FringeReview UK

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FringeReview UK 2021

A Splinter of Ice

Absorbing. With such an acting masterclass the play’s a bewitchingly-voiced fugue on the limits of belief and betrayal.


Adventurous

A play gently subverting all expectations. Feeling Adventurous? You should.


and breathe…

Yomi Sode’s hybrid theatre is a compelling immersion of witness and poetry: we need more of it.


Aphrodite

Dazzling: wise, clever twists about choice, male determination, and consequence.


Bad Nights and Odd Days

If you can beg a chair from the rafters, see it.


Between the Cracks

Another hugely stimulating triple-hit from Creative Associates.


Branching Out

Three very fine and one outstanding work, Scratches – the best kind of play on depression, self-harm, black holes. Because it’s screamingly funny and deeply connected to why we do theatre.


Eng-er-Land

Writer/performer Hannah Kumari leaves you alert and exhilarated


Footfalls & Rockaby

Charlotte Emmerson and Sian Phillips make their parts indelible, and add to Beckett’s stock of pity, stoicism and a window on death. Outstanding.


Hole

Don’t miss the chance to see this transcendent actor prove she possesses another dimension altogether.


How I Learned to Swim

Ends in a hush of absorption as you lean in for every word.


Hymn

Its potency lies in a fine peeling apart by Adrian Lester and Danny Sapini, and the language that bridges it.


Icarus

After all the gods and their lack of choice, we come to the final instalment, the human dimension. Where we have one. A heartfelt, satisfying finish.


Illusions of Liberty

A finely-calibrated solo play of what it’s like to enter that tunnel of near-undiagnosable but very real illness. Corinne Walker’s both authoritative and quicksilver. Do catch it.


Inside

They’re live. And Orange Tree. Catch them.


Is God Is

A stunning, preternaturally timed production


Last Easter

After all the uproar, it’s a quiet blinder.


Leopoldstat

Stoppard’s written out his theatrical testament. Outstanding.


Living Newspaper #3 Royal Court Theatre

Hot off Sloane Square a team of writers, actors and creatives twist the news to truth


Living Newspaper #4

We need this. Watch.


Living Newspaper #5

Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch.


Living Newspaper #6

Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch what this does with the future


Living Newspaper #7

Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch a group of young dramatists take on the future


Lockdown, Taboo and You

Four fine lockdown plays on zoom


Lockdown, Taboo and You 2

Another five fine lockdown plays on zoom


Lone Flyer

An absorbing drama, absorbingly acted and produced.


Love in the Time of Corona

The finest drama to emerge from the pandemic


Macbeth

Building out of Macbeth a recurring epic of structural violence not ended with one overthrow, sets the seal on this outstanding production.


Measure for Measure

Immerse yourself in Blanche McIntyre’s quizzical production. You’ll come nearer to this play.


Metamorphoses

The overriding sense, not surprisingly with these actors, is joy.


Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied Tunisia

A profound parable for co-existence and its sometime impossibility, perpetually skewed by others’ disruptions.


Orpheus

A terrific reinvention, bringing gods and heroines up from the death of myth to an altered world.


Outside

As with Inside, Outside not only fits us, they help us to move on, and become in their modest, unassuming and utterly transcendent way, part of how we learn to.


Paradise

A sleeping classic in the making


Persephone

Dazzling: wise, clever twists about choice, male determination, and consequence.


Plays for Today

A truly absorbing series. And free to stream on Soundcloud.


Push and Pull

A quietly thrilling evening, after it goes off with a bang and a bear.


Pygmalion

The most profound reinvention of this particular myth I’ve seen


Rare Earth Mettle

Absorbing. Rare Earth Mettle has found its time.


Rice

Do see this work of understated virtuosity, rich in character, substance, a shape-shifting singularity.


Romeo and Juliet

A fleet, brilliantly upending, wholly relevant take on the Verona-ready toxicity feeding male violence and young depression


Sacrament

A revelation, superbly written and acted. Comparisons have been made with A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing. I can think of no higher praise either. You must see this.


Scaramouche Jones

Shane Ritchie’s phenomenal energy and slidings in and out of tongues, mesmerises.


Shaw Shorts

A joyous, heady and oh-so-welcome return to this intimate yet high-kicking theatre. An absolute must-see.


Shook

If you’ve an appetite for exceptional new writing, just see it.


Staircase

A first-rate revival of a play that with its ostensible shock-value in aspic, reveals subversions and a clever structure so unsettling we should all look in the mirror and wince.


Statements After an Arrest under the Immortality Act

An important, scorching revival, Statements explores the limits of love in a forcing-house of oppression and racism.


The Game and Love and Chance

If you ever need a kick-start to theatre, this is it.


The Girl Who Was Very Good at Lying

Andrews vividly conveys what it is to be an undone thing, someone unravelling tales to live.


The Lodger

Do visit this exquisite production.


The Normal Heart

An outstanding revival. If you see one play this autumn, make it this one.


The Tempest

Do see this Tempest, not only subtly outstanding, but pulsing with human connectivity and warmth.


This Beautiful Future

Heartstopping. There’s an absoluteness here we need. We must prove desperate for it or die ourselves.


Twelfth Night

With Michelle Terry as Viola, one of the most touching and truthful Twelfth Nights I’ve seen.


Two Horsemen

The glaring energy of this piece can’t disguise how it strikes profundity in its funny-bone.


Vespertilio

Vespertilio marks Barry McStay’s emergence as a writer of distinction. Anything he writes now should be looked out for.


Walden

Amy Berryman’s Walden is a remarkable play where the earth itself’s at the cross-planet, and travellers in space have inner and outer choices.


What If If Only

Churchill’s anatomy of grief is what abides. Its emotional plangency and pulling the future open is unique.