Buzz Magazine Buzz Magazine - July Issue | Page 36

stage

CATS

Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay
Mon 28 Jul-Sat 9 Aug
Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s smash-hit musical
returns to Cardiff this summer with a
spell in the Wales Millennium Centre. The
iconic production follows the lives of the
Jellicle cats as they take to the stage,
delivering a dazzling blend of fantasy,
drama and romance.
Adapted from TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s
Book Of Practical Cats, Cats is one of the
longest running shows in Broadway and
West End history, and since opening its
colourful doors in 1981 has become one
of the world’s best known and best loved
musicals.
A brilliantly imaginative celebration of
music, dance and verse, it’s easy to see
how Cats has gained such international
success. With a unique musical score
(including the much loved Memory),
spectacular costumes and breath-taking
choreography, Cats ticks all the boxes.
The show time and time again astounds
audiences with its ingenious and acrobatic
jazz numbers, it’s perfectly performed
narrative invention and its ability to
transform the norm, taking its audience
on a journey to another sensational world.
Whether you’re a Cats veteran or a total
kitten novice, you can’t help but be
enchanted by this musical masterpiece.
The timeless, stunning production is one
that will totally enthral, leaving a memory
that will last forever.
Tickets: £18-£45. Info: 029 2063 6464 /
www.wmc.org.uk (AB)

BUZZ 36

EVERYMAN OPEN AIR THEATRE FESTIVAL
Sophia Gardens, Cardiff
Fri 4 July-Sat 2 Aug
What do you get when you take a serial killer, an unruly wife-to-be, a self-serving cynic and a mermaid and put
them on an outdoor stage? The Everyman Open Air Theatre Festival. As the summer reaches its apex Cardiff’s
Everyman Theatre company makes the most of the sunshine by bringing the theatre outside and performing four
different shows. First on the festival program, merciless musical mayhem at the hands of one of fiction’s most
notorious killers: Sweeney Todd [pictured].
This dark and twisted musical has sprinkles of humour as we see Todd, an ex-convict and barber, as he sets out on
a destructive path of revenge on the man who caused the death of his wife years ago. The ‘Daemon Barber’ teams
up with pie-making mistress Mrs Lovett to sing songs and slit throats from Fri 4 to Sat 12 July.
Next on stage, from Tue 15 to Mon 21 July, will be witty and wry Lord Blackadder in Blackadder II. Bringing to
stage this much loved BBC sitcom you can expect to see all the classic characters from the tantrum throwing
Queen Elizabeth to the dim and dirty servant Baldrick. We’ll see anti-hero Lord Blackadder scheme to satisfy his
own selfish needs – cracking jokes at other’s expense and trying to avoid getting beheaded along the way.
From Fri 25 July until Sat 2 Aug Everyman will be taking on one of Shakespeare’s more controversial pieces:
The Taming Of The Shrew. The ultimate battle of the sexes ensues when a father decides that his beautiful and
much sought-after youngest daughter Bianca will not be allowed to be married until his not-so-charming, eldest
daughter Kate is also wed.
Families won’t be forgotten, either, as the open-air stage heads under the sea from Sat 26 July to Sat 2 Aug with a
production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Young mermaid Ariel dreams of living on the surface and leaving her
ocean life behind, but she gets more than she bargained for when she makes a dodgy deal with sea witch Ursula.
Tickets: £7-£16/£25 family ticket. Info: 0333 6663366 / www.everymanfestival.co.uk HEATHER ARNOLD

ROBERTO ZUCCO

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
Wed 9-Sat 19 July
In the 1980s there was one man whose
brutal reputation was the talk of Europe:
serial killer Roberto Succo was public
enemy number one in France, Italy and
Switzerland. In 1981 he killed his mother
and father, hiding their bodies in the
bathtub, before taking his father’s service
pistol and killing a police officer for
refusing to give him their car.
Though Succo attempted to run he was
soon imprisoned for filicide but he served
only half of his sentence before escaping
from the psychiatric hospital he was being
held. Succo made his way through Europe
taking on fake identities and committing
more heinous crime, before being captured
and finally ending his life in prison.
The same year French playwright,
Bernard-Marie Koltès, decided to take on
the tale of this notorious criminal and
created Roberto Zucco – a play with an
absurd mix of comedy and tragedy.
Now theatre company August 012, the
minds behind the Theatre Critic Award
nominated Caligula, will be bringing
the convict’s story to Cardiff.
With Mathilde Lopez, who headed the
award-winning Tonypandemonium
last year, in the director’s chair we are
promised a production that is at the same
time funny, beautiful and cruel.
“It unsettles our moral compass in a
funny and scandalous way,” explains
Lopez. “One way we’ve been describing
the play is ‘a cheap 1980s version of the 10
Commandments in a brothel’.”
Tickets: £12-£15. Info: 029 2030 4400 /
www.chapter.org (HA)

JIMMY CARR: FUNNY BUSINESS

Grand Theatre, Swanse