Genre: Contemporary 0
Review: Meet Me at Dawn
An aching, unflinching look at what we might face. Yet few seek to live through such a pact as bestowed here. A Greek gift. Unmissable in the south east.
Review: Re:Incarnation
Powerhouse Afrodance celebrating the creative energy of Lagos, presented by Dance Consortium
Review: Stoppard The Real Inspector Hound; Bartlett Contractions
As ever it’s a more worthwhile production than several professional ones we’re likely to see.
Review: Gareth Strachan Project M.E. The Rock Inn Pub
Strachan proves he can pull together serious talent who believe in his work. It’s a step up in all directions
Review: 23.5 Hours
A worthy successor to Never Not Once, almost from the other side of the glass, it makes Crim one of the most visible and exciting of US dramatists.
Review: Bambiland
A performance of a very challenging piece of theatre which targets war and our complicity in the industry of war.
Review: The Gummy Bear’s Great War
An absurd, imaginative, and superb performance on a new level involving Gummy Bears for Peace.
Review: L’Addition – Here & Now Showcase
Intriguing exploration of two characters exceptionally well performed by Bert and Nasi.
Review: Freak Out!
A theatrical response to a serious issue of our time along with a dollop of end-of-the-pier entertainment.
Review: Jess
A surgeon buckles under the pressure of work, a bullying environment and a personal life under pressure.
Review: Timeless
Timeless comprises four contrasting dance pieces that are all interesting and well performed.
Review: Via Dolorosa by David Hare
Through many voices, playwright David Hare has penned an Israel-Palestine story that could have been written today. It is dramatic, powerful, and moving.
Review: The Hidden Garden
Beauty and grace poised in a confined space, watched by a spellbound audience, in another confined space.
Review: Read the F***ing Manual
Thought provoking theatre on the importance of taking care of yourself and others in a hostile world. The potential to be a play for our times.
Review: The Years
This production reminds us it’s often the least theatrical, least tractable works that break boundaries, glow with an authority that changes the order of things.
Review: After Sex
Deservedly hugely popular. With uber-smart dialogue, Dromgoole ensures that under the brittle wrap, there’s an ache and overriding desire for connection.
Review: The Hot Wing King
Hall, following Nottage in particular, emerges as one of the most exciting US dramatists.
Review: ECHO
Ultimately, the most telling line ”We are all immigrants across time” defines what remains an extraordinary experience
Review: Bindweed
Laura Hanna is outstanding in a play that ought to establish itself and playwright Martha Loader; and should enjoy a much longer run.
Review: Alma Mater
Kendall Feaver’s very integrity might not satisfy those who enjoy outcomes dispelled in light. But that’s the point.
Review: Mnemonic
Mnemonic is treasurable, eloquent, a rare passport. It remembers what hope, connectedness and peace smelt like. It’s worth remembering that.
Review: 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.
Review: Surrender
The writing will snare you, Phoebe Ladenburg will hold you, and you’ll lean over the fourth wall.
Review: Some Demon
A superbly uncomfortable edge-of-seat revelation. Groundbreaking, it’s also definitive on something we often see far too dimly.
Review: Constellations
This superb revival suggests Constellations will certainly travel for a long time.
Review: Heart’s Desire/L’Amore Del Cuore
Anyone admiring Churchill, ferocious comedy or excited by a rare UK foray into Italian theatre must see this.
Review: Geneva Convention
As this gets quieter, it shouts more loudly. Exciting as this is, it will devastate when it finds its arc. This might ascend into something crucial.
Review: Women’s Writes
We’ve been lucky to sit in on the first stage of a very promising conversation collaboration, and theatre piece.
Review: You’re Not Doing It Wrong If No-one Knows What You’re Doing
How families shape you - until you find your own particular shape
Review: The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey
Of the 115 (mostly London) shows I’ve seen this year so far, it ranks as the most profound, and one of the very finest.
Review: Cold Water
Still in her twenties but vastly experienced, it’s going to be exciting to see where Lawford breaks out to next.
Review: 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.
Review: Company RAus’s Dido
A multimedia portrayal of Dido's love and loss, in sound, light and solo dance
Review: Lived Fiction
Unique, spellbinding, groundbreaking; above all makes everyone more alive to the possibilities of being human.
Review: Captain Amazing
Simon Stephens commented “If I could get all your numbers I would ring you all up individually and urge you to see Captain Amazing.” That can’t be improved on. It’s a must-see.
Review: Rock, Paper, Scissors
A joyous revival. Though working in TV production, Hayden’s writing is too good, too well-shaped not to develop in theatre instead.
Review: Dawn Again: A Rap Opera
Elliot has a problem: two girlfriends, both giving birth on the same day in the same hospital
Review: Laughing Boy
Stephen Unwin directs his own play as a sweep of storytelling, laughter and devastation.
Review: Frozen
Frozen is far more than a thriller: it’s an interrogation into the limits of what evil-doing is, what redemption and some capacity to forgive might be, and its consequences: and above all it ends in a thaw cracking like a Russian spring.
Review: Boys on the Verge of Tears
It’s an exciting, fragile world Sam Grabiner’s promised us in the future.
Review: Testmatch
A superbly witty interrogation of identity, abuses many histories deep, asking questions it sets up in not too sober a fashion. Testmatch is a lightning-conductor.
Review: Banging Denmark
This production’s 100 minutes are so absorbing you’re not quite sure if the time’s stopped, or just your preconceptions. Stunning, a must see.
Review: Neil Crossland Piano Recital, Unitarian Church, New Road Brighton
All in all an outstanding recital. Neil Crossland’s piano recital at the Unitarian Church is again on another level
Review: Muswell Hill
Cook and team have shown commendable disregard for comfortable options, sharing a rediscovery.
Review: Dream of a Ridiculous Man
A definitive telling of that rarest thing, an uplifting Dostoevsky tale. It’s unlikely to be rendered better than this.
Review: Hide and Seek
An absorbing two-hander with as unexpected an ending as Lauren Gunderson’s I and You
Review: Casserole
One of the finest small-scale plays to come out of Arcola’s Studio 2 recently. Do see this.
Review: Rika’s Rooms
Emma Wilkinson Wright manages the narrative as an odyssey punctuated by screams. It’s a pretty phenomenal performance and the actor is so wholly immersed in Rika you know you’re in the presence of something remarkable.
Review: Good-Bye
Wholly absorbing, wholly other, it’s a gem of the Coronet’s dedication to world theatre.
Review: Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening
This is as fresh as an AI paint set, and far more transgressive than the original. The fizziest, most outrageous assault on common decency since – I’ll leave it to the gibbons. A must-see.
Review: The Duchess of Malfi
There’s so much to admire here that it’s a happy duty to urge you to see it, if you can, any way you can.
Review: Stitches
The end’s both poignant and visionary. A show to remember long after the Bear’s imagined batteries run down.
Review: Vanya
This is the greatest one-man performance I’ve seen, said a Chekhov-immersed director of 45 years’ experience next to me. Yes.
Review: ACT Playwriting Course
Mark Burgess and his students should feel immensely satisfied. And of course the students themselves divinely dissatisfied as they develop their craft.
Review: King Lear
This smouldering production – fast-talking or timeless - fully engages with the play. It makes almost perfect sense: and two families’ DNA ring true as rarely before.
Review: 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.
Review: 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.
Review: Othello
With institutional racism and trauma compounded in a feedback loop, this Othello’s a timely, and timeless broadside on everything toxic we inhale and expel as venom.
Review: For Entertainment Purposes Only
Philip Ayckbourn’s songs are the heart of this collection. It’d be thrilling to see a full musical here; and staged in London. Enthusiastically recommended, there’s gems, with more of Ayckbourn’s elegiac sensibility than I’ve ever seen. More of this please.
Review: A Chat With Adonai
Jacob Kay and Helen Baird are both exemplary and funny – there’s explosions of laughter. At 40 minutes there’s much matter hurled at the speed of dark. See it if you can, and check out the other Bitesize plays at Riverside.
