Deep-Heat Rivalry, The Mirror Crack’d, The Human Voice / The Seven Deadly Sins & Still Life

This episode, we’re covering four wildly different theatrical experiences: a double bill of opera at Charing Cross Theatre, Noël Coward served with afternoon tea at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, an Agatha Christie mystery at the Mill at Sonning, and the gloriously outrageous Deep-Heat Rivalry at The Other Palace.

The Human Voice / The Seven Deadly Sins

One woman, two operas and two very different journeys.

Charing Cross Theatre brings together The Human Voice and The Seven Deadly Sins in a fascinating double bill exploring women pushed to their emotional limits.

Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice unfolds through a single devastating telephone conversation as a woman speaks to her former lover for what may be the final time. It’s paired with Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins, a biting satire infused with Weimar cabaret and American jazz, in which Anna is divided into two halves of the same soul and sent across America to earn enough money to build her family a home.

We discuss two very different musical worlds brought together to create one intriguing psychological portrait.

Still Life

Before there was Brief Encounter, there was Noël Coward’s Still Life.

Theatre Royal Drury Lane’s magnificent Grand Saloon is transformed into the refreshment room at Milford Junction station for an intimate, immersive production directed by Tam Williams.

With afternoon tea served as part of the experience, the audience sits inside Coward’s world as Rachel Pickup and Alasdair Craig play Laura and Alec, two married strangers whose chance meeting develops into an intensely restrained love affair.

Supported by Elizabeth Elvin, Antony Jardine and Seren Sandham-Davies, with music performed live by the company, this is Coward served with tea, sandwiches, longing and heartbreak.

We discuss whether placing the audience right inside this quintessentially British love story makes its famous emotional restraint even more powerful.