REVIEW: A DARK NIGHT IN DALSTON (Park Theatre) ★★★★
A Dark Night In Dalston is a dark comedy, full of humour and surprises. Gina is a funny, big hearted and gossipy woman who is about to have her world turned upside down by the arrival of an unexpected stranger called Gideon, and Gideon is unprepared for the dark secret being kept by the delectable Gina. […]
REVIEW: LIMEHOUSE (Donmar Warehouse) ★★★★
One Sunday morning in 1981, four prominent Labour politicians – Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins and David Owen – gather at Owen’s home in Limehouse. The Labour Party, under the leadership of Michael Foot, is self-destructing and “the Gang of Four” are desperate to find a political alternative able to beat Thatcher, even if […]
REVIEW: FOUR THIEVES’ VINEGAR (Baron’s Court Theatre) ★★★★
It was 1665, the year of the Great Plague. A time when as many as a thousand people a day were dying in the streets of London. Matthias Richards paces his lonely cell in Newgate Prison. An invisible, tuneless drum, beats at a slow heartbeat pace. Matthias is a man of science and he believes […]
REVIEW: The Significant Other Festival: Conditions (The Vaults) ★★★★
‘Significant Other’ is a now-familiar clunky term usually signifying one’s ‘better half’. Exploring this as a theme in its sixth year the Pensive Federation’s “Significant Other Festival” presents a very specific challenge to those involved. The schedule is intense: ten writers, ten days, to produce ten ten-minute plays. This year the festival is a sort […]
REVIEW: SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES (Above The Stag Theatre) ★★★★
Southern Baptist Sissies is a story of growing up gay in bible belt America, where, to this day, being gay is still considered an illness to many people. Four young boys, Mark, Andrew, TJ and Benny, all attend the same Baptist Church but as the boys hit puberty, they start to realise they have un-christian […]
REVIEW: FRANKENSTEIN (Wilton’s Music Hall) ★★★★★
Undoubtedly one of the most celebrated tales in the world of British literature, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has suffered injustice after green-skinned, square-headed injustice in the two hundred years since it was first penned. The vast majority of adaptations of this Gothic classic cast Frankenstein’s creature as a dim-witted and hostile being, intent on causing harm […]
REVIEW: THE MONKEY (Theatre 503) ★★★★
The Monkey is a dark comedy featuring four characters each of whom are habitual small time London criminals and heroine addicts. These are not addicts as normally portrayed. They do not live in squalor exactly and are quite content with their lot. They manage to steal and deal enough to live relatively comfortably. Think Friends […]
REVIEW: PANDORA (Pleasance Theatre) ★★★★
Two characters, each with their own story. Stories that connect in an unexpected way A lone handsome black woman (played by the excellent Packsie Vernon) stands alone, dreamily playing the electric guitar and singing a beautiful, meandering song. She claims to be Hera, the wife of the God Zeus, who has come down to earth […]
REVIEW: FORTY SHADES OF STRAWBERRY BLOND (Leicester Square Theatre) ★★★
The phrase ‘One Man Show’ can strike fear into the hearts of many, however Paul Carroll’s ‘Forty Shades of Strawberry Blond’, at the Leicester Square Theatre left me pleasantly surprised. In his hour long show, Carroll switches from one character to another at break neck speed, the next even sillier and more obscure than the […]
REVIEW: THE COMEDY ABOUT A BANK ROBBERY (Criterion Theatre) ★★★★★
Genius. That is The Comedy About a Bank Robbery in one word. It is slick, intelligent and unimaginably funny. I worried that The Comedy About A Bank Robbery at the Criterion Theatre would be a copy cat sequel of The Play That Goes Wrong (also written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayers and Henry Sheilds), but while […]