Genre: Solo Play 0
Review: Jobsworth
A must-see one-person coffee-black comedy, it lasts a full 90 minutes. Libby Rodliffe is a phenomenal performer. And uproarious.
Review: Natasha Cottriall (God Save My) Northern Soul
Time will deepen the shadows and writer/actor Natasha Cottriall shows this in the very last moment
Review: Natasha Cotriall (God Save My) Northern Soul
Time will deepen the shadows and writer/actor Natasha Cotriall shows this in the very last moment.
Review: A Paper Orchestra
A thoughtful, literary solo show that bridges prose and theatre, inviting audiences into stories and reflections on parenting, masculinity, and the need to be truly seen.
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.
Review: King
A high-octane solo show about a Singaporean woman discovering freedom and masculinity through her drag king alter ego.
Review: 1, 2, 3. Shit. That’s my OCD.
Rhythmical, immediate, and cleverly structured, it’s gorgeous work on a strong mind trying to make sense of its landscape past and present.
Review: Kaddish (How to Be a Sanctuary)
A bold, multi-voiced meditation on grief, justice, and Jewish identity, staged with striking theatricality.
Review: Adrian Lukis Being Mr Wickham
There’s nothing more charming or endearing in the West End this summer.
Review: Woman in the Arena
In her debut show, DiGiacomo has found a distinctive voice in her writing.
Review: ADHD? WTF is ADHD!
Emma Wilkinson-Wright is unnervingly close to the pulse of how real this is. A hidden gem.
Review: The FootballActress
A one-woman show describing a personal journey from the struggles of competitive female football to becoming a street and stage artist whilst travelling around Europe.
Review: Daniel Moore’s Definitive Guide to Failure-Free Living
A thrilling, one-man dystopian fable that never lets up.
Review: Role Play (or The Hottest day in Belgian History)
Cameron goes for it full tilt and we are on a rollercoaster that hardly lets up.
Review: There is a Light and a Whistle For Attracting Attention
A relentess, powerful solo performance
Review: Claire Dowie H to He (I’m Turning into a man) Finborough
A must-see for anyone who loves breakthrough: genre-defying, then genre-defining theatre.
Review: Claire Dowie See Primark and Die Finborough
There’s more than a touch of Ken (even more, Daisy) Campbell about the way Dowie structures her circular storytelling. Here it’s at its most consummate, most artful and repays re-reading to catch Dowie at your throat.
Review: Claire Dowie Why is John Lennon Wearing a Skirt?
If you see one Claire Dowie, this might be it.
Review: Claire Dowie Adult Child/Dead Child Finborough
Claire Dowie’s never mellowed, and remains essential: taut, inordinate, alone, unreconciled. In other words, see it.
Review: Heather Alexander Becoming Maverick
Heather Alexander has arrived as a creative, not simply re-creative force. A cause for dark celebration.
Review: The Importance of Being Oscar
Alastair Whatley takes the joy of the sorrow, and makes it his own. Unmissable if you can squeeze in.
Review: Flutter-Bye
Since this play and Allison Ferns have a lot of legs, it’ll be worth coming back to see it run.
Review: Son of a Bitch
Anna Morris heightens tragedy and misogyny with gags, humour and farcical horror. Do catch this fleeting gem, running for just two more weeks before it touches down
Review: Khawla Ibraheem A Knock on the Roof
What and who can you choose is something more people are forced to decide as the century rolls. But Mariam’s plight is specific, ongoing, now far worse and essential viewing.
Review: Glitch in the Myth
A timeless archetype reimagined through a woman's perspective, capable of resonating with audiences everywhere
Review: Ruari Conaghan Lies Where It Falls
Ruari Conaghan has nowhere to hide in every sense. He exudes the charismatic of 100 watts cosplaying a glowing 40, then hits you between the eyes
Review: Beryl Cook: A Private View
A further triumph in Kara Wilson’s groundbreaking fusion of words and paint.
Review: Shower Chair
We meet some people's deepest revelations through performance here, actors finding themselves becoming vulnerable through theatre, getting naked.
Review: Good Luck, Cathrine Frost!
An innovative, entertaining show that takes big bold risks and pulls them off
Review: River Time!
Luckily for us, Thurlow (spoiler alert) lives. Her story is “worth writing, even if no one can read your language”. Unsurprisingly, her language is one of generations of women before her.
Review: Piano Smashers
[Rob Thompson’s] excitement is infectious, so that when he becomes more serious, his grip is too tight for you to run away, and you have no choice but to sit in the discomfort of the moment.
Review: Main Character Energy
Deceptively messy and chaotic, Wilkey's Main Character Energy is an absolute triumph
Review: Surrender
The writing will snare you, Phoebe Ladenburg will hold you, and you’ll lean over the fourth wall.
Review: The Beckett Trilogy
It’s reading Beckett in flashes of lightning and laughter. Conor Lovett stuns in this cut-down stand-up Beckett-novels-for-beginners-and-enders three-hour whistlestop. A tour de force as well as a tour de farce of Beckett’s genius.
Review: Kafka
It’s Klaff’s improvisatory edge, founded on absolute technique and clear-headed text, that finds an exit where none was signposted. Magnificent.
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: 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: 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: 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: Boy In Da Korma
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.
Review: Rika’s Rooms
Emma Wilkinson Wright manages the narrative as an odyssey punctuated by screams. It’s already a phenomenal performance and the actor is so wholly immersed in Rika you know you’re in the presence of something remarkable
Review: Protest Song
Tim Price’s magnificent one-man play reminds us – yells at us - how much we’re all connected, and unless we stand together, how much we lose.
Review: Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz
Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz is neither complex or fiendishly plotted. But it’s very witty, linguistically inventive and light-hearted: so its downside is highlighted.
Review: The Good Dad (A Love Story), The Mitfords
Now a superb double-bill, and makes a compelling case for these two shows to be yoked together, with their intertwining of family, sisterhood, abuse and terrible consequences.
Review: Awake, Gay and Writing a Play
Escaping from a high-control religious group is not as simple as walking away. It is a waking-up process that can take years.
Review: Nearly Lear
Mischievous charm, tragic depth, and hilarious wit, all fueled by an intense and energetic inventiveness. A Must See show
Review: When We Died
An absorbing one-woman play seamlessly blending physical theatre with a poignant, gut-wrenching narrative
Review: The Quality of Mercy: Concerning the Life and Crimes of Dr Harold Frederick Shipman
A chilling exploration of the career of a serial killer
Review: This Is Not A Play (It’s A Pathetic Cry For Help)
A stunning solo performance of an exquisitely intricate script
Review: Double Bill: Paul Robeson, Suzi of the Dress
No doubting of the power of this double-bill from Kansas. The Paul Robeson is solid gold, the Suzi of the Dress, quicksilver.
Review: Fleabag
Original, raw, brilliantly funny and devastating. This production is Fleabag neat. Its harrowing streak of genius burns like a healing scar torn.
Review: The Return of Benjamin Lay
Naomi Wallace and actor Mark Provinelli inhabit this gestural giant with wit, sympathy, rage and an agency burning up centuries between. It’s profoundly moving too, speaks to our condition of techno-serfdom, new slavery, discrimination everywhere. The packed audience are never sure who might be picked on next, but delight in the calling-out. Superb.
Review: all of it
Still the most sheerly thrilling yet intimate piece MacDowall has written, though all three pieces amplify that. A miniature classic of snatched meaning its staging too flashes by with shocking brevity. In all it lasts just 90 minutes. Catch it.
Review: Lovefool
Though it might be red-topped as a Fleabag for the abused, it’s so much more excoriating. It’s also a work profoundly moving, necessary and – particularly for Gintare Parulyte - an act of courage. Lovefool’s on till May 26th; do rush to this 55-minute must-see.
Review: My Brilliant Divorce
Like any first-rate actor, Louise Faulkner lets each eyebrow rise and fall: Quizzical, hurt, amused, they all register. A work to be savoured for its exuberant telling of one of the most painful things to hit any of us, through nightmare to laughter to loving oneself, to the hope of love. Highly recommended.
Review: Havisham
As ever with Heather Alexander, this is a masterclass in acting. It’s also a masterclass in directing and technical address. The outstanding one-person show of the Fringe so far
Review: My First Time Was in a Car Park
Compelling story telling about the First Time and its aftermath
Review: Pussycat in Memory of Darkness
Neda Nezhdana’s play is a world: not simply a map of pain and war footage. Both essential and in the mesmerising Kristin Millward’s and Polly Creed’s hands, with this team, it’s almost a compulsory visit.
Review: Graceland
Understanding traumatic narrative from the outside: seeing through a skylight, darkly. An impressive debut
Review: Irrelevant
Keith Merrill and Debbie Chazen have crafted an Everywoman (and man) for whoever’s gifted yet still never makes it. Look forward to a lot more of this kind from Merrill’s Le Gallienne.
Review: Sarah
An unnerving testing of that space between naturalism and hallucination, redemption and blank unknowing, studded with a language that flies off the page.
Review: Morning Glory
A small masterpiece of amused, unflinching reveal, which does something no-one else has done at all.
Review: The Girl Who Was Very Good At Lying
An outstanding powerful, imaginative and funny exploration of the stories we tell to escape who we are and where we are.
Review: The MP, Aunty Mandy and Me
A young gay man from a small northern village gets sucked into the heady world of working for his local MP, and faces many big dilemmas.
Review: Brother’s Keeper
A moving, harrowing and well-crafted tale of survival from childhood abuse.
Review: A Eulogy for Roman
An astonishing solo show of one man’s search for meaning within himself, with audience participation.
Review: Self Service
Original idea, well developed and crafted. Mild-mannered delivery is refreshing!
Review: Jesus, Jane, Mother & Me
A Brilliant Fringe Acting Debut in a Scintillating and Ultimately Shocking Play.
