There could not be a more magical setting for Peter Pan than Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Shaded by lush foliage, adorned with twinkle lights and filled with peals of children’s laughter, it takes very little suspension of disbelief to imagine yourself in Neverland. Or at least, it would be, had director Timothy Sheader not taken the brave decision to juxtapose this classic Edwardian fairytale with the horrors of the First World War. Audiences are not presented with the charming Darling nursery as the setting, but a crumbling hospital on the Western Front, held together with masking tape and the hard work of three nurses, one of whom is named Wendy. Surrounded by young men who have been blinded and maimed in the fighting, Wendy tries to provide comfort by reading aloud the story of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up.

The 2015 original production earned OAT an Olivier nomination for Best Entertainment and Family, and would arguably still be a strong contender this time round. The stage is alive with energy: Sam Angell is a convincing, curly-haired Pan, crowing and laughing as he takes to the sky in the stunning flight sequences. These are engineered by a system of pulleys, with individual members of the cast using their own weight to support the flight of their co-stars, shimmying up and down the set (appropriately) like band of sailors. There is much entertainment to be had from superb gang of Lost Boys, too, bouncing and leaping about in their multicoloured long johns, as well as Captain Hook (Dennis Herdman)'s raucus gang of pirates, who all look as though they've stepped out of a baddies-themed fancy dress party 

With the recent announcement of the closure of Soho denizen Wardour News, a play about the final days of a crumbling Soho institution seems to take on a new significance. With the small difference that fictional Christine Foskett of Absolute Hell is not forced to close her doors due to rent hikes or gentrification, but because the building is literally falling apart. Still, both seem to symbolise the end of an era, and the change in the fabric of a community. Foskett's club, La Vie en Rose (the Pink Room of the play's original title) is the favoured spot of gaggle of Soho luvvies: artists, film-types, G.Is and society ladies, a place where anything goes and all sexual preferences are welcome. 

Over the course of three hours, playwright Rodney Ackland introduces us to the lives and lusts of the club's clientele, set against the backdrop of a recovering, post-war Britain, on the eve of a Labour victory.  The play originally opened in 1952, closing after three weeks of biting criticism. It was only in the 1980s, when theatre censorship was a thing of the past, that Absolute Hell (as it was then renamed) had another chance in the limelight, with significant cuts and rewrites. Despite these, the play retains its epic proportions: a sprawling tableau of London in 1945, with over 21 characters mooching on and offstage.

The company Photo: Johan Persson

The sheer vastness of the play is perhaps its weakest point: with so many characters to reckon with, the audience's sympathy is stretched thin. With almost no history or background to fill them out, much of the ensemble are reduced to 2D caricatures, brought onstage merely to elicit some hollow laughs about the drunken, debauched society they represent. Some of them hit the mark: Eileen Marsh does a brilliant turn as a barmy Boxing Day evangelist Madge, and Patricia England makes a charmingly dotty Julia, mastering an extended joke about Siegfried Sassoon. Others fall short, with genuine feeling lost in all the posturing and hamminess.

Charles Edwards as Hugh Marriner. Photo: Johan Persson

The production's brilliance lies chiefly in the hands of its three protagonists, and none more so than Charles Edwards as the harried writer Hugh Marriner. Lovelorn and desperate, Edwards expertly shifts between the layers of Marriner's psyche, the words tripping off his tongue as he moves from  from plaintive appeals for affection, to needling requests for cash, to virulent exclamations of anger, all at lightning-speed. He offers an authenticity of character that seems lacking elsewhere in the piece, backed up by Sinéad Matthews as femme-fatale Elizabeth Collier and Kate Fleetwood as the woe-begotten proprietress, Christine.

Kate Fleetwood as Christine Fockett. Photo: Johan Persson

Despite appearances, Absolute Hell is not all black-market scotch and orgies,  and Director Joe Hill-Gibbons brings out the more poignant elements of Ackland's script to land sufficient blows on the audience. The references to the Holocaust (thought to be one of the earliest in British theatre) are chilling even in their sparseness, and there is painfully resonant relevance in Elizabeth Collier's insistence that, if she'd only gotten round to voting, she might have been able to make a difference to her country. The gay music and silliness are a garish reminder of the destruction they are ignoring outside of the crumbling building, and as they say themselves, they all go to La Vie en Rose to escape reality. This element is brilliant reflected in Lizzie Clachan's set design: a large mirror dominates one wall, in order to cover up the bomb damage from the Blitz. With the war and the world held successfully at bay, all the clientele can see are themselves.

Absolute Hell runs at the Lyttelton, National Theatre until 16 June. You can buy tickets on the official website.  
All photos (c) Johan Persson, courtesy of the National Theatre

It might not be a huge exaggeration to say that in the current cultural climate, opera is the art form that needs to fight hardest to survive. With a financial crisis and dwindling audience numbers to contend with, opera companies have learnt the hard way that one must be relevant or die. A night at the opera is no longer the aspirational social goal it once was: society has changed and people have changed. With the multiplicity of artistic platforms available to modern audiences, opera has become the past-time and privilege (literally) of the few: those who are generous enough to give the butler a night off when they head to Covent Garden.

The English National Opera is determined to change this, by challenging several key areas that are alienating modern audiences. Firstly, opera’s relevance. A genre defined by constant revivals of the same productions needs to make a convincing argument that it is keeping up with the times. Artistic Director Daniel Kramer hopes that the upcoming season (featuring five original works) will provoke conversation, in particular in relation to diversity and gender parity. He has chosen works that will question and challenge patriarchal structures, beginning with a “radical feminine reading” of Strauss’ Salome, with Australian director Adena Jacobs.

Jack the Ripper - The Women of Whitechapel, Photo: Matt Davis

Feminine perspectives are also highlighted in The Merry Widow (aka 'How to date a woman with money') and a brand new opera by Iain Bell: Jack the Ripper. Given the tendency in modern drama to look at women through the lens of violence (in which rape and murder essentially become entertainment) this choice might raise a few eyebrows. Kramer, however, is quick to point out that the key part of this opera is the subtitle: The women of Whitechapel. The Ripper himself never appears on stage, the entire story told instead by his victims, a collection of the grand dames of the British opera world, including Lesley Garrett and Dame Josephine Barstow. (“It’s going to be an interesting rehearsal room” quips ENO’s Musical Director Martyn Brabbins.) This is a narrative of empowerment, not powerlessness, Garrett insists, seeing it as an opportunity for wronged women to stand up and say “We are powerful, we are strong. You cannot do this to us anymore.” In the wake of the #Metoo movement, the piece could not be more necessary.

The ENO has also taken up the challenge to diversify and feature narratives beyond those of the white and privileged. The first of these is Porgy and Bess, which receives its premiere at the Coliseum this autumn. Kramer describes the production as part of the “diversification of the opera house” with the hope of reflecting the culture that exists outside its walls. Rather than using the ENO chorus, the piece features a cast of 40 hand-picked singers and is conducted by Gershwin maestro John Wilson, who says he has been “waiting [his] whole life to conduct it”. A co-production with the New York Met and the Dutch National Opera, the production is one of several promoting international collaboration and communication. Another of these is Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, produced in collaboration with the Turner Prize-winning German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. The ENO chorus will join the cast of Porgy and Bess for this landmark production discussing contemporary issues of nationalism and war, creating an enormous group of voices “singing for peace and singing for grief”.

La bohème, Artwork: Louisa Parry

Alongside these new works, the upcoming season will feature four revivals of past productions. Jonathan Miller’s quintessential production of La bohème receives its fourth showing, alongside Simon McBurney’s The Magic Flute, David Alden’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Phillip Glass’ Olivier award-winning Akhnaten. Speaking of old favourites, in celebration of the ENO’s fiftieth year at the Coliseum, a special gala called Opera for All will be held in October, featuring works that have played a crucial role in the company’s history.

Of course, it’s one thing for artistic directors to schedule provocative works, but a whole other challenge to bring in new audiences to watch them, and Kramer and recently-appointed CEO Stuart Murphy are determined to rise to the challenge. The first action is pricing, and they are selling over 42,000 tickets at £20 or less, as well as discounts for young people and special evenings for those new to opera. But they are smart enough to know that it takes more than cheap tickets to bring people in, so the ENO is going to them. Thus two new external collaborations have been announced: an adaptation of Dido and Anaeas with renowned children’s theatre, the Unicorn, and Noye’s Fludde at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. These, alongside a host of initiatives through the Baylis programme (including several artist development schemes) are aimed at showing people of all ages and backgrounds that opera is for them, too.

Porgy and Bess, Photo: Rachel Smith

At its heart, opera is about the expression of human emotion using the body as an instrument. Stripped of the pretension and elitism with which it is associated, it is a raw, powerful tool of self-expression, with the potential to profoundly affect all those who experience it. In this upcoming season, the ENO have proved their intention to change the opera landscape, remoulding it as an inclusive, not exclusive art form. As they state in their season headline: “A new age dawns./As love redeems and reconciles/The power of community rises.”