, nor is it likely that any of them would have chosen to cultivate such a leftist affectation even if allowed) and Suzannah Churchman as his disaffected wife, alone with her Mother's Ruin in a country house in the Cotswolds.

The play is a two-hander, and is often compared to Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, as a dramatized domestic argument that swings between cutting humour and painful confrontation. Virginia Woolf meets Yes, Minister, perhaps?

Suzannah Churchman as Diana gives a powerful and combative performance, with everything on display. She is certainly not a victim in the conventional sense. When towards the end of the play mascara is running over her cheeks (from what I assume must be actual tears) the catharsis is real.

Grant Malcolm balances her as a constrained and entitled product of the English Public School system - but a man capable of standing up for himself and defending his principles. He is no glib Tory monster, and his motivations become more understandable as the play progresses. The few moments when his emotions break out are the more powerful for their abruptness and how quickly they are bottled up.

Barry Park's direction is seamless. It effortlessly brings out the play's contemporary resonances.

The play's plot turns on a notorious piece of 1988 UK legislation, Section 28, which was an attempt to make illegal any teaching that deviated from traditional conservative views of marriage and sexuality. This links the play to a remarkable sequence of plays that Barry has directed over the last five years. Taken together they represent a sort of informal historical pageant that covers the development of modern sexual attitudes - the early sixties (The York Realist); the late sixties (The Boys in the Band); the early eighties (The Normal Heart); the late eighties (Lisbon Traviata & Hansard); the nineties (Beautiful Thing). And that's not to mention adjacent plays from earlier periods by Coward and Rattigan. It has been a pleasure to watch this sequence play out, and I am sure more is to come. Garrick Theatre is to be commended for supporting challenging plays like these.

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