Kneehigh's The Red Shoes

Kneehigh's darkly unnerving subversion of the fairy tale The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen was one of their first productions, and given how much of a fan of theirs i've become over the years, it was interesting to see a revival of play (at the BAC) that 10 years ago catapulted them from bucolic creative exile in Cornwall into the mainstream cultural throng of the capital - this year sees their latest production, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, open in the heart of the west end.

The Red Shoes as presented by Kneehigh takes the Christian moral of the original story, which condemns vanity, moral turpitude and self interest and praises religious subservience,  and tweaks it slightly but significantly. In the original the heroine is a vain girl besotted with her red shoes; she wears them continually, shamelessly flouting social and religious convention; she becomes demonically possessed by the shoes, which cause her to dance all the time, never giving her pause for breath so she is forced to have her feet amputated - only in death does she find religious salvation and relief. In this production the heroine is a much more sympathetic figure, a rescued waif who once possessed by her scarlet demon dancing clogs is categorically rejected by the church when she asks for help - the prospect of death after her physical mutilation is less a relief than the ultimate punishment for her sins. God (in a flying cap) seems to drag her kicking and screming into the afterlife. there's no sense this is a good outcome and so she flees - it's an escape that seems to suggest that being different and doing your own thing should not be condemned.

What initially rocks the moral boat is the cast of outcasts who tell the story. The tale is narrated by a flamboyant tranny standing on high - prancing about on a platform above the stage. He's confident, wry, cocky - no morelising authority in the traditional sense. Down below the 'puppet' actors who act out the tranny's words are dressed like members of the lunatic asylum in grubby underwear and with shaved heads - they silently act out the story, accompanied by stirring music, and sporadically don accessories which give a hint of a costume - a pair of glasses and a cape, or a floral headpiece and and an apron. you're never allowed to forget that these characters are really madmen - lost, confused and controlled by a puppet master. Their mime-style performances contribute to a haunting, eerie and unsettlingly dark message, but flashes of humour  light up the stage like strobe lights - it's mesmerising, sinister, disturbing.

The tricks of performance are what maks it so special though - the fishing rod which whips the amputated red shoes about the herione's head, the dances and songs which are links in the chapters of the story, the sound effects which inject the fairy story with real horror (the sawing and crunching of bone as the butcher amputates the feet set your teeth on edge). It's magically sewn together - stitched with invisible thread, you easily follow the episodes of story, but they only really come together towards the end, when forgotten elements suddenly glow with relevance. It's no surprise it's been such a hit.

Women Beware Women

I love love love The Revenger's Tragedy, a Jacobean melodrama cum twisted morality play by Thomas Middleton. at one point there are 8 deaths in 7 lines and in a climactic scene the lascivious duke is made to kiss a rotten corpse, via which act he is fatally poisoned. fun. what more can you ask for on the histrionic drama front? nothing, it literally defines over the top. and the pseudo moralising element is hilarious as everyone is basically heinous and utterly despicable. even the people who think they are the good guys are proven to have the morals of a gnat and a warped, misdirected sense of integrity. The National Theatre staged The Revenger's Tragedy two years ago, with Rory Kinnear as the fabulously flawed 'hero' Vindice. It did so well, with rave reviews and a sold out run, that this year they are staging Women Beware Women, also by Middleton. In spirit, Women beware Women is deliciously similar - with a voracious appetite for treachery, lust, avarice and vice, and boy it doesn't really stray from the title message; women are rather rambunctiously shown to be adulterous, two-faced, manipulative, treacherous, slutty, mercurial, meddling whores. Still, the men don't come off much better - rapacious, proud, greedy, smug, ignorant, pompous, manipulative, hoarding, self-obsessed are some descriptions that would happily stick. It's great fun. not as fun at The Revenger's Tragedy, but certainly up there in terms of luxuriously revelling in the direst, blackest depths of human behaviour.

At the centre of the drama is Livia, stupendously brought to live by Harriet Walter. During the course of the play she pimps out her niece, Isabella, to her brother (her niece's uncle, rather than father, and who is in love with her) by telling Isabella she is not related to her uncle as her mother was basically a total slut. Isabella then embarks on an incestuous affair with her uncle, although simultaneously agreeing to get engaged to a complete simpleton with bags of money and a peculiar affection for Harlequin print socks. Odd. Livia then diverts the attentions of her neighbour in a game of chess, so the Duke can rape her neighbour's pretty new daughter-in-law, Bianca. but the new bride then abandons her husband (Leantio, a superficial loser anyway) for the duke because, basically, he's rich. Old sleaze-bag Livia then spots whining Leantio and hotly pursues him like a cougar on heat and then keeps him as her toyboy, which he moans about as he doesn't know a good thing when it slaps him in the face. The shit hits the fat at the wedding of the rapist Duke and two-timing Bianca and it's death all round in a sex/lust/bloodthirsty feeding frenzy - here emphasised by the presence of darkly ominous, spikily present vulture-like men sporting black wings. It's wild.

The first half drags a little, even though the action is incredibly pacey - arguably the men have too much talking and simply aren't as devilishly interesting as the women but the second half hots up to inferno temperatures, romps along and is hilarious. this production sees some serious over-acting, which is fine, more than fine - wonderful, actually but occasionally it's a little uncomfortable as it's not hammy enough. Bianca's trauma after being raped is a tricky one to play, i see - can there be a place for genuine emotion in such a brilliantly OTT play? but her hysteria rang neither true nor wittily over played. There's also some funny live jazz going on throughout the play. i WISHED IT WOULD STOP. the revolving stage's mash-up of macabre opulence and industrial decay worked well for me, it hammered home the two faced, doubled-edged nature of shenanigans, and some people knowing what was going on and others remaining completely in the dark.

all in all a deliciously dark romp i'd highly recommend if you have a penchant for melodrama. Beckett fans stay away. It's also part of the Travelex £10 season, which is handy.