Ragtime
Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, NW1
There are no half-measures in Timothy Sheader’s production of this 1998 musical, based on EL Doctorow’s epic novel about the birth of modern America. A ruptured Obama poster with the slogan “Dare to Dream” dominates the rubble-strewn stage. Contemporary Americans hover in the background as Doctorow’s fictional Wasps, African-Americans and Jewish immigrants invest in a dream that has yet to be realised. The modern references are too much weight to bear for a musical that already ambitiously combines fact and fiction, and struggles to tell so many stories in too short a time. That said, there are some terrific performances, especially from Rolan Bell as the pianist who turns terrorist when denied justice, and John Marquez as Tateh, the starving, ambitious immigrant. And the leg-flexing baseball players, choreographed by Javier de Frutos, are a hoot. JE
Children’s Children
Almeida, N1
Matthew Dunster’s play trots off, fetches a bunch of ideas and drops them at your feet in the hope that something will entertain. You smile wanly, sigh and wish it would quit yapping and take them somewhere interesting instead. This muddled, hectoring wannabe satire, in which a television presenter is begged for a £250,000 loan by a struggling friend, explores the craving for wealth and celebrity, and save-the-planet posturing. The script is lumpy with exposition, and every character in Jeremy Herrin’s production, except the one who ends up working for an NGO in Africa, is revealed as utterly self-interested. Playing a spoilt fashion model, Emily Berrington makes her character so unpleasant, you have to keep yourself from reaching for sharp objects. MS
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Canvas
Minerva, Chichester
Mike Leigh and Alan Ayckbourn have had a pop at the British holiday — why travel when you can be miserable at home? Michael Wynne tweaks the genre, as austerity and the dubious appeal of “glamping” (“Pretend camping for people with more money than sense”) drive three middle-class couples to adjacent tents on a Welsh farm. Justine and Alan find that their neighbours come in various shades of awful (sanctimonious bossy boots, posh bastards). So far, so sitcom. Things get more interesting after the interval, when everyone gathers for dinner, plastering on smiles and getting plastered on organic beer and dandelion wine. The fractures in the couples’ lives are unsurprising, but are pegged out nicely in smart performances, especially Sarah Hadland’s martinet teacher, with her laminated lists; Lucy Montgomery’s fading-smile Justine; and Lisa Palfrey, treasurable as the cheerfully despairing farmer. DJ
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Threesixty Theatre, W8
A summer treat for fans of snowy Narnia. In a big tent with a circus-like atmosphere in Kensington Gardens, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy fall through the wardrobe and into CS Lewis’s fantasy. The wardrobe is one of the few pieces of scenery. Men on stilts create a forest through which feathery and scaly creatures scuttle. When Aslan arrives, he’s a gigantic puppet with rippling muscles and the treacly voice of David Suchet. Rupert Goold’s adaptation is a bit bland, and those who tend towards Richard Dawkins’s views will twitch at the Christian undertones. But once the beavers are slapping fish on the stove, the pace picks up. The children sitting near me loved every moment. JE
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