3/24 ... others mere gormless wordplay about “puffling pants”. The dialogue ranges from snatches of iambic pentameter to a made up Blackadder-esque Stuart-speak of 'puffling pants' 'coddling pieces' and 'Pure-titties'. The show, directed by Sean Foley, opens at the Gielgud Theatre on February 7. While Mark Heap, who TV viewers will know as Robert Greene, will play a new character, Dr John Hall. Hilarious Helen Monks is back as Shakespeare’s grumpy daughter Susanna. Top comic Rob Rouse will once again have us laughing at his Bottom and the show-stopping Mark Heap who played Robert Greene is returned in villainous guise. WhatsApp. Punchlines and slapstick are meticulously timed, culminating in a spectacular sight-gag involving costumes (designer Alice Power) including a bear suit, an unfeasibly large codpiece and an escalatingly testicular pair of the baggy-thighed trousers Elton calls, in his one of his neat pieces of mock Elizabethan lingo, “puffling pants”. If you value what this story gives you, please consider supporting the Ham&High. Facebook. Danielle Phillips and Helen Monks are glorious as Shakespeare’s sassy, broad-Brummie daughters, and Jason Callender and Rachel Summers move fluently between comedy and tragedy in a Twelfth Night/Othello mashup subplot. The show follows Will Shakespeare, played by the genius wit David Mitchell. ‘Gotta say, the brilliant new actors who are joining Upstart Crow for the first time will have to really pull up their puffling pants if they don’t want to get upstaged.’. Audiences unfamiliar with British TV will wonder why every entrance in the opening scenes of The Upstart Crow wins applause, a courtesy usually reserved for movie stars on stage. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. David Mitchell makes his West End debut in Ben Elton's stage adaptation of the critically acclaimed BBC TV sitcom, Upstart Crow.This all-new comedy - written especially for the stage - will see Mitchell once more don the bald wig and bardish coddling pouch in his iconic characterisation of Will Shakespeare.. 1/24. Johan Persson. PUBLISHED: 16:18 18 February 2020 | UPDATED: 14:47 05 March 2020, David Mitchell and Gemma Whelan in Upstart Crow at the Gielgud Theatre picture Johan Persson. Opening at the Gielgud Theatre on 7 February. Upstart Crow - in pictures. Our industry faces testing times, which is why we're asking for your support. Writer Ben Elton said: ‘Besides Will and Kate many of the other characters from the TV sitcom feature in this new play and I’m delighted that they will all be played by the original actors. The Stratford-London stagecoach eerily anticipates modern railway issues, including glibly alliterative anti-terrorism announcements. Echoing Elton’s joke-about-woke novel, Identity Crisis (2019), other lines touch on possible contemporary contradictions between fluidity of expression and constriction of comment. Mark Heap makes a splendidly rabid Puritan whose lustiness gets his commeppance with a Malvolio style trick. "I take the view that having my romantic ingenue say ‘Eh, wot, shut up, Romeo, oh, you’re so weird, eh, shut up, I hate you’ would be slightly less effective than my own timeless poaching." Many of the sitcom's starts join stage version. Every contribution will help us continue to produce local journalism that makes a measurable difference to our community. David Mitchell, listing no previous stage credits in the programme, is engaging and confident, reprising the shambling plagiarist dramatist of the TV series, but also required to deliver key King Lear speeches in earnest, which he does impeccably. Helen Monks and Danielle Phillips are Wills' Brummie daughters who teach him a Lear-like lesson, and best of all is Gemma Whelan as landlord's daughter and wannabe actress Kate, as gifted at broad comedy as she is at her brief moment as Desdemona. He and director Sean Foley have crafted a mostly original, stage-friendly, sublimely silly Jacobean romp in which David Mitchell reprises his plagiaraistic Bard - this time with writer's block and a pressing need to write a hit for James I. Snatches of Othello, Twelfth Night, and even King Lear make an entrance, as does a brilliant dancing bear, who naturally pursues Stephen Speirs' blusteringly hammy Burbage from the stage. 24 show all. Oddly, Elton’s writing credit is for the “book” (more usually applied to dialogue in musicals), but this is emphatically a play – the most consistently funny and expertly staged comedy since Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, which similarly ignored recent social memos about the need for humour to tread carefully. “Upstart Crow” spins storylines that often mimic the contours of the bard’s famous plots. A working knowledge of the Bard's output is helpful as there are numerous gags that affectionately spoof Shakespearean conventions, convoluted plots and mix of the low and highbrow. We see you are using AdBlocker software. Director Sean Foley, a comedy specialist (Perfect Nonsense, The Ladykillers), had a rare misfire last year with an uncertain West End adaptation of the film The Man in the White Suit, but returns to top form. ‘Steve Speirs returns as Burbage the actor, no doubt relishing the extra opportunity that live theatre offers for serious shouting and strutting. Upstart Crow is a British sitcom which premiered on 9 May 2016 at 10pm on BBC Two as part of the commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare.Its title quotes "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers", a critique of Shakespeare by his rival Robert Greene in the latter's Groats-Worth of Wit.. Chortle. Upstart Crow Facts . - Will Shakespeare The TV version took liberties with history by making Robert Greene, Elizabeth I’s theatre censor, active long after his presumed death date. There's also much mileage in sending up pompous theatre folk, the terrible commute from Stratford to London, and contemporary 'wokeness' in a pair of shipwrecked African twins whose gender swap contortions see them tangled in a metatheatrical slew of trans/mixed race/same sex liaisons. The Upstart Crow review – authentically Shakespearean right down to the puffling pants | Stage. The first three will be reprising their roles from the BBC Two comedy as Susanna, Bottom and Burbage respectively. The show, directed by Sean Foley, opens at the Gielgud Theatre on February 7. Gemma Whelan, as Kate, the landlord’s daughter, charmingly portrays the frustration of an era in which women might occasionally be Queen but could never be actors. Website and all original content copyright © Chortle 2000 - 2020. Elton’s own speciality, helped by the advantage of four centuries, is then-and-now ironies. Chortle had 106,222 unique users in the seven days to October 4. February 18, 2020. Click the link in the orange box above for details. The Upstart Crow review – authentically Shakespearean right down to the puffling... 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