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Tim Wilson |
Reviews | |
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Illustrator Reviews
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FIGARO:
This outrageous production
DAILY INFORMATION
This was a show you would like to take people to who wanted to be introduced to opera
SEE HEAR BBC TV
Fears pretty soon dispelled with an innovative a capella rendering of the overture and from theron Camberwell's spirited and hard-working cast put their all into making Mozart's score go with fizz, bang, wallop. Jeremy Sam's lovely translation can be heard in all its glory, for whilst he perhaps overdoes the ribaldry, his fresh approach at least enables the enterprise to proceed with great gusto, especially with the judicious cuts made in this airing. A crazy house is immediately suggested in the design and while the deliberately over-cluttered playing space is smaller than your average living room, the production makes a virtue of the fact, imbuing the whole with an aura of claustrophobic and Feydeau-esque domestic farce. Some brilliant manipulation of entrances and exits allows for a wonderfully exuberant overall gloss and some up-front physical acting. Sometimes the excess bawdiness seems unnecessary and not all the gimmicks work, but largely the whole is marked by a sparkling inventiveness, helped along by wacky commedia del'arte costumes.
DUNCAN HADFIELD 21st December 1994,
WHAT'S ON in London
Reviews for recent London revival of STEPHEN SONDHEIM's musical ASSASSINS at the New End Theatre, with PAUL KEATING (star of TOMMY) as the Balladeer, Designed by TIM WILSON
Paul (Keating) could actually sing
the phone book and hold me entranced under his hypnotic spell. His
ironic take on the preceedings reaches its barnstorming ragtime duet
with Peter Straker, as the murderous Charles Guiteau, that rightly
garnered the most enthusiastic audience reaction of the night. Tim
Wilson's inventive black box set design, with the presidential victims
hung above the action as cartoon portraits that light up like
fairground targets is suitably claustrophobic and doom-laden....
Kevin Wilson (QX 16.07.97)
Filling every inch... with a rogues gallery
TIME OUT 16 .07.97
Tim Wilson's effective set (adorned with comic caricatures of presidents from Lincoln to Clinton) ensure this audacious production is a success
Neil Smith WHAT'S ON 16 07. 97
Lit like cabaret acts, our anti-heroes take it in turns to blast their way into the world's most exclusive club....Under the cartoon portraits of their presidential victims, they sit slumped in character
James Christopher, The TIMES
14.07.97
The designer Tim Wilson has come up with a nice American gothic style set but lighting each of the president's portraits pulls focus away from the action
David Benedict, THE INDEPENDENT 12
07 97
The New End's tiny stage - design by Tim Wilson- is perfectly suited to the cabaret qualities of a musical that is about plotters, is itself plotless...
SUNDAY TIMES 20 07 97
Singing and acting honours go to Paul Keating, last seen as the Who's
TOMMY in the West End... As
chilling as a cry in the night, yet funny as the macarbre can be, it's
a winner
Bill Hagerty NEWS OF THE WORLD 20
07 97
Visually it all looks a bit rough
round the edges...
HAM AND HIGH 18 07 97
The excellent performances of Paul
Keating and Garth Bardsley illumined by Wilson's dark humour...
JEWISH CHRONICLE 18 07 97
Breath-taking and small-scale
staging which in many ways is an improvement on the score's London
debut...
SPECTATOR 17 07 97
The minimalist set with theatrical
skips and packing cases has the Assassins sitting about drinking,
waiting to enact their story
CAMDEN NEW JOURNAL 17 07 97
ASSASSINS is more than respectable
all round....generally intimate
Rather than cramped......I was of
the minority of critics not especially impressed by Keating's
performance as Tommy last year and his portrayal of the balladeer
contains similar weaknesses...One thing that puzzelled me: the stage
was hung around with caricatures of the presidents who constituted the
assassins' real and intended victims. The group included Bill Clinton.
Does the company know something we do not? Surely that would be taking
publicity a bit too far?
FINANCIAL TIMES 17 07 97
the murky set is cheesy-collegiate.
Paul Keating's powerfully sung Balladeer.... Gone are the bystanders
in favour of doubling that keeps the company more or less on stage
throughout, often positioned on the Perimeter in tableaux. Budgeted at
less than $35000 the production has sparked interest in a West End
transfer and a national tour next year....
VARIETY 28 July 1997
On a stage that proves small is beautiful
SUNDAY TIMES 27 07 97
We never see the great men
themselves, only their portraits flashing on and off posing the
question - who will be the next in line for a pot shot?
MORNING STAR 25 07 97
Reviews of MAGIC FLUE at the
Hackney Empire, designed by TIM WILSON:
OBSERVER REVIEW 31st August, 1997:
the result was refreshing, funny
and musically assured?..Tim Wilson's bright
patchwork Klimt' n' Klee sets and costumes were a delight.
Review of COSI FAN TUTTE
HOT TICKET Hugh VICKERS
24th October 1997
Now comes director/designer Tim
Wilson, reminding us that this is basically just a "Weiner Spass"
a Viennese joke. It's broad, often hilarious -the scene in which
Despina exercises her "mesmerism" on the dead lovers was as
gut-wrenchingly funny as Monsieur Hulot. The costumes, described by
Wilson as "half English, half Italian, half 18th Century, half
20th century" look as if the dressing-up box has been raided in
the course of a particularly drunken Edwardian party. Splendid
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