The Good Scout, Above The Stag Theatre - ★★★★★ - Until November 2, 2019


Betrayal comes in many forms including betrayal of one's self. The good scout comes to terms with the complicated realities of the political and sexual world when he and his best friend host some young Germans from Hitler Youth in a curious "Peace and Friendship" exchange scheme developed by Boy Scout founder, Lord Baden-Powell and Nazi ambassador to the UK, Joachim von Ribbentrop. This is a fascinating pre-war story based on a real programme. It has more twists and turns than your average labyrinth, and the whole cast do an excellent job of drawing us into them. Daniel Cornish gets it just right as well-meaning Will, and Charlie Mackay is completely credible as easily led Jacob. Clemente Lohr is quite mesmerising as Hitler's true believer, and Simon Stache is suitably sympathetic as his countryman, Friedrich. Amanda Bailey as Mrs. Parrish hits just the right note as the sympathetic, moral centre of the piece, and as her counterpart, Lewis Allcock radiates the mystery and moral ambiguity of a spy master. All in all, this is a terrific night of theatre which will hold your attention throughout. Glenn Chandler spins a great tale which has all the mystery and adventure of an erotically charged Boys Own story. It's your duty to see The Good Scout!

 Reviewed by J.C.

  Our Score:  ☆☆☆☆☆ 

 Want to save on tickets? See our Tips page.

 WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE:
Until November 2, 2019
Tue - Sat: 7 pm, Sun: 5:30 pm
Above The Stag Theatre
Nearest tube: Vauxhall
http://www.abovethestag.com/vxl/whatson/the-good-scout/
Map & Location: 72 Albert Embankment, Vauxhall, London SE1 7TP, UK

Most Popular

King of Pangea ★★ King's Head Theatre | Jun 7 - Jul 6, 2025

Image
When Sam Crow's mother is ill, she is constantly positive. She is always looking forward to things being better. It is an optimism that the young Sam adopts, but when his mother dies, it leaves him uncertain about how to adjust to that situation. Then, he remembers the tale his mother used to tell him about the island of Pangea, a wonderful mythical place; he thinks about that land and wonders if the means of sorting out his complex emotions about her loss might be found there. King of Pangea is a slight fable about loss and reconciliation to the reality of death, but it never really works. The rather forced metaphor about finding the final piece of the puzzle and the journey to the fabled land all fall rather flat. A major issue is that this doesn't seem like a fully thought-out fantasy place, and the whole sequence about the magic coins fails to resonate. Luring an audience into an imaginative construct is never an easy task, and in this case, Pangea simply doesn't engag...
Full Details »

St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

Image
Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
Full Details »

This Is My Family ★★★★ Southwark Playhouse, Elephant | May 23 - Jul 12, 2025

Image
The title is simple and straightforward, and that says it all about this musical in which young Nicky recounts the story of her family. Her sixteen-year-old brother Matt is a Goth who is in love for the first time. Her grandmother May is starting to lose her memory. Father Steve is going through a middle-age crisis and is trying to recapture his youth while facing the prospects of a new job. Aunt Sian has yet another new man in her life, and Yvonne, Nicky's under-appreciated and overwhelmed mother, is desperately trying to hold both herself and the family together. There is nothing particularly new here, and the characters are all fairly well-known to us. But sometimes, it is the very predictability of the people and the familiarity of the plot that provides what we are looking for. The romcom's plot is trite, and we know the adventure film is going to end with the triumph of good over evil, but if done well, they can be very satisfying. This Is My Family has a story that echo...
Full Details »

Elephant ★★★★★ Menier Chocolate Factory | May 22 - Jun 28, 2025

Image
Many one-person shows are representative of an increasingly popular genre - the theatre of personal catharsis. Elephant written, composed and performed by Anoushka Lucas is no exception, but it is a truly first rate example of its type. Lucas' character, Lylah, is the child of Indian, Cameroonian, French and English heritage who strives to come to terms with the issues of race and class that form the context of her socialisation and ambivalent sense of self. As an individual she is brought up to assimilate into a white middle-class society, but as a professional musician she is faced with an industry that wants to accentuate her race and working-class roots, denying the complexity of who she is. Lylah's struggle with issues of self-acceptance becomes tangled into her desperate desire to be accepted by others as she attempts to become an individual who is not defined by the racial and class lenses that both she, and others, constantly see her through. Indeed, her brief ponderin...
Full Details »

Our Cosmic Dust ★★★ Park Theatre | Jun 2 - Jul 5, 2025

Image
This gentle fable about a child who is mourning the loss of his father won three prizes at Japan's Yomiuri Theatre Awards in 2024. For that original production, Michinari Ozawa not only wrote, directed and did the set design, but he also starred in the show. It is quite an extraordinary achievement. Our Cosmic Dust tells the story of a young boy, Shotaro, who is equally precocious. When he questions his mother as to what has happened to his late father, she says he has become a star. This causes Shotaro to withdraw and become silent, as he ponders the meaning of her explanation. He then sets out on a quest which not only interrogates the notion of an afterlife, but also questions the very place of humanity in the universe. These metaphysical and cosmological themes are beautifully expounded in the story, with Shotaro being represented by a puppet operated against a stunning set which makes use of some delightful LED display imagery. Indeed, this is a show that has an extraordinary...
Full Details »

Here We Are ★★★★ National Theatre | Until June 28, 2025

Image
Stephen Sondheim and Luis Buñuel is not a pairing that immediately comes to mind, but Sondheim's last work is an adaptation of two of Buñuel's films to the stage. The first act of Here We Are references The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and the second act is a riff on Buñuel's earlier film, The Exterminating Angel . The first act deals with a spoilt set of upper class New Yorkers trying to find a place for brunch and is an allegorical parody of capitalism's despoilment of the planet. It is far from subtle, but the piece is enlivened and enriched by Sondheim's signature musical tropes and his clever lyrics. The second act is even darker than the first, with the group of friends trapped in the embassy of a fictitious Latin American country. Here the questions raised are existential rather than political, and we don't have Sondheim's music to lighten the didacticism. While it can be argued that this is a thematic choice, the absent score is definitely mis...
Full Details »

Giffords Circus: Laguna Bay ★★★★ Chiswick House & Gardens | June 5 - 22, 2025

Image
One of our favourite signs of summer is the return of Giffords Circus to Chiswick House & Gardens. This year marks the troupe's 25th anniversary, and to celebrate they have created "Laguna Bay." This is a show inspired by America in the 1950s. It is a nostalgic flashback to what might now seem a simpler and more innocent time, full of sun, surf and rock 'n' roll. All the crowd favourites are back including the ubiquitous Tweedy, the clown who has been with the show for over twenty years. This year he is struggling with deck chairs and ladders as he also laughably inserts himself into almost all of the other acts. He pops up in Maximiliano's magic sequence in which he is made to neatly disappear. He bedevils Mikey Fletcher, the talented singing emcee of the show, and he creates ice cream havoc with The Rivelinos, Daniel Santos Silva and Jose Luis Santos Oliveira. At the circus, our personal favourites are always the acrobats and aerialists and the Ethio-Sal...
Full Details »

The Barber in London: Highlights from a Remarkable Collection ★★★★ The Courtauld Gallery | May 23, 2025 - Feb 22, 2026

Image
In 1932, the same year that The Courtauld Gallery was founded, Hattie Lady Barber created an endowment at the University of Birmingham to foster the arts. Although she herself did not have an important collection, the initial director, Thomas Bodkin, set about assembling an interesting mix of acquisitions that grew into the impressive collection that exists today. Because the permanent home for this 160 paintings is currently undergoing renovations eighteen major pieces are now on loan to The Courtauld. Fifteen works are on display in one gallery, and three others have been integrated into the Gallery's permanent collection. The works in the main room provide almost a history of western art stretching from Giovanni Bellini's "St Jerome in the Wilderness" (c. 1460) to Max Pechstein's "Still Life in Grey" (1913). Along the way are works by Frans Hals, Nicolas Poussin, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and James McNeill Whistler. Perhaps, the most interesting thread i...
Full Details »

Stereophonic ★★★★ Duke of York's Theatre | May 24 - Oct 11, 2025

Image
The show that was nominated for more Tony awards than any other has now arrived in London! Nominated for thirteen awards and winning five, this musical set in 1976-1977, is a deep look at a rock band's creation of their latest album. It is a fascinating insight into the music industry and into the collaborative creative process. Five members of a band, plus two engineers, struggle to produce a new album, and as they do so, the individual personalities and relationships that exist disintegrate and are reconstructed. In fact, the process of artistic invention, and re-invention, that results in the album mirrors what the band members themselves go through. This unnamed British-American rock band is composed of the driven, perfectionist Peter, his insecure vocalist, songwriter partner, Diana, the drug-addled bass player, Reg, his long-suffering spouse the keyboardist, Holly, and the apparent adult in the room, the band's drummer, Simon. This quintet is supported by two goofy, but o...
Full Details »

House of Games ★★★ Hampstead Theatre | May 2 - Jun 7, 2025

Image
Tales of the trickster, or conman, are almost as old as literature itself. The unflagging popularity of the genre is demonstrated by the frequent revivals of classics like Tartuffe and the endless remakes of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley . However, the popularity of such fare depends on at least two components: the question of whether the trick will succeed while the trickster adapts to unforeseen circumstances and the issue of who is really being tricked. The audience's pleasure comes from watching the conman adapt to what seem near disastrous impediments to his plans, and in more recent examples, from trying to solve the puzzle of who is really being conned. On this level, the problem with House of Games is that adaptor, Richard Bean, too often telegraphs what is going to happen, robbing the piece of its necessary suspense and undermining the audience's need to puzzle out who is actually manipulating whom. Lisa Dillon as Margaret, the psychiatrist whose p...
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings