FringeReview UK
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FringeReview UK 2018
A completely absorbing experience packed into a pulsing interior. Don’t miss it.
Bennett’s exhorting us to fight back with laughter and rage in this riveting, timely play. It’s a sad and angry consolation.
Poots and Norton achieve a quivering fright and tenderness that alone make this a must-see. but if a touch incredible in one choice, it shows Herzog’s ability to combine the new post-naturalism with a rare character-driven ride to apotheosis, recalling dramas more ancient and elemental.
There’s a resolution and a few late epiphanies. It’s an important work, satisfying in its refusal to over-imbue a situation which needs less plot-driven conflict than to lay open its stories like a knap of stone revealing the shine.
Brad Birch has won awards recently, and in Black Mountain he shows in part how fine he can be. It’s in the speech by the partner of man who’s cheated on her. That’s the rich ore mined on this particular mountain. That, and an ear for dialogue that shows Birch will do even finer things.
A superb revival of Bartlett’s warmest, most ground-breaking, perhaps most enduring play so far.
This is a must-see in reviving the theatrical profile of a fine dramatist for too long shrouded in the digital of radio and TV when the acoustic world is claiming her back.
As an airborne metaphor for how you get to be grown-ups, what it does to you, Dance Nation takes as it were some beating.
Dr Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman
These women are not shy when it comes to tackling the taboo topic of menstruation
Listen for our commonality, don’t look for difference. Here’s a memorable place to start.
Adult Orgasm Escapes from the Zoo. That title, from the 1983 version of one of the plays presented here summarises what you can expect. Sadly, subversion has to be rationed. Franca Rame and Dario Fo’s five short plays from 1977 Female Parts, get two outings – they’re joined in a similar bid for self-determination by OneNess Sankara’s The Immigrant, the first black woman in space. Go: it’s likely someone will vault over your head.
Warren’s East London heritage is similar to other writers, and it’s his time to re-tell it now, with new notes and a love of language that muscles in and won’t let go.
When you hear an opening like: ‘I met my husband in the queue to board an easyJet flight and I have to say I took an instant dislike to the man’ you relax. Too soon. Thus the chippy wit of Carey Mulligan’s opening of Dennis Kelly’s monologue Girls & Boys at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs, directed by Lyndsey Turner stretches ninety minutes into something else. Fourteen years after her debut on this stage, it confirms Mulligan as a great stage actor.
This Theatre Upstairs production lends a striking suspension of time to the middle of a sheep nowhere. Simon Longman’s Royal Court debut Gundog exudes the kind of stark belonging his plays seem made of. With such faultless direction and acting, Longman’s reach is patent.
However fine the original 2008 cast, you won’t miss them with this company’s revival of a stunning contemporary play. See it.
It’s a moment when rejoicing to concur with the general public, as Samuel Johnson once did over Gray’s Elegy, is the only thing to do.
More than an enchanting diversion Sarah McDonald’s play does ask just how quickly we need to grow up, even when we have.
Jones really deserves her place in the forefront of contemporary dramatists. Humble Boy confirms its own place, pivotal to he oeuvre which has grown more robustly and cleverly than the thematic flora or indeed bees that ululate to the end.
In the Night Time (Before the Sun Rises)
This production’s sheer inventiveness, the feral truth of the acting and fabulously exploding set surely reinvent something; and land this drama where it should be: in the bleak dark before a bleached-out dawn.
After Annie Baker’s outstanding The Flick in 2016 also in the Dorfman, her 2015 play John written two years later, has raised expectations that punch the roof of this intimate space. Whatever the premise, her priorities remain: the aching possibility of love in bleak solitudes inside or out, of healing, of forgiveness for the past, recent or historic.
You begin to wonder how life, not the playwright, will treat these playhouse creatures. De Angelis has hit a true vein. You must see this delirious state-of-the-pause play.
Most of all you take away the sheer bravura of Georgia May Hughes’ throwing everything up in the air. She carries the energy to a cheery bleakness. And you want to cheer.
Terry Johnson’s two-hander might seem a low-key hommage but his script’s brilliant. It’s a re-affirmation of Campbell’s comic epic theatre, and inspires you to look out for what his daughter Daisy might be bringing to us at the Brighton Festival.
This is an outstanding production, one of the two or three finest amateur ones I’ve ever seen. It can hold its head amongst consummate professional ones.
You must see this. Apart from the heroic production itself, if there’s one outstanding performer it has to be Lucie Jones with Rita Simons’ superb support. Jones' voice is stunning, stratospheric, above all characterful.
There’s an almost tragic power to the two endings, amidst glimpses of redemption. How difficult it seems to admit love, particularly for men in the toxicity of casual sex where people become apps and black voids to delete. Unmissable. Michelle Barnette’s next play will be worth waiting for.
It remains a highlight of the season, a mostly wonderful celebration of this rare gift from Abi Morgan. Let’s have more drama like this.
Highly Recommended for monkeys and lemurs of all ages – quite apart from lions, zebras, hippos and giraffes.
‘Have you ever tried to sustain a relationship with a twat?’ Some debuts establish more than a new voice. Anoushka Warden’s My Mum's a Twat certainly revels in its compelling and sassy distinctiveness; but it nails to this a cause. Beyond this though is the thrill of a debut writer with the tang of their own voice stinging the air. As Warden says about something else: ‘You’ll have to take my word on that.’ So see it.
Natasha Gordon emerges as a playwright whose capacity to balance seven characters in profound ambivalence – and shuddering proximity - to each other is both thrilling and wholly assured. Anything Gordon does now must be eagerly anticipated.
No One is Coming to Save You makes me want to see a lot more of Nathan Ellis.
There’s truths to discover here. Indeed, to remember love, happiness and life vigorously to combat the oblivion surrounding it. It’s still a hidden gem of a piece, and you should see this brief hour-long odyssey, either to reflect from its early evening finish or if visiting, as a sweetly sad, perhaps wiser prelude to whatever you choose from the later lights.
Cordelia Lynn’s a compelling dramatist whose political imagining is swept into musical paragraphs, landing on rhythmic details, pitches of self-betrayal.
The fact that sadly you’ll not see another Sebastian Barry in these parts unless you pick up one of his Booker-shortlisted novels is one good reason to see this. The fact that there’s some magnificent acting though makes it a must-see, for the soul as well as theatre-goer.
There’s much in this sweet, fleet and heart-breaking narrative of female friendship over thirty years that needs to be seen, including the poignant and unexpected epilogue. It’s a thumbnail classic.
Exemplary, thrilling, adrenalin-shot and shout-worthy. There has to be a part two, and it ought to be soon.
Like The French Lieutenant’s Woman, there are now two endings to Quartet. You must see this if you know the film only, or care about music, ageing, friendship and achingly lost love.
Reared is above all forgivingly funny, John Fitzpatrick’s comedy exquisite in group dynamics but sometimes on a telling image also contains create one of the most gripping story-telling scenes in recent drama.
This is an urgent, compellingly written stunningly acted piece of naturalistic drama. It should be filmed for mental health awareness week, and acted wherever possible.
Son of a Preacher man has real potential. It’s easily more than a cut above a jukebox musical, and Revel-Horwood’s work particularly coupled with Herbert’s musical arrangements is exemplary. As is the marvellous and marvellously hard-working ensemble.
Where else in Brighton can you see two new acclaimed plays so swiftly?
Utterly compelling. Anything Nina Raine writes now is routinely expected to touch greatness. No pressure.
Ultimately this is a play putting humanity and the limits of empathy on trial, the whole refugee crisis and bureaucracy’s way of distorting, dishonouring witness a corruptive glare that’s universal. It’s a vital, seminal work on how we misunderstand our humanity.
It’s a play which for theme, formal handling and ingenuity would be highly recommendable alone. Coupled with the excitement of ten young actors getting the measure of this and themselves provides a thrilling reach into tomorrow, including the tomorrows we hope never come.
One of the most riveting few minutes of contemporary theatre I’ve seen all year.
It’s a wholly original drama, and if you like the super-naturalist verismo of Amy Herzog’s Belleville recently at the Donmar or Annie Baker’s John at the National, you’ll enjoy this sidling from that. It’s conceptually even more original. Do see this. It’s a masterly play - in a theatre famed for its dishevelled uniqueness.
A play about amateurs no amateur company should even dare contemplate. There’s genius in the timing of all this. Outstanding.
The Political History of Smack and Crack
As theatre it Catherine-wheels with anger. As an unsentimental education this takes some beating. Don’t miss it.
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives
The genius of this production is to keep hilarity airborne whilst slipping in something poisonous. You must see this.
The most enduring British Christmas hits are melancholy, in stark contrast to say American. There’s a profound sadness in the magic. Its not a long work, perfectly proportioned for children. It’s still the ideal winter present, especially on a first trip to the theatre.
Of this play's witness and power there can be no doubt whatsoever. Compelling and unmissable.
There But For the Grace of God (Go I)
A rare instance of an actor knowing exactly how to direct himself. It’s a super-Fringe show well worth reviving, and Welsh clearly puts his life into it.
If it comes near you – visit the website – do try and see this pungently-paced meditation on upheaval. This Restless State breathes across its zones as a play with real potential that simply needs a little more daring, a little less peeling back.
The most radical piece of American theatre I’ve seen, and certainly the bravest. See it.
It’s a great phase of U. S. playwrighting, driven by women, and we’re lucky to be living in the middle of it. Schwend unleashes unexpected miracles and is one reason to see this hushed superlative of a play.
By the end of this you’ll know far more about the banking sector than even Robert Peston explains. Now go and play them for a fool.
