One of the best things about theatre, and art in general, is the space it creates for difficult conversations and analysis.
In 2017, David Eldridge’s play Beginning dramatised an awkward conversation between two white, financially comfortable, urban-dwelling, adult Gen X-ers, caught in that time of em…
If we ever needed more proof as to why second wave or white feminism should no longer be considered relevant, here it is.
As a title, The Corn is Green proves the old adage about books, covers and the perils of judging thereof.
Dev’s Army, by Stuart D.
Rain and Zoe Save the World by Crystal Skillman at Jermyn Street Theatre is an action adventure story that follows two teenage friends as they embark on a journey to disrupt some o…
Throughout his life, on his birthday, Krapp records a review of his year using an old fashioned tape recorder.
Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre continues its tradition of being non-traditional this Christmas season.
There are few things worth travelling the length of the Jubilee Line for on a cold and wet rush-hour on a December night.
Luke Oldfield’s Accidental Birth of an Anarchist at The Space on the Isle of Dogs tells of two novice activists from The People’s Movement to Protect the Planet who get jobs on…
A stony silence filled the air at the end of act one of Joe & Ken at The Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington, the old stomping ground of the eponymous couple who lived just down th…
The Salem witch trials are well known, perhaps in large part due to Arthur Miller’s outstanding play The Crucible that put the Massachusetts town on the map.
How do you successfully relate the biography of a theatrical legend, tell the history of a remarkable period in the development of the arts, create portraits of the famous names of…
Alexithymia is a short play about conflicting human emotions and the disability to connect with your inner feelings.
Intricate Rituals by York DramaSoc at theSpace Triplex is a monologue with alternating actors.
Smile.
What are the ingredients for a bank robbery comedy? A ragtag criminal gang, a double serving of double-crossing, a training montage, and many pairs of dark sunglasses.
Described as a ‘wonderfully chaotic and colourful tragicomedy’ Theatre-19 Presents: John is a particularly silly devised piece at [email protected] Hall from a group of Bristol…
One of the Gals is completely packed.
If Carl Knif’s Fugue in Two Voices is a joke, then it’s a dud.
Femme Ta Bouche: a gender-bending cabaret star with cancer, cooped up in rural Arkansas, wants to make a statement.
Chalkhill Theatre Ltd currently has a double debut with the company’s first appearance at the Festival Fringe and the premiere of their new play.
Exile at the Southwark Playhouse, by JoMac Productions Limited & Blue Heart Theatre, is an interestingly constructed piece consisting of two life-crisis monologues by individu…
An escape room style experience with a paranormal twist, Retrogression is about a ghost who scares visitors to the Brighton Toy Museum and needs to be released.
If you took the E4 teen drama Skins and combined it with Disney’s Inside Out, the by-product would be something similar to that of Jerk.
Period music greets loyal subjects as they enter the Friends Meeting House to attend Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: An Audience with King Henry VIII, written and directed by John Wh…
One day perhaps someone will write a play about a drag queen where, beneath the frock and below the wig, above the high heels and under the layers of slap exists a man who is happy…
Mock the Greek was a show that sent up the myths and legends of Greece.
It’s Halloween evening at the Brighton Open Air Theatre and what better time for a séance? Even if it has to be a socially distance séance – there’s no hand holding or grou…
In Nia Williams’ upcoming new musical, Lady Macbeth is a creepy life coach who takes advantage of the collective incapacity of lockdown to bring her own particular brand of… we…
The chaos of a house move.
Marketed as a comedic, feminist fairytale mashup, the concept of Lady Wank (And Other Fairytales For Adults) offered much potential.
Mrs Puntila and her Man Matti is that relatively rare thing for the Royal Lyceum Theatre—a star vehicle, rather than an ensemble production, that happens to have two audience fav…
The challenge in attempting to adapt Elena Ferrante's 10 million-selling quadrilogy, The Neapolitan Novels lies not in finding the time to read through the 1,600 pages of sourc…
As a horror fan, I approached this performance with high expectations; I wanted to be scared, disturbed or mildly agitated at the very least.
In a rare proscenium-style presentation at the Almeida Theatre, director Tinuke Craig offers Maxim Gorky’s Vassa as her debut production for the venue in a new adaptation by Mike…
To compile his one-man show, Velvet, Tom Ratcliffe combined personal experience and the disturbing revelations that emerged as the #MeToo movement gathered momentum.
Set in the shadow of Brooklyn Bridge on a shabby corner, Brooklyn The Musical is a play-within-a-play staged by a rag-tag bunch of street performers who call themselves the Ci…
Youth Without God at the Coronet Theatre is heralded as ‘a dark fable about the individual conscience in a time of social uncertainty’ and the 1937 novel by Ödön von Horváth…
It seems like a few years now that people have been saying virtual reality is the future of theatre.
As the caffeine levels increase and you approach the final week of the Festival Fringe, it is a fair observation to make that your shock tolerance increases.
The Heresy Machine, by Seth Majnoon, claims to be about Alan Turing.
The Female Role Model Project is just that, a project.
With its eclectic composition of scenes, monologues, choreography and voice-over, Landscape (1989) is a genuinely intriguing production full of interesting elements – although th…
Through a series of slightly disjointed comic scenes, two actors, Pete and Kim, tell the story of three different relationships.
Written by Nicholas Wright for the Chichester Festival, Rattigan’s Nijinsky explores sexuality, privacy, autonomy and unconditional love within the central conceit of why the dyi…
As the saying goes, "The path to hell is paved with good intentions".
If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
The Perfect Body is a one woman show written and performed by Lavinia Savignoni.
When so many songs written by men are condescending (Wake Up Little Susie), dangerously demeaning (Blurred Lines) or darn right creepy (Every Breath You Take) towards women, it is …
At the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, there is a work by the artist Robert Montgomery, a large piece of signage that declares ‘THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE’.
Leyla Josephine presents us with 'Daddy', a seeming parody of Rab C Nesbitt, oozing toxic masculinity.
This 50-minute adaptation of Hamlet is one for Shakespeare lovers with short attention spans.
Buzzing is the story of Julie, a 50-something recent divorcee who is wanting to discover herself and “find meaning”.
Post Popular is Lucy McCormick's attempt to follow-up her fantastic and hugely popular show Triple Threat.
The Italia Conti Ensemble changes its membership every year as another cohort passes through the famous drama school.
To make a piece of gig theatre work, you need to find a musical genre or vibe that can imbue the show with energy, and you need to find a story and a storyteller that can harness t…
Any piece of art that tackles a complicated subject like mental health is worthwhile.
Seesome Theatre’s new production Parasites is presented as an issue play, getting to the heart of problems with the welfare state, domestic abuse and teenager stuck in an unforgi…
Absurdism runs amok in Well That’s Oz, one of four plays in this year’s programme from CalArts at Venue 13.
We find ourselves between a neighbourly feud in a block of flats in Seoul.
Friendsical is billed as a ‘musical parody’ of Friends and unfortunately it fails to hit the mark on both counts.
The premise of Bismillah! An Isis Tragicomedy, in the Fringe guide, "a story of radicalisation, disenfranchisment and the rock band Queen" was compelling enough to want t…
In order for theatre to be political, it certainly does not have to make any truly profound statement on the state of the world.
A classic retelling of Shakespeare’s tragedy, this piece is brought to us by Guy Masterson, TTI in association with Maverick Theatre Co.
What happens when your mum abandons you at the age of 12 to join a cult and move to Canada? That’s exactly the predicament Anoushka Warden found herself in, subsequent to her par…
Tatwood Puppets make their Edinburgh Fringe debut with the perfectly titled Cabaret of Curiosities.
James Stuart – or Stuart James – is passed out at his desk as the audience file into the space.
Stepping Out, performed by Stage Avenue Performing Arts at theSpace @ Nidry Street, is a serviceable production of the British comedy originally written in 1984 by Richard Haaris.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Forest in question refers to the cast – a fourteen strong group of graduates from the Moscow Art Theatre School.
Monster choreographed and performed by Yen-Cheng Liu of Dua Shin Te Production is a show about the monster within us but the trouble with alienation is that it alienates the audien…
Perhaps the end of Romeo & Juliet wasn't quite as tragic as we remembered.
Google Me is the new offering from 2018 Fringe debut comedian Eleanor Colville.
Rarely is a title so apt.
One bright and sunny day, a fish jumps out of a river, and promptly meets a fellow animal with whom he will share the next 46 years of his life.
With over 4000 shows to contend with, including some of the largest exhibitions and names in the art world, it’s understandably difficult to stand out from the crowd.
Sketch You Up! bills itself as “Catherine Tate meets Little Britain”, and mostly manages to replicate the character-driven performances that made Tate, Walliams and Lucas house…
The current offering at The Space’s Foreword Festival, which champions new and upcoming playwrights, is Sink, by Tobias Graham.
Ogg 'n' Ugg 'n' Dogg starts brilliantly, with Ogg and Ugg peering through the backdrop grasses, and simple choreography that made all the children laugh.
A single actor, Jack Klaff, tell a series of interconnected stories about the most influential minds of the 20th century in Icons.
Unmythable promised an ‘unforgettable blend of sketch comedy, cross-dressing, stories and songs’ but unfortunately, it didn’t deliver.
Entering The Old Market on a Thursday night, to view a 'prize-winning feministic and queer Swedish comedy' was soon to be met with disappointment.
Billed as a ‘dark, uncompromising play about the myths of modern love’, this starts promisingly enough but soon veers off.
Based on actual historical events, Mary Blandy’s Gallows Tree is a one-woman play that charts the last hour(s) of Mary Blandy as she awaits the gallows in Oxford Prison in 1752, …
Punny man Richard Pulsford hangs up his comic hat in tribute to the many that perished during The Great War.
Court rooms can often make for high drama, but unfortunately in this case the transcript of ‘the trial of the century, proves to be less than gripping.
The tragedy of World War II is remembered in many ways, but The Conductor, at The Space, takes a highly focussed look at just one small event in Russia’s window on the west in 19…
The need for ‘a willing suspension of disbelief’ traditionally associated with an appreciation of Shakespeare’s Othello reaches a new level necessity in director Phil Willmot…
‘I haven’t had a Trump free 24-hours for… I don’t know how long’ complains a house-guest, ushered in from the cold before a snowstorm strikes a recently purchased farmste…
I didn’t actually see this performance; not by virtue of being absent, but rather because I had followed the request of actor and spoken word poet, Paul Daly, to blindfold myself…
It was only towards the very end of last year that it was announced – or rather whispered, hidden away as it was somewhere in the list of actors always included in the National T…
‘Enemies of the People’ is a welcome and observant theme for a theatre programme as we enter another year of post-truth politics, domestic division, and the third year in the r…
When Jo Clifford ("proud father and grandmother") first performed her play, The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven, at Glasgow's Tron Theatre, it attracted bo…
In her article for the British Library on Restorations Comedy Diane Maybankobserves that “little can be gained from removing the plays from their historical settings”.
The Rebels’ Season continues at the Jermyn Street Theatre with Bathsheba Doran’s Parents’ Evening.
Perhaps as a five-part radio serial Prairie Flower might provide some particular interest to crime enthusiasts, but as a two-hour monologue in the Upstairs at the Gatehouse, even w…
Some productions are enhanced when a director changes the contexts of a play.
Billed as part cabaret, part wannabe warehouse rave, my expectations were prepared.