Articles by Oliver Lugg

Jokes And Their Relation To The Unconscious

Taken on a whirlwind of what it means to have desires, unconscious and conscious thoughts, Alex Sergeant performed an entertainingly educational stand-up show. Based on the theories of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, Freudian expectations were humorously established throughout...

Jacob Hatton: True Brit

Amidst all the current political debates surrounding nationalism, I was curious as to the sort of person that would put on a show called Jacob Hatton: True Brit. Expecting such thoughts, Hatton cleverly confronted this expectation by bringing an inflatable elephant labelled ‘BREXIT’ onto the stage...

The Maydays present: Happily Never After

Being inspired by fairy tales, Gothic themes and the warped imagination of Tim Burton was all-too-clear in the wide and undeniably impressive range of sketches, theatre troupe The Maydays gave...

Frankenstein: Man or Monster

A refreshingly innovative take on Mary Shelley’s 19th century novel, Augustus Stephens’ one-man performance effortlessly portrayed mental illnesses through the depiction of Victor Frankenstein, Igor, Elizabeth, as well as the Monster...

Tracey Tracey

With pronounced teeth and wide eyes, eponymous protagonist Tracey Tracey’s entrance onto the stage paved the way for a larger-than-life, one-woman show from character comedian, Nicola Cross...

Woof Woof Meow Meow

Described as ‘a stand-up comedy brought to you by pet-loving funny guys Simone Belshaw and James Sarek’ in the Caroline of Brunswick’s 2017 Summer Comedy Guide, this performance initially went at a snail’s pace to garner laughs from the audience...

Results Will Vary

Review
★★★
Brighton
The Iron Duke Pub Guesthouse Kitchen & Theatre
27th Nov, 2016

The quartet of performers who make up Pop Heart Productions brought to life a piece of improvisational theatre with several compelling aspects and showed promise for the future.With a narrative chosen by the audience, each evening of Results Will Vary will end up playing out differently and the key for this improvisational shows will be to maintain a consistently high standard...

The Girl Who Fell In Love With The Moon

Puppetry, poetry, dance and live music are interwoven in this splendid succession of stories from five zany friends. When the car in which Jack, Clive, Selina, Scarlet and Luna are travelling in towards Komedia Studio breaks down, the eccentric quintet find themselves within a deep, dark forest...

Blues and Burlesque

Review
★★★
Brighton Fringe
The Rialto Theatre
10th Jun, 2016

This clever infusion of comedy and burlesque from Dexys’ former piano man Pete Saunders proved to be a treat. Initially only opening with Saunders, this left the audience confused as to when the burlesque half of the Blues and Burlesque would be coming...

Queer Side Story

As he shimmied onto stage, Gregoire Aubert’s performance of Queer Side Story could be nothing other than entertaining. Based on the well-known musical West Side Story, Aubert’s combination of exuberance and charm valiantly queered up the characters within it...

The Treason Show

Review
★★★★
Brighton Fringe
The Brunswick
7th Jun, 2016

Composed of a succession of satirical sketches, this festival special of The Treason Show ridicules all the supposedly powerful members of this planet. In so doing, it also highlights the ridiculousness of the many institutions we humans have worldwide...

Desert Bloom

Review
★★★★
Brighton Fringe
Sweet Dukebox
7th Jun, 2016

Decked out in her Nevada-based caravan, it is initially unclear in what direction Rosa Rita's tale will take. What is made clear, however, is her love for the literary. Declaring her admiration for Whitman, Dickinson and Emily Bronte, her mentioning of them originally seems unambiguous...

carMen

If visual stimulation is what you're after, there was no shortage of it in this homosexualised production of Georges Bizet's opera, though its’ emphasis did result in a lack of passion between protagonist Jose and the male Carmen...

The Communist Threat

It’s 1950 Vienna and two British spies are sent to kill a traitor. Yet, despite having the same aim, the characterisations of the two are very different. Cambridge graduate Kip is a celebrated war hero and an esteemed operative...

No More Miss America!

Review
★★
Brighton Fringe
Sweet St Andrew's
2nd Jun, 2016

I originally held out much hope for this production from How to Deal with Rude and Unruly Women, however being there was like serving a prison sentence. Eerily dispersed amongst the pews, the cast wearing nothing but their underwear made me think this was going to be an in-yer-face piece of theatre...

Gran Consiglio (Mussolini)

Review
★★★
Brighton Fringe
The Rialto Theatre
30th May, 2016

Opening in 1943 Rome, Gran Consiglio is set with The Grand Council of Fascism meeting to discuss the deposition of Benito Mussolini. As he waits within a small study-room of Palazzo Venezia, the overwhelmed and tired Duce reflects on his life prior to this moment...

Piaf: Love Conquers All

This character-driven play from Moving On Theatre had something for everyone. From romance to hatred, happiness to tragedy, there was no emotion left unturned in this provocative production detailing Edith Piaf’s life both on and off the stage...

Thorn

Review
★★★
Brighton Fringe
Sweet Dukebox
26th May, 2016

Detailing the many instances of one finding a metaphorical thorn in their side, Tom Jordan's first came when he was five. From discovering he had lymphoblastic leukaemia, Thorn explores the wavering extents to which we, as humans, explain our lives in a universe abundant with complexities...

Mixed Doubles

Centring around the lives of four individuals within a fictional village, the fact that the premise of the show was built around a made-up comedy charity festival instantly made the performance an extremely self-aware one...

The History of Everything in 60 Mins (more or less)

Ben Watson's meet and greet as we entered the theatre made his audience immediately warm to him. It was personal touches like this that proved to be the most enjoyable part of his fact-driven foray into his more-or-less sixty minute history of everything...

Glengarry Glen Ross

Directed by Roger Kay, Glengarry Glen Ross depicts two days in the lives of four real estate salesmen who have been supplied with the names and phone numbers of some new leads. They use underhanded and dubious tactics to make sales, in particular to peddle the two real estate developments of Glengarry Highlands and Glen Ross Farms...

Notflix

Review
★★★
Brighton Fringe
The Rialto Theatre
12th May, 2016

Theatre Company Waiting For The Call wasted no time in making us feel included within the show. Every member of the audience was handed a slip of paper upon entry asking for the name of the last film they saw and a synopsis of it in one paragraph; the one that was then chosen from a bucket was Force Majeure for the improvisational troupe to make an entire musical out of...

Not Yet Suffragette

Time is of the essence in this absolutely faultless performance from EntreprenHER Productions. Detailing the endless hurdles women have had to face over time, from the start of the suffragette movement in the early 1900s to present day, Natalie Cutler’s very first one-woman show offers hope for the many that still have to be overcome...

My Paper Girlfriend

Animation, mime and speech come together in this neat one-man show about love at first-sight going wrong. My Paper Girlfriend details the ill-fated attempts of the hapless, romantic Wesley Griffiths falling in love and the simple life he craves is reflected in a simple, naïve plot and sparse black and white animations...

Julius Caesar

Inspired by popular Roman-esque style fetish wear, designer Kelli des Jarlais alongside writer Ellen Carr brings the Shakespearean play into the modern day setting of a fetish club...

32

Review
★★★★
Brighton Fringe
The Warren
8th May, 2016

Shebang’s 32 follows the lives of lifelong friends Becky and Maisie, from their birth in Staines General Car Park, to the present day and subsequently, the age at which this show is named after...

A Talent for Lying

Review
★★★
Brighton Fringe
Sweet Dukebox
8th May, 2016

Set in a cafe, this helping from Octopus Soup Theatre initially provides nothing that an audience wouldn't have seen before. With an awkward nerd and a glamorous girl that is completely unaware of her beauty, this random meeting of complete opposites Aidan (Liam McCarthy) and Lucy (Sinead O'Brien) ending up at the same table hardly screams originality from the off...

Owl Time

Review
★★★
Brighton Fringe
Sweet Dukebox
7th May, 2016

Inspired by a phrase from Virginia Woolf to describe dusk, Owl Time is a gentle production that provides political punch. While focusing on the necessity for humankind to harmonise with nature it follows the story of Matchgirl, who lives in a refugee camp in Calais (known as the Jungle)...

My Dear Miss Terry

Review
★★★
Brighton
Rialto Theatre
7th Apr, 2016

The word 'Dear' within the title of this production from Jean Rogers is exactly the right word for the intimate relationship that is evoked from the love letters sent between Irish literary genius George Bernard Shaw (Paddy O'Keeffe) and adored English actress Dame Ellen Terry (Jean Rogers)...

The Theatre Workshop Presents...Monologue Jam!

Review
★★★★★
Brighton
The Iron Duke Pub Guesthouse Kitchen & Theatre
30th Mar, 2016

Tragedy and Comedy blend seamlessly together for this series of monologues performed byThe Theatre Workshop. A stellar cast deliver a remarkable performance of ranging emotions, shown within such wildly varying situations that there is sure to be something catered to everyone’s tastes in The Theatre Workshop Presents...

The 3 Dancers

Charity Rambert's efforts across England, Scotland and Wales have successfully showcased their professionalism in the three thirty-minute performances of interpretative theatre that graced the Theatre Royal stage...

Lysistrata

Set against the backdrop of modern day, debt-ridden Greece, this modern adaptation of Aristophanes’ Greek comedy Lysistrata, first performed back in 411 B.C. refuses to be as specific as focus on the Peloponnesian War of the original version and instead broadens its horizons in making this piece of theatre from the Ancient Greeks more accessible to an audience of the 21st Century...

Rosie Wilby: The Science of Sex

Review
★★★
Brighton
The Iron Duke Hotel
3rd Mar, 2016

Brighton's Science Festival continues to attract packed-out audiences of all ages and this time round it's the amazingly eccentric Rosie Wilby with her theatrical exploration of the links between science and sex...

Grandma! The Musical

Review
★★★
Brighton
19th Feb, 2016

Felix Zschieschow and Megan Clifton return to the stage as comedy duo ‘Grandma’, and given the evening of continuously bizarre situations that the pair find themselves in, it is at first rather difficult to determine what direction their production, Grandma! The Musical is aspiring towards...

Mystery at Frankenstein Castle

Time is of the essence as you and your newly formed team are transported to the authentically and adorned castle laboratory from which Victor Frankenstein has mysteriously disappeared on a terrible, stormy night...

Private Lives

Regarded by many as Noel Coward at his best, this production is Director Tom Attenborough’s valiant attempt at Coward’s classic Private Lives and reignites the tempestuous relationship between former husband and wife Elyot Chase (Tom Chambers) and Amanda Prynne (Laura Rogers) from its first performance in 1930...

Golem

Brightness infuses the evening from the off in 1927’s theatrical delight, Golem. Opening with stunning visuals, the show fuses live performance, animation and film into an intriguing live performance that delivers a powerful message with a refreshing angle...

The Grouch Who Couldn't Steal Christmas

Review
★★★
UK Regional & Tours
Rialto Theatre
18th Jan, 2016

The lean, green, Christmas-hating machine runs wild in this year’s holiday season production from The Fertile Theatre Company. This traditional Christmas fare provides the necessary ingredients for children’s entertainment although parents might wish for something more substantial...

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