FringeReview UK

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FringeReview UK 2024

1979

Political history told in Mamet-fast satire, imagined conversations and accurate stats. What could be more thrilling? 82 minutes later you won’t ask why this three-hander is like curing New Year’s hangover with Red Bull, ice, something illegal and a vodka chaser.


Cowbois

Cranford’s gone Wild West, via the Court and RSC. Cowbois is of course daft. But it’s magnificent in its silliness, contains wonderful – and truthful – moments. Deadly serious can have you rolling in the aisles and still jump up for the revolution.


Gigi & Dar

Compelling and unanswerable, it’s more humane than recent history in several parts of the world allow. Setting it in 2016, Josh Azouz knows history itself has been overtaken. Highly recommended.


Greenhouse Festival LAMDA Festival New Directors in association with Orange Tree

Every one of these productions could enjoy a run at the Orange Tree: they’re exciting and accomplished.


Just For One Day

Despite history’s caveats, O’Farrell’s core message isn’t about white saviours or pop stars but how ordinary people unite to change things.


Kafka

It’s Klaff’s improvisatory edge, founded on absolute technique and clear-headed text, that finds an exit where none was signposted. Magnificent.


Kunstler

An outstanding production persuading us such a self-narrating show can enthral as well as inform. A hidden gem.


Laughing Boy

Stephen Unwin directs his own play as a sweep of storytelling, laughter and devastation.


Richard III

In a female-led cast led by the eponymous Richard III (Michelle Terry) it’s striking that the trio of cursing women is this production’s highlight


Sanctuary

Christine Rose as dramatist is a name we’ll be hearing, with luck, very soon.


The Beautiful Future is Coming

Beautiful Future engages throughout though the near future is where it beats quickest. Flora Wilson Brown’s play makes you wonder what life, not just the playwright, might do with her characters. Urgently recommended.


The Children’s Inquiry

Worth two-and-a-half hours of anyone’s time.


The Constituent

This extremely fine play is even more prescient than Penhall and Warchus intended, with an earlier election. The Constituent though, will survive it till August.


The English Moor

Richard Brome’s 1637 The English Moor marks a new departure for Read Not Dead. You might say with this play it’s Read to be Dead.


The EU Killed My Dad

Do see this, preferably alongside its sometime co-runner The Beautiful Future is Coming. A dizzying theatrical gem.


The Lonely Londoners

An outstanding production.


The Trumpeter

Verging on expressionism it’s extraordinary.


The Unlikely Secret Agent

How it ends I urge you to discover in this sizzling paean to humanity.


Till the Stars Come Down

Even this early, it’s safe to predict we’ll look back at the end of 2024 and proclaim it as one of the year’s finest.


Women Who Blow on Knots

As fine a realisation as anyone could manage. The immediacy, cries, reveals are inherently theatrical and precious. A must-see.