REVIEW: Austentacious (Piccadilly theatre) ★★★★
Imagine what a lost Jane Austen novel might look like and perhaps you’d come up with something akin to ‘Seasonings and Seasonality’ – at least that’s the audience suggestion that won the day in Austentacious at the Piccadilly theatre this week. Fully improvised across 90 minutes, the show was suitably peppered with jokes and some […]
REVIEW: BOAT PEOPLE (Pentameters Theatre) ★★★
Boat People is a confident first outing from emerging playwright, Emma Park, with a mini courtroom drama, packed with dramatic testimony. In the High Court, before a sedate Mr Justice Barebones, (Bryan Hands), the animated Captain Papangelos (played expertly by Giorgio Galassi) is called as a witness, in defence of his employers. The captain is pitted against […]
REVIEW: Thriller Live (Sunderland Empire) ★★★★
Thriller Live was performed in the West End for the first time in 2006, embarking on its first UK tour and eventually finding a home at Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in 2008, making it one of the longest running shows in the West End. With tours and shows currently playing in over 31 different […]
REVIEW: GIRLS AND BOYS (Royal Court) ★★★★★
My love for both Dennis Kelly and Carey Mulligan – possibly equal in measure – meant I approached this production with the cool trepidation all reasonably self-aware fangirls should channel: don’t be biased, remain objective and neither scream nor cry. I just about managed it. Girls and Boys is brilliant because it’s such a precious […]
REVIEW: Anti Valentine’s Ball (Royal Vauxhall Tavern) ★★★★
Valentine’s Day is, without question, the most loathed socio-cultural pressure-pot that the world has ever kept repeating. Single? Hate it. In a relationship? Still deep down hate it. Don’t give a crap about it? There’s still a part of you that hates it. Because it adds so much goddamn pressure. But what if this was […]
REVIEW: COTTON (Waterloo East Theatre) ★★
The world of e-sports and professional gaming is growing. Although still a relatively niche area of the entertainment industry, it is slowly but surely gaining traction and making its way into the spotlight. Cotton, by new playwright Alex Benjamin, tells the story of those who enjoy fame and glory in the digital world struggling to […]
REVIEW: YOU (Vaults Festival) ★★★★★
YOU, is a play by BBC Radio 4 writer Mark Wilson about adoption and the ripples one child can send through families of strangers. This award-winning play is presented by Longsite Theatre as part of Vaults Festival at Waterloo. It was first performed at the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2015 where it won the Brighton […]
REVIEW: CINDERELLA (Milton Keynes Theatre) ★★
The beloved story of Cinderella has captured audiences for centuries, retold in film, pantomime, ballet… Now Matthew Bourne and New Adventures have brought it to life yet again in this contemporary production that sets the story during the Blitz, in 1940, using Profokiev’s original score. While this, as a concept is fine there are few […]
REVIEW: ONE DUCK DOWN (VAULTS Festival) ★★★★★
I should probably start this review by letting you know that Faceplant Theatre’s show One Duck Down, that is currently playing as part of The Vaults Festival is one of the best children’s shows I’ve ever seen. If you don’t get any further than this paragraph, please take with you the fact that One Duck […]
REVIEW: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (New Victoria Theatre) ★★★
Guy Haines and Charles Bruno meet on a train and, because they are strangers, they think they can say anything while chatting. Bruno suggests that they could get away with murder – he could kill Guy’s unfaithful wife while Guy could eliminate his hated father, There would be no motive, and in effect a perfect […]