Meeting in a pub near Guy’s Hospital, this drama takes you through the London Bridge area, where you will meet Sarah (Rebecca Ward) and Josh (Benedict Hudson). With them you will look into your missing past and theirs.
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Immersive Dinner theatre can be hit and miss. Sometimes great fun, sometimes a disaster. Regular readers will remember I had considerable issues with the staging, content and overall design of a previous Vaults production Divine Proportions.
So it was with a little trepidation that I approached Dinner is Coming. I worried that there would not be enough immersive elements surrounding the food and drink to make it a worthy night out. I needn’t have.
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Dismantle This Room is – in essence – an escape room. You solve puzzles and make decisions as you go through to get through a series of rooms built onto the stage at the Royal Court. However, there is a strong element of self-examination and social justice woven into the experience throughout that give this an added edge.
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Rooms confronts you with an interesting question: What is theatre? Where does the live experience begin and end? It has been described as theatre without actors but that's not strictly true. It is theatre without live actors?
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Ultimately, This is a rather lovely self-actualisation seminar. The group bonds through exercises to improve vocal expression, self representation and physical comfort and expression. You come in shuffling and giggling nervously, you leave having – if consented – hugged and even sniffed total strangers.
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Must our politicians disappoint? That is the question that is keeping some of us on the liberal left up at night.
The latest let down is Justin Trudeau. He of the bilingual social media, refugee welcoming press stunts and (somewhat performative) feminism. While Trudeau was never as left wing as many of us economically, his leadership style on social issues did seem like a breath of fresh air. He appeared to be willing to take action that went against the narrative of the day, making genuinely tough decisions on issues like immigration where the easy option would have been to turn people away.
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There’s no other way to say it: Brexit is a mess right now. So it’s not a great shock that the public would prefer to remain in the EU rather than accept Theresa May’s deal or a no-deal Brexit, according to a recent poll.
This pro-EU stance is likely to be bolstered on Saturday with a mass demonstration in favour of a people’s vote. The upcoming march will be a long cry from the soggy, bedraggled mess that was the Brexit Betrayal march. Not least because those who called for this one might even bother to take part.
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Was this timely? Was it necessary? Was it important? These are the questions I’m contemplating after watching this play.
It was moving certainly. Thought-provoking for sure. It opened up a different part of our modern conversation about abuse, victims and consent. About predators and perpetrators. About humans and monsters.
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I was a guest host on Fubar Radio where I discussed the impacts of austerity. Guests included Stephen Canning, Mike Galsworthy and Sophie Walker. Here I argue that the divisions on social media are not new. They are reflected in the way the Sun acted over Hillsborough.
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This double-bill of dance pieces both star an impressive and athletic Elsa Couvreur – often centre stage without even music.
The Sensemaker is the tale of a woman’s struggle with a Kafka-esque bureaucracy. This play is in part commentary on the arbitrary nature of dealing with faceless machines, telephones and surveillance; part tale on the nature of the hoops we are increasingly forced to jump through as power dynamics in so many areas of our lives widen.
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Good fringe theatre goes one of two ways. Either it’s so out there that it shocks you, or it’s small, personal, and deeply touching. In Feel, the latter approach is delivered in spades.
Feel is the story of two couples: one a seemingly uncomplicated meeting over the years while waiting for delayed trains; the other a failed attempt at a one night stand that lingers into a relationship.
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Equus is a breathtaking, startling, and gripping play delivered brilliantly by a compelling cast.
Introduced to a tableau of boy and horse by world-weary psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Zubin Varla), from the off, I was struck by the beautiful physicality of Ira Mandela Siobhan as Nugget. His movement – not quite dance, not quite not-dance embodied the pride, beauty and power we associate with horses.
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“Bringing the Party into disrepute” is a complex, catch-all phrase. Hard to truly define, butyou know it when you see it. And in Chris Williamson MP we have seen it for quite some time.
This week matters came to a head. In the space of 48 hours we have seen Williamson attempt to host an event in Parliament with a woman who has been suspended from the Labour Party under investigation for antisemitism before telling an event in Sheffield that the Party has been“too apologetic” about the same topic.
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This one woman (and two backing musicians) show is a tour de force. The story may be old as time but the modern twist of basically turning it into a concept album breathes new life into this ‘woman scorned’ tale. Katrina Quinn commands the stage and respect as Medea – a woman at first fulfilling the duties of her sex, but later given to violent revenge.
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The American Clock is a lavish production of a confusing and disjointed play. It reminded me of nothing so much as a stage version of The Big Short. Half drama, half documentary, fully fascinating but largely for the glimpses of the real story of the crash and less for any sense of being lost in the lives on stage.
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