Review: Beggared in SA
With an unflinching eye and a stripped-back aesthetic, this is a taut gaze on South Africa’s social and political contradictions.
Genre: Devised 0
Review: Last Rites
Physical theatre about ritual and grief. Imaginative, human, witty non-verbal Signed story.
Review: A Series of Poorly Timed Questions
A curious, playful hour of questions that delight, unsettle and inspire
Review: Big Little Sister
A worthy explanation and exploration of what it's like to be a glass child growing up alongside a disabled older brother.
Review: 365 Days/365 Plays
An enlightening event that reminds us of where theatre practice often begins for young people.
Review: Heading Into Night – a clown ode…(forgetting)
Searching through fragments in a mind that is evaporating - one laugh at a time! Unforgettable!
Review: Cutting the Tightrope: The Divorce of Politics from Art
An essential, raging and ranging collection of works flashing with humour and teeth, flecked with harrowing stories and above all love for a humanity the establishment wishes us to other and consign to tragedy. A must-see.
Review: L’Addition – Here & Now Showcase
Intriguing exploration of two characters exceptionally well performed by Bert and Nasi.
Review: ECHO
Ultimately, the most telling line ”We are all immigrants across time” defines what remains an extraordinary experience
Review: Mnemonic
Mnemonic is treasurable, eloquent, a rare passport. It remembers what hope, connectedness and peace smelt like. It’s worth remembering that.
Review: J’ai un Bleu
J’ai un Bleu manages to covey through movement what words simply cannot express. The objectification of the female form.
Review: Company RAus’s Dido
A multimedia portrayal of Dido's love and loss, in sound, light and solo dance
Review: Oh What a Lovely War
Musically directed by Ellie Verkerk the six-strong cast play instruments throughout. They’re a phenomenal team, singing beautifully a capella or in solo. With six young actors mostly fresh out of drama school absolutely at the top of their first game, we’re treated to acting both hungry to prove and yet touched by the world they’ve entered. This is an outstanding production.
Review: AFTER ALL
Weinachter is an interchangeable chameleon: not just a dancer, but a rare performer who can do it all! Her style and execution of ideas paints a beautiful memory of her idiosyncratic talents in exploring the beginning and end of life. Stunningly poignant.
Review: SHOOT THE CAMERAMAN
Enthralling. Poignant. Unforgettable. Two cameras. One couple. A beautiful dance between the private and public world of this turbulent couple. Not to be missed!
Review: Extreme: The New Norm
A fantastic series of interconnected scenes all about the world’s favourite pandemic.
Review: Walking Home
A decently imagined production of a serious topic that hints strongly at the work remaining to be identified, never mind done.
Review: Django in Pain
Poignant, charming and meaningful play that is imaginative and vibrant in vision and message.
Review: Jews. In Their Own Words.
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.
Review: Decision – An Irish Dance Play
Joyous, poignant and inventive fusion of theatre and Irish dance.
Review: The Endling
Curious for the curious, entertaining, enlightening, witty, humorous and thought provoking.
Review: Done to Death, By Jove!
Traditional fare of the English murder mystery served wrapped in a conundrum of a puzzle with Marple, Poirot, Holmes and a far from elementary theatrical solution
Review: Candide
"Brimming with ideas, full-blooded and full throated performance, Candide is presented successfully in a way only Babolin theatre can achieve."
Review: Move Fast and Break Things
Intriguing impactful story, characters and fascinating video and puppetry!
Review: Little Wimmin
An adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel Little Women by all-female performance art collective Figs in Wigs
Review: Silent
Bravura storytelling about fantasy and family from the perspective of a homeless man in Ireland
Review: Slings and Arrows
The principal reason why a stage should always be a platform for the voices unheard.
Review: Sweating the Small Stuff
An episodic call to concentrate on the big stuff rather than the wee things which hits more than it misses.
Review: We Came To Dance
A truly immersive experience where you dance to the rhythms of another world in a class that should make you spin.
Review: There’s a Ghost in My House
Stunning. Greet the nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.
Review: Nine Lessons and Carols
The Almeida’s another country. They do shows differently there. A bold communing of theatre stories with the fresh poignancy of what’s happened during 2020
Review: San Francisco Fringe Festival 2020 Sneak Peek!
Catch a taste of what's to come at the 2021 San Francisco Fringe Festival!
Review: The Affair
A lovelorn lothario with ants in his pants meets his match in a knockabout clown play
Review: Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation
The most consistently satisfying work of Tim Crouch I’ve seen.
Review: Cardboard Citizens: Bystanders
Powerful real stories told with phenomenal theatrical flair that will have you thinking 'what would I do?'
Review: The Voices We Hear
A moving and intimate exploration of life and connection after an apocalypse in a unique zero waste venue
Review: The female role model project
Original, thought-provoking, ambitious, funny, absorbing, interactive and no sign of the 4th wall
Review: The Institute for the Opposite of Longing
An inventive, intimate and experimental exploration of parental loss.
Review: Baby Face
An uncomfortable night facing uncomfortable truths with comfort coming when you have the decency to condemn the truly indecent
Review: The Adventures of Abhijeet
Entertaining and well performed by the compelling cast in this zany edgy world!
Review: KillyMuck
A brilliant and brutal portrayal of the inequity and generational desperation of the Benefits Class
Review: (Even) Hotter
A hilarious expose of what is hot, in your body, for your body and with other bodies.
Review: The Way Out
An acoustic dystopian fantasy where the question becomes – is it right to unplug?
Review: Uninvited
Innovative devised expose of the refugee crisis from young voices creatively telling age old tales
Review: Girl World
A devised exploration of what being a girl means and how to transition to womanhood.
Review: Feed
Creative, innovative, well-performed and directed, a complete show that entertains and informs!
Review: I’ll Have What She’s Having
A hilarious run through womanhoodwinked in the 21st Century straight from two women who know from either side of the picketed fence.
Review: A Cockroach and Furry Blurry Fluffy Things
Delightful show, positive, creative and imaginative!
Review: The Search for a Black-Browed Albatross
Creative, imaginative, beautifully crafted and well performed - excellent show!
Review: Casting Off
Three generations of women 'Cast Off' all stereotypes of what they can, should and be able to do.
Review: Notes From the Field
What makes this harrowing selection work is how Smith varies, gradates and paces her interviews; and builds a climax. It renders the experience a memorial; it’s what such artistry’s for. You will experience nothing like this and leave reeling.
Review: The Prudes
Neilson’s piece twists an unexpected root out of recent debates over power and sexual abuse the Royal Court has addressed so consistently. Uniquely Neilson’s made the faintly horrible full-on hilarious.
Review: Minefield
Minefield is for its unique and singularly consummate exploration of its themes, outstanding, in a class apart from any show you’ll see, perhaps even of Arias. Her work must be acknowledged here now.
Review: Old Boy
Entrancing, delightful and honest portrayal of manly relationships and their value in a world where cynicism holds sway.
Review: Thebes Land
It’s good to welcome the return of this cage. Franco-Uruguayan Sergio Blanco’s Thebes Land drops back into Arcola’s Studio 1 after its acclaimed run in 2016. It’s where this will go, what both prisoner Martin and writer T are left with, that begins to shine out of this extraordinary, ground-breaking work.
