THEATRE
Soaked in the sway of sex, borne along on a radiance of double entendres, this study of three hard-done-by women who board in a rooming house above a jazz club is structured around a song cycle of blues. Dialogue serves mainly as a bridge between the tunes-music provides the central narrative thrust. The three ages of women are represented by the trio of actresses: Sharon D. Clarke the wise elder, bowed but not entirely defeated by a lifetime of regret and misery; Debbie Kurup a good-time gal moving inexorably into the latter seams and stages of weary experience; Gemma Sutton a recent arrival, fresh but well on her way to the first sup of disappointment and disillusion, innocence inevitably on its way to sully.
Clive Rowe is on hand (in somewhat pantomime form) as the master of ceremonies of the club, and as the token face of toxic masculinity, signalling all of men’s egregious indignant behaviour towards women, their endless manipulations, injustices and defilements. The club stage-smoky, louche, loose-atmospherically dominates the set (with bar and staircase/lift anchoring the back, the orchestra and small dance floor thrust to the front), a disrepute around which the womens’ cramped rooms, like satellites, orbit.
Clarke is the most magisterial in connecting with the messy emotions of the material (classic standards by such luminaries as Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen) whether soul shaking, feisty, lusty or frivolous-she continuously digs deep. Kurup brings a poised, wounded brass (although at times chilly technical precision) to her pieces. Sutton sings with a tremulous fear in her voice, the terrible knowledge that her hopeful ideals will be ultimately trampled.
Despite the dispossession and disenfranchisement, the ways in which the world has conspired to belittle them, these women still find a way to rally themselves, shout out with vigour and verve and robust allure, inexhaustible sensuality. The blues, and their expression of it, will sustain and ennoble them through the worst as long as they are able. The audience will take flight, through the tears and joy, with them. Blues in the Night runs through 7 September
Whereas both of these enterprises adapted existing (disused) train lines as the source of their structure and organisation, this is a purpose-built creation that very much wants to emulate the spirit and detail of its forebearers. As there is a velocity of development surrounding this initial stage (a major blossoming of new blocks of flats all around it, contributing quite a dusty atmosphere at the moment), perhaps the builders have to wait for the housing completion before launching into the second wave of the park project. 
There are a few curious design elements which I hope will be re-conceptualised at future points, the most paramount of which is the currently dead, bare, shadowed concrete space underneath the walkways that will require quite an investiture of thought and creativity to find ways to brighten and animate it, to open it as a welcoming environment. The top walkway appears to have been built as nothing more than a way by which to reach the primary elevation from the lift, entirely missing an opportunity to create further pleasurable advantages of movement.
A clumsy, blunt (level) gradation plagues the platform directly overlooking the Thames, a possible design flaw that had led to the erection of both a sign and rope to prevent spectators from stumbling dangerously from the sudden drop of step (perhaps the idea is to eventually border this with hedge or rail to visually distinguish the height difference). Despite the sense of incompleteness, of matters not quite being anywhere near being finished off, there is much promise in this project (this is the first kilometre of a proposed five-kilometre length)-on my visit, school groups were gathered with sketchbooks drawing the Canary Wharf skyline, workers lounged with their lunches, others strolled excitedly taking in the sights. 
Artworks have been installed throughout the grounds, a herald, perhaps, for the Line sculpture trail, one side of which launches nearby straight out of the Greenwich Peninsula, continuing on to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Encouraging engagement with the outdoors, enlivening an otherwise rather severe commercial public square, creating a new cultural corridor, and celebrating (and piquing an appreciation for) the natural wonder of the Thames, at heart this is a worthy and necessary project, and the hope is that it will become a major new attraction for both native and tourist alike. 
tom///out 