FringeReview UK
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FringeReview UK 2022
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The Finborough produces marvels, though this one, without losing its dazzling, tight DNA, deserves the widest possible transfer.
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As Ken Tynan once said of another debut, I don’t think I could love someone who doesn’t love this play.
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Howard Brenton touching eighty is at the height of his powers. Tom Littler has assembled a pitch-perfect cast, reuniting two from his outstanding All’s Well. This too.
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An object lesson in comic timing; a steep cut above the ‘real’ whodunnits we’re likely to see this year or next.
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An excellent revival and the best chance to see this remarkable thriller-cum-farce-cum-meditation.
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McGuinness produces one of his finest works wrought from the sawdust of others and rendered it the burst of stars that irradiate the end.
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For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy
Turns the bleakness of six young men into a celebration of – for now – coming through
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Grabs you from the towards the close of Act One and doesn’t let go: from here to curtain we’re in heart-stopping eternity.
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Hakawatis Women of the Arabian Nights
Original, bawdy, exploratory, seductive and elegaic in equal measure. A Faberge egg, continually hatching.
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Bracing, fresh, wholly re-thought in every line, emerging with gleaming power, menace and wit. And I defy anyone not to smile at this new take on Shakespeare’s downbeat ending.
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A wonderful score and musicians, above all Bea Segura’s titanic act of shrivelling, make this a must-see.
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A major talent with a distinct voice, and the consummate assurance to express it with stamp and precision
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The title role goes to Isobel Thom, making their professional debut: the greatest I’ve ever seen.
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What Richard Bean and Oliver Chris manage is homage, both to Sheridan’s shade, his early bawdy, and despite anything a memorial to those who laughed at themselves to death. A must-see.
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It’s Jonathan Freedland’s and Tracy-Ann Oberman’s brilliance to bring off-kilter, casual devastation to the stage; in raw unsettlings that for many keep the suitcase packed.
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Rarely has a Cordelia and Fool scaled such equal terms with such a Lear, rendering a kind of infinity.
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Another first-rank revival from JST, specialists in rediscoveries: a fitting end to Tom Littler’s tenure.
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No simple swapping of heirs and originals, but a dream of the future by Seacole, or equally present dreams raking the past. Do see this.
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This isn’t the most revelatory Much Ado, but the most consummate and complete for a while.
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Worth 95 minutes of anyone’s time, you come out heavier with the weight of where you’ve been.
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An unnerving testing of that space between naturalism and hallucination, redemption and blank unknowing, studded with a language that flies off the page.
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A real play bursting out of its hour-plus length; with complex interaction, uncertain journeys, each character developing a crisis of isolation only resolved by sisterhood
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More of a scattering of earth, ashes and love than simply groundbreaking. But caveats aside, groundbreaking it is.
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Danny Webb gives the performance of his life. Ralph Fiennes is coiled majesty. Two-and-a-half hours of such material have rarely been so thrilling.
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Lucy Kirkwood prophesies what’s in store with savage fury, and no-one’s exempt, least of all her.
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There’s many reasons to see Williams’ finest play. To realise our potential it’s not enough to have dreams, but for someone to show us what those dreams could be.
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A Crucible of searing relevance; by grounding it in its time, it scorches with clarity.
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Highlights the truth of its bleak laughter. Humane Strindberg. Now there’s a thing.
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It’s not just gender-swerving but role-swerving that threatens sexual and social order. Surprises light up even the last fade.
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There’s no finer dramatisation of India’s internal conflicts. Shubham Saraf’s Gandhi-killer Godse stands out in this thrilling ensemble and storms it too.
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Simply put: go see this if you’ve any feeling for postwar drama. It’s theatre on the rack and do we need it!
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The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Such exquisite works find their time; speak to it again and again and again.
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The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary!
An outstanding revival, full of fierce fun, pathos and a massive tragedy for Christmas, wrapped in red bon-bons.
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A reading of Adrian Schiller’s Shylock as probing as other great productions of the past decade; and of Sophie Melville’s nearly-rounded, brittle Portia.
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Pamela Carter’s schoolboys embody human connectedness, warmth, a final camaraderie before the chill of history. Unmissable.
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Not so much an event as a concentration of Errollyn Wallen’s genius celebrating the life of blind composer Maria Theresia van Paradis, in Graeae’s world-class production
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So what could a Sussex-based sci-fi tale of 1913 by Conan Doyle – a space-borne poison belt of gas that hits the earth – possibly have to do with the week of the greatest temperatures known in the UK?
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A Seagull for the initiated, a meditation rather than the play itself, it’s still a truthful distillation, wholly sincere, actors uniformly excellent
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What theatre can do, how it can change us, how completely different it is from any other experience, has few examples that come close to this.
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Perfectly freighted; each character pitched with just enough choice to make us wonder what life, not Stephen Beresford will do with them. Outstanding.
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A joyous production, that without its gimmicky close, could certainly furnish a way in for many
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Pitch-perfect and compelling. Sometimes knowing your prison walls too much can drive you mad.
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Two Billion Beats was bursting with promise before. Now it delivers with a visceral yes.
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Ibsen’s elusive masterpiece is so rarely performed seeing it is an imperative. Played with such authority as here, in Norwegian and English, it’s not a luxury but a must-see.
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Phenomenal. It’s Aaron Anthony’s and Nadine Higgin’s phenomenal performances that own the Orange Tree’s stripped-back space, and fill it and Yellowman with complexity, heart and utter conviction