The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureTheatre

The Glass Piano at the Print Room at the Coronet

The Glass Piano at the Print Room at the Coronet | Theatre review
1 May 2019
Jessica Wall
Avatar
Jessica Wall
1 May 2019

This beautiful venue in Notting Hill suits 19th-century set play The Glass Piano perfectly. The stage design suggests an 1840s Bavarian castle effectively: the shined black stage plays with the light, while the chandelier and piano convey grandeur. Declan Randall’s set creates a tone elegantly, and Deborah Andrews’s costumes are equally convincing.

The play, by Alix Sobler, is based on real people. Princess Alexandra of Bavaria suffered from the delusion that she had swallowed a glass piano as a child, and Grace Molony plays her as someone who must inch herself round corridors to avoid catastrophic breakage. Bath time is an almighty palaver. Molony is the perfect blend of ringlets, cut-glass consonants and fragility. Alexandra lives, isolated, with just her father King Ludwig and maid Galstina for company, her mother having run off into the grounds of the castle for a feral life some years previously. That is, until dashing philologist Lucien arrives to study the area’s children and help the king with his poetry, which suffers from a form of solipsism. In his imagination, only Ludwig himself exists and he feels it would be an intrusion to imagine anyone else. This is a quirky and charming touch, of which there are many throughout the show.

Laurence Ubong Williams is sensitive as Lucien and Suzan Sylvester and Timothy Walker as Galstina and King Ludwig add a more comic element. Gabriel Prokofiev’s score, played by award-winning concert pianist Elizabeth Rossiter, punctuates the production and adds class.

There are moments of philosophy, mostly through Lucien, such as his wondering who was the first person to speak and why, that make The Glass Piano a thought-provoking piece. However, the tone of the play is uneven, combining giddy farce with trauma and increasing histrionics.

★★★★★

Jessica Wall
Photo: Tristram Kenton

The Glass Piano is at the Print Room at the Coronet from 26th April until 25th May 2019. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Related Itemsreview

More in Theatre

The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre

★★★★★
Natallia Pearmain
Read More

Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre

★★★★★
Jim Compton-Hall
Read More

My Fair Lady at the London Coliseum

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

“When you’re presented with different dilemmas in life, you respond accordingly”: Debbie Kurup on The Cher Show

Mae Trumata
Read More

2:22 A Ghost Story at Criterion Theatre

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

The House of Shades at Almeida Theatre

★★★★★
Csilla Tornallyay
Read More

Grease at Dominion Theatre

★★★★★
Cristiana Ferrauti
Read More

House of Ife at Bush Theatre

★★★★★
Selina Begum
Read More

Banter Jar at Lion & Unicorn Theatre: “An authentic and timely one-woman show”

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Theatre review

Jessica Wall

The Glass Piano

★★★★★

Dates

26th April - 25th May 2019

Price

£25-£30

Links & directions

TwitterInstagramFacebookWebsiteMap

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Albert Adrià reopens Enigma on 7 June as a “fun-dining” restaurant and cocktail bar
    Food & Drinks
  • Paolo Nutini at the 100 Club
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Crimes of the Future: Three new clips from David Cronenberg’s dystopian body horror film
    Cannes
  • The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Plan 75
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Decision to Leave (Heojil Kyolshim)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • November (Novembre)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Forever Young (Les Amandiers)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • “Ruben is wonderful at picking holes in our behaviour and our egos”: Woody Harrelson, Ruben Östlundand and cast at the Triangle of Sadness press conference
    Cannes Film Festival 2022
  • Summer Scars (Nos Cérémonies)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Decision to Leave (Heojil Kyolshim)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Emergency
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Men
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Triangle of Sadness
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Aftersun
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

“I wanted to make a film that tries to save the world”: An interview with Woman at War director Benedikt Erlingsson
Small Island at the National Theatre | Theatre review