FringeReview UK
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FringeReview UK 2024
Political history told in Mamet-fast satire, imagined conversations and accurate stats. What could be more thrilling? 82 minutes later you won’t ask why this three-hander is like curing New Year’s hangover with Red Bull, ice, something illegal and a vodka chaser.
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.
Laura Hanna is outstanding in a play that ought to establish itself and playwright Martha Loader; and should enjoy a much longer run.
A necessary, engaging, original variation on finding your voice: and a theatrical coup. Acting, writing, directing, video, lighting and tech support, indeed singing are first class. A gem.
It’s an exciting, fragile world Sam Grabiner’s promised us in the future.
One of the finest small-scale plays to come out of Arcola’s Studio 2 recently. Do see this.
Still in her twenties but vastly experienced, it’s going to be exciting to see where Lawford breaks out to next.
Cranford’s gone Wild West, via the Court and RSC. Cowbois is of course daft. But it’s magnificent in its silliness, contains wonderful – and truthful – moments. Deadly serious can have you rolling in the aisles and still jump up for the revolution.
A definitive telling of that rarest thing, an uplifting Dostoevsky tale. It’s unlikely to be rendered better than this.
Ultimately, the most telling line ”We are all immigrants across time” defines what remains an extraordinary experience
In and Out of Chekhov’s Shorts
Outstanding. After this, there’s no other way to tell Chekhov dramatically that he’s not already nailed down in a play himself. Chekhov would have loved it.
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.
An outstanding production persuading us such a self-narrating show can enthral as well as inform. A hidden gem.
Stephen Unwin directs his own play as a sweep of storytelling, laughter and devastation.
Mnemonic is treasurable, eloquent, a rare passport. It remembers what hope, connectedness and peace smelt like. It’s worth remembering that.
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.
A joyous revival. Though working in TV production, Hayden’s writing is too good, too well-shaped not to develop in theatre instead.
A bit of theatrical democracy invoking pre-democracy crafts an exquisite irony for a rainy afternoon. Do see it.
A superbly uncomfortable edge-of-seat revelation. Groundbreaking, it’s also definitive on something we often see far too dimly.
The end’s both poignant and visionary. A show to remember long after the Bear’s imagined batteries run down.
The writing will snare you, Phoebe Ladenburg will hold you, and you’ll lean over the fourth wall.
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.
The Beautiful Future is Coming
Beautiful Future engages throughout though the near future is where it beats quickest. Flora Wilson Brown’s play makes you wonder what life, not just the playwright, might do with her characters. Urgently recommended.
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.
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.
Do see this, preferably alongside its sometime co-runner The Beautiful Future is Coming. A dizzying theatrical gem.
A valuable corrective to anticipate both real events and Arthur Miller’s take on Abigail Williams
Hall, following Nottage in particular, emerges as one of the most exciting US dramatists.
The work’s best at its quietest, where intimacy doesn’t need shouting. It’s still an intriguing development, as Kirkwood, as in her magnificent The Welkin, interrogates the condescensions of history.
An extraordinary production. Thorne’s vision is capped by a riveting performance by Gatiss, who glows with the still, sad music of Gielgud’s humanity.
Mike Poulton’s text gleams and snaps. Lucy Bailey’s production of it thrills and occasionally overwhelms, dazzling in its maze of missteps. A must-see.
Blackeyed have kept their telling as lean as Holmes’ hawk-like face, and it pounces. If you admire 221b at all, see it this week.
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.
This six-hander is a 90-minute announcement of a major talent. An almost flawless play.
This is the greatest one-man performance I’ve seen, said a Chekhov-immersed director of 45 years’ experience next to me. Yes.
