What the critics said about...

Artefacts

The Bush Theatre

Fresh from New York at the Brits Off Broadway Festival.

read the rave

Read more about Artefacts from

Nabakov's blog.

Includes all the USA reviews.

As Ibrahim and the"dazzling" Lizzy Watts as Kelly

More fab pics here !!
James Grieve directs an excellently acted, in-the-round production for the Nabokov theatre company, with a dazzling performance from Lizzy Watts as the confused, angry and often deliciously comic Kelly, whom we follow from the age of 16 to her early twenties. Her relationship with her mother, played with delicate depth of feeling by Karen Ascoe, is especially well caught, and there is impressive work from Peter Polycarpou as her dignified, long-lost father, grieving for both his family and his country.
While attacking Ibrahim for putting principles before people, Bartlett himself often places plot before plausibility. But his play, a fascinating companion-piece to last year's Baghdad Wedding, vividly demonstrates British-Iraqi misunderstanding, and uses the vase as a potent symbol of a broken society. Bartlett also gives Ibrahim, played with massive troubled dignity by Peter Polycarpou, a tremendous speech in which he shatters the illusion, peddled by face-saving politicians, that Iraq is gradually returning to normality: exactly the point made recently by journalist Rageh Omaar.

When her father gives her a valuable and ancient vase she sheers her trollopy upper lip and contemptuously says, "Get this in Debenhams or somefing?" Miss Watts is entirely believable as this monster. There may be a couple of moments when she comes close to slipping into Little Britain-style caricature but that probably says more for Little Britain's accuracy.Her Iraqi father's behaviour could scarce be different. He is soft spoken, intelligent – civilised, in a word.here is Kelly saying that "people in Britain think Iraqis are immature as a people", but there are we, the audience, thinking how much more immature the British are.Mr Polycarpou gives Iraqi museum director Ibrahim immense dignity and softness.

read the daily mail article in full

read the whatsonstage.com four star review

 

Last Easter

Birmingham Rep

 

 
The mix of pertness and the poetic could be easy to get wrong, but Douglas Hodge's production, designed by Soutra Gilmour, transforms the theatre into an installation-style space that not only allows the actors to offer everyone in the audience a glass of wine, but also allows them to reach out directly and engage with them. The result is that, in just 95 minutes, you start to feel as if you've known these people all your life: dignified June (Janet Dibley); promiscuous gay drag impersonator Gash (Peter Polycarpou), Jewish prop-maker Leah (Caroline Faber) and Buddhist actor and lush Joy (Christine Kavanagh), who is haunted by the boyfriend who killed himself. The actors are all terrific, and the play's suggestion that in our personal relationships we can all be unlikely saints is delivered with a light touch.
  
 

 
Lavery's exploration of difficult issues and emotional contradictions in a dazzling flow of words and wise-cracking is passionately conveyed. Peter Polycarpou's Gash, a promiscuous, joke-quoting and extremely camp drag artist, may not be everyone's idea of a soul mate with whom to confront mortality, yet he finds hidden depths.
Held in perfect tension between raw emotion and bawdy jokes, each of the characters faces prickly truths about themselves as June's death draws in, but director Douglas Hodge allows no room for sentimentality; at the end of a heart-wringing song by Gash,(peter Polycarpou) the lights go up, cutting abruptly out of the moment, leaving the audience suddenly exposed, caught in the act of wiping their eyes.
All four characters in Last Easter are theatre folk: June, the one with cancer, is a lighting designer; Leah is a prop-maker, usually seen working on hand-puppet tree-frogs; Gash is a singer/drag artist; and Joy an actress in the frenzied Ab Fab mould. These last two could have taken the play into cliché territory but for the warmth and unfazed decency that Peter Polycarpou finds in the gabby Gash and the unswerving bravura of Christine Kavanagh’s Joy.

The Birmingham Post

 

 

 

Imagine This

Plymouth Theatre Royal -

soon transferring to The New London Theatre.

Daniel Warshowsky
The staging is excellent and acting superb with Peter Polycarpou's portrayal of the tormented father, Daniel Warshowsky, deservedly earning a standing ovation. And he delivered the classic line, trying to justify their play to the Nazis: "You'll like it; all the Jews die at the end." Ouch. If the producers find that little bit of magic, possibly from streamlining text, it could rival Les Mis ... now there's a thought.
mid devon.co.uk
“You’ll like it,” actor Daniel Warshowsky (Peter Polycarpou)tells Nazi Captain Blick (Laurence
Kennedy), “all the Jews die at the end.”Imagine This has some sweeping,epic songs – a hugely emotional Massada (I can still hum it days later, which must be a good sign) and Imagine This and some moving love songs (I Surrender and You Were My Heart). The staging is clever – the opening scenes in a ghetto theatre are virtually monochrome – and the stage explodes in in colour for the
Massada drama.
Western Morning News
Shuky Levi has provided the show with a powerful and at times really beautiful score (though I found the score more effective on listening to the CD than I did in the theatre). Ruari Murchison’s set design creates an effective backdrop to the action. And there are some fine performances - notably from Stephen Ashfield as Adam/Silva and the magnificent Peter Polycarpou as Daniel/Eleazar.

 

The Warshowsky Family

Left to right

  • Rebecca - Gina Beck
  • Leon - Kurtis Manhood
  • Mama - Rebecca Sutherland
  • Rachel - Jodie Beth Meyer

 

Silver Birch House

Arcola Theatre London

Haydar
This is very much a first play, rough and ready, but it has an immediacy and a towering central performance from Peter Polycarpou as the father, watching his daughters grow up as tall and fragile as silver birch trees.
There are fine performances from all four siblings in Mehmet Ergen's stylish production, as well as Polycarpou and Brid Brennan as the fractious parents trying to keep it all together, although they are increasingly uncertain as to what "it" is.
A degree of faux-naivete results, though Brid Brennan is forceful as Haydar’s wife, while Peter Polycarpou creates an entirely convincing, unreflective character, lashing out in anger when annoyed, defied or faced with anything he doesn't’t understand, defiant of guerrillas except when one has a rifle at his throat.
The father (sympathetically portrayed by Peter Polycarpou) is deeply scarred by old violence, and determined to hide his family with his beautiful birches ‘all in harmony through this long dark night’.
 

Haydar

 

 

Gizmo Love

Assembly Rooms @ The Edinburgh Festival

 

Manny McCain
Gizmo Love features Ralph, a wannabe scriptwriter, played to tremendous geeky effect by Toby Dantzic and Manny, a Hollywood hack, bullishly and sensitively portrayed by Birds Of A Feather's Peter Polycarpou. The show is peppered with wonderful character moments from the whole cast, but Polycarpou is especially believable.
Ralph’s box of carefully made toys, each lovingly created to sustain his fantasy, becomes the arch enemy of the reifying telephone, yet this troubled young man is not a simple victim. Neither are the characters around him, all brilliantly created by the actors. Perhaps the pick of these in a strong field is Polycarpou’s fast talking scriptwriter, but whichever way you look, this is a pearl of entertainment.
The List
Polycarpou’s performance as Manny is edgy and multi-layered, showing that his love of cinema is just as deep as Ralph’s. Kolvenbach’s dialogue is assured and compact, written with a verve that bounces the play along. The familiar subject matter might stop Kolvenbach developing his own distinctive voice but this is a production of quality. The Stage

The real star is Peter Polycarpou, whose Manny is so finely portrayed, it's as if the part were written just for him.

Metro
 

Toby Dantzic as Ralph

 

 

All The Ordinary Angels

Manchester Royal Exchange
Peter Polycarpou is exactly right as the head of the Italian ice cream family who mischievously retires with a challenge to his sons about the inheritance of his business. Craig Cheetham is excellent as Rocco, his opportunist son, who is great at selling but not making gelato while his brother Lino, another good performance from Al Weaver, is the opposite.
All five members of the cast give fine, endearing performances. Special mention should be given to Peter Polycarpou as Guiseppe, who gives a beautiful performance as the cranky father.
Skillfully directed by Michael Buffong, this accomplished cast captures the emotional elements of Leather's work with exceptional comic timing. Lucy Gaskell and Peter Polycarpou give flawless performances as the flirtatious girlfriend and the impulsive Italian father. THE METRO
 

Lucy Gaskell
Peter Polycarpou plays this villain of the piece in incisively sinister, cold-hearted fashion, consumed with bitterness because his wife ran off with a previous lector, and now determined to abolish the tradition and replace human workers with machines.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Peter Polycarpou as the predatory step-uncle and Lorraine Burroughs as his victimised niece are perfectly in key.
THE GUARDIAN
There are several powerfully tense scenes and some fine performances. Quick has warmth, humour, and steely strength. Lorraine Burroughs portrays the naive, smitten Marela with vigour, Peter Polycarpou's stolid Cheche becomes a predator with a surreptitiousness that's truly creepy and Rachel Stirling's Conchita confronts her unsatisfactory husband with ferocious ardor.
THE INDEPENDENT
Peter Polycarpou is on top form as the grasping sleaze ball of a brother-in-law who thinks he is the business's brains.
FINANCIAL TMES
As Cheche Peter Polycarpou has the indignation of someone who understands the rough needs of progress but is constantly held back by a traditional community. Yet, sensible businessman as he is, passions sway him too; Polycarpou achieves a mixture of puzzled vulnerability and rage that shows a good man going wrong.
REVIEWS GATE

Anna In The Tropics

Hampstead Theatre
Joseph Mydell and Diana Quick

 
Rachael Stirling and Enzo Cilenti

 

 

 

 

 

 

Follow My Leader

Birmingham Rep/Hampstead Theatre

And while the excellent Peter Polycarpou raised guffaws as a comic cut spangles-and-shades God visiting Tony Blair and as Iraqi spin-doctor ‘Comical Ali’, an ominous silence greeted his Osama Bin Laden when he told us, by invading Iraq: “You have given me everything I wanted.”
CAMDEN NEW JOURNAL
Much of Beaton's satire is genuinely funny. A report for Arabic television, on the supposed disappearance of Blair, neatly reverses our own coverage of Saddam Hussein. And the reversal theme is followed through by making "Comical Ali" head of Downing Street press communications and offering a glowingly false vision, delivered at breakneck speed by Peter Polycarpou, of life in modern Britain.
THE GUARDIAN
Notable in an all-singin, all-dancing cast are Sevan Stefan and Peter Polycarpou as Iraq's Comical Ali, Alistaor Campbell's replacement at No 10 and a spine chilling Osama Bin Laden finally thanking George and Tony for all their help in delivering the Muslim world into his hands.
MORNING STAR
Much of it is funny as well as smart. Polycarpou has two great spots as Comical Ali and a large American tourist outraged by this spectacle of Brit ingratitude.
BIRMINGHAM POST
Polycarpou is brilliant as Comical Ali, promoted to No10 spin doctor and he gives the musical its most uneasy moment as Osama Bin Laden - a moment when the audience wonder if they should have been laughing at all.
 BIRMINGHAM EVENING MAIL
Plot-wise, the Prime Minister (Jason Durr), having received a calling from God (the multi-roled and brilliant Peter Polycarpou) to be “a restraining influence” on Bush, tries his best to keep ahead of events but invariably follows Bush like the sheep in the stars and stripes top hat shown on the show’s poster. WHATSONSTAGE.COM

I played many different roles including, God, Osama Bin Laden and Comical Ali (pictured left). It was at The Hampstead Theatre until May this year.

see the production photos hereIt starred Jason Durr as Tony Blair (below right), Stuart Milligan as George Bush (below left) and also Martin Ellis, Sevan Stefan, Nicola Hughes, Dawn Hope, Giles New and Paul Medford.

 

 

 

 

read the whole review in the guardian online

The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui

The Bridewell Theatre

PP... is superb as Arturo Ui, playing this piece of low life as a real Shakespearean villain. There are shades of Richard III here, not least in his confrontation with Betty Dullfeet over her husband's coffin. THE GUARDIAN
PP... is frankly irresistible in the lead role of Phil Willmotts' production. With his hunchable shoulders and clownish, meaty hands, he is equal parts Richard III and scowling Scorsese also ran TIME OUT
PP... rises to the challenge, mustering an appropriately supremacist glint-in-the-eye as Ui, and bringing a defiant swagger to the Chicago gangster hell-bent on taking over the city's grocery trade. THE EVENING STANDARD
PP... gives a big performance as the little Hitler. Alternately ingratiating and menacing, ridiculous and chilling, his highly physical, charismatic presence dominates the stage just as his character holds sway over those around him. THE STAGE
PP... gives a virtuoso performance in the title role building his character from impotent petty thug to political leader. This culminates in a chillingly hilarious final speech that unerringly matches Hitler's speech rhythms and body language. THE BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE

click to se3 oscar The Odd Couple

Library Theatre Manchester

 

The performances of Peter Polycarpou as the slobbish Oscar Madison and Ben Keaton as the neatness freak Felix Ungar... quickly establish themselves as triumphantly individual takes on the roles. THE MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
PP... gives a higher octane performance than...the lugubrious Matthau. This Oscar sizzles and spits with rage and frustration and his sheer physicality holds the attention...this stage version is...funnier, with greater comic timing than the film. MANCHESTER ON STAGE
PP... makes the role of Oscar his own. Wielding a forever-pluming cigar and a pitch perfect American accent, he provokes gales of laughter, while also tackling the evergreen dialogue with obvious relish WHATS ON STAGE REVIEW
Polycarpous' Oscar is the pugnacious street-survivor, conducting relationships through a mix of snarling, feature-twisting aggression and moments of full-volume, feature-twisting outrage. REVIEWS GATE
Keaton and Polycarpou...do the Library proud with two brilliant comic performances TANESIDE ADVERTISER