FringeReview UK
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FringeReview UK 2021
An Evening With Flanders and Swann
A sovereign tribute. If you know Flanders and Swann, you’ll know Bednarczyk.
Yomi Sode’s hybrid theatre is a compelling immersion of witness and poetry: we need more of it.
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.
Evening Conversations/Life Laundry
Engrossing, it should provoke. Sudha Bhuchar absolves us by being bloody funny.
Jumbo’s Hamlet strips out accretions and ghosts you into asking who or what Hamlet is. See it if you possibly can.
Don’t miss the chance to see this transcendent actor prove she possesses another dimension altogether.
Its potency lies in a fine peeling apart by Adrian Lester and Danny Sapini, and the language that bridges it.
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.
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.
One of the wittiest but also truthful comedies about love, identity, sexual politics and gefilte fish I’ve seen
Living Newspaper #3 Royal Court Theatre
Hot off Sloane Square a team of writers, actors and creatives twist the news to truth
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch what this does with the future
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch a group of young dramatists take on the future
As we saw in March, don’t be lulled by friendly colours and fluffy fonts. Queens of Cups again proves they’re a company to revel with and wait for heart-stopping reveals
Don’t be lulled by the friendly colours and fluffy fonts. Queen of Cups is absolutely a company to watch, and its showcase productions are literally unmissable
On Arriving takes sixty minutes it seems we’ve been immersed in a Greek Tragedy of ninety. See it.
A terrific reinvention, bringing gods and heroines up from the death of myth to an altered world.
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.
Pandora’s Jar/Honour Among Thebes
The most educative stand-up and a thrilling presentation. Oh and bloody funny on the tragedies.
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.
Naturally enriched by living with Shakespeare Michael Pennington unearths local habitations and names for him.
The Girl Who Was Very Good at Lying
Andrews vividly conveys what it is to be an undone thing, someone unravelling tales to live.
A dramatic sense of arrival the way the Odyssey here ended: a clash of even vaster ferocity, keening, treachery, humour, mischievousness, sacrifice and grief, joy and the agency of women.
Another sovereign tribute. Stefan Bednarczyk brings Tom Lehrer swaggering out of retirement.
Again the most educative stand-up and a thrilling presentation. Oh and bloody funny on war, male sexuality and the Bechdel Test.
The glaring energy of this piece can’t disguise how it strikes profundity in its funny-bone.
Vagabonds My Phil Lynott Odyssey
An original off-kilter approach to elegy, tribute and becoming yourself.
Vespertilio marks Barry McStay’s emergence as a writer of distinction. Anything he writes now should be looked out for.
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.