Genre: Theatre 0
Review: Glasgow Girls
Even on fictive terms this would garner praise for its raw power, its beating passion for justice and humanity. Difficult as it might be not to come away warmed this ensemble – and original musical – make it so very easy. This needs to be everywhere and should be shown if not live, then screened.
Review: The Dresser
The best revival we’re likely to see in a very long time, with outstanding performances from Stott and Shearsmith, with performances as strong in their way from Cadell and Thorpe, and not a weak link. It’s a masterly play from the inside, and this consummate portrayal of near-disaster ending in a successful one, is as good as it gets.
Review: Burning Bridges
Asperger-conditioned Sarah’s reels off her interests: ‘TV, One Direction, Bears, Ghandi, Oral Sex not necessarily in that order.’ This remarkable, necessary play explores the crisis provoked by Sarah’s single atypical act, and how it shows she’s improving - leaving domestic devastation. Shindler beautifully judges the pathos and development in each of her three main protagonists.
Review: A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur
A first-rate revival, the best we’re likely to see though hopefully not the last of late Williams. Oakley’s hinted there’s more to revive. Meanwhile, don’t miss this legacy-changing production.
Review: Strife
An outstanding and revelatory production of an outstanding play, whose relevance moves beyond even the tortured steel industry of today’s Wales or Britain to other professions undergoing exploitation, conflict of interest and barbaric intervention.
Review: Relatively Speaking
Not a creak in this sparkling production: Liza Goddard possesses an innate sense of how this should go: straight, elegant sang-froid touched with just the right amount of welcome; Powell inhabits the higher bluster; Antony Eden pitches it just right; Lindsey Campbell exudes recently thrown-off gawkiness. Herford knows what he’s about: pace, panache, and more than a dose of Ayckbourn’s generosity of spirit, which glows here as telling the world how it was going to be.
Review: Counting Stars
Gupta’s not too likely to pay the penalty for her spectacular 2009 debut aged twenty-one in What Fatima Did. This is her third full-length, a clear-headed warm-hearted play packing much story-telling into its sixty-five minutes, a convincing portrayal of exploited lovers in Woolwich now.
Review: Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.
A play of words with some excitement that fails in its execution
Review: The Tobacco Merchant’s Lawyer
A one man treat that is both comic and satirical as a man of nae means tries to survive against those that have the means for survival
Review: Cosmic Fear or the Day Brad Pitt Got Paranoia
An uncomfortable time examining the environmental disaster ready to unfold
Review: The Truth
This is as good a machine for portraying infidelity as we’re likely to see. Hanson delivers frantic timing and hard-paced farce, O’Connor provides an elegant foil mixing guilt with anxiety, desire and cool pragmatism; Franks’ Laurence is always ready to spring shut on the luckless protagonist. Her counterpart in Portal conveys a flicker of reined-in menace, bluff urbanity waiting to pounce. Zeller quotes Voltaire’s scepticism about truth-telling: permanently unfashionable, perennially worth reviving
Review: Faith Healer
A supremely orchestrated production, the best we’re likely to see of Friel’s masterpiece for the play’s time-span, about twenty years. As Frank’s faith-healer character must have experienced, this production rapidly sold out, not through high-tech advertising blitzes, but word of mouth.
Review: Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother in the case of a study in blood
A transatlantic take on the mytheries of Holmes which has comedy rather than tragedy at its heart
Review: Sodden Flodden
The story of a tragedy in Scotland told 400 years later with music and storytelling showing that at least something survived it well
Review: Yoke’s Night
An evening of drugs, mayhem and macabre dealings where all is more than what it seems.
Review: Cosmic Fear or The Day Brad Pitt Got Paranoia
A frenetic romp through Global warming… with Brad Pitt
Review: Criminology 303
A taught half hour or so in the company of a former detective and the case that haunts her, and now us
Review: All Cashed In
A provocative tribute which walks the line in a story that crosses a man in black with independent thought
Review: Dirty Glitter
The 1970’s are back and funky with a cop drama that focusses on the times rather than the storylines.
Review: The Interference
A highly charged examination of what happens when one young woman cries rape on campus
Review: Death of Her Brother
A visually evocative piece of performance art that examines loss and relationship
Review: The Black and White Tea Room
A taut meeting between a therapist and his client reveals much more than just healing through trust
Review: A Dog’s Tale
A comic tale of doggie derring do from the Pound that strikes right at heart of the doll.
Review: Yerma
Piper’s excelled before but nothing has prepared for this devastating performance in Stone’s almost completely re-written play: a break-out wildness, a grieving as incandescent as anything in Greek Tragedy, connecting with Lorca beyond Stone.
Review: Grimm: An Untold Tale
An entertaining and illuminating play about forgotten figures in history
Review: In Fidelity
A fascinating look at love, cheating, and relationships with a live onstage date between audience members
Review: Frenchy; World’s Worst Adult
Australian comedian who saws the knuckles off your sensibilities in a hilarious hour
Review: At War with Love
A poignant, deep and vibrant use of Shakespearean sonnet dressed in the context of World War One
Review: Escape from the Planet of the Day That Time Forgot
Very entertaining, well acted devised comedy! A delirious sci-fi romp!
Review: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
"an incredible show which authentically reproduces the novel onto the stage."
Review: A Series of Unfortunate Breakups
A bittersweet tale of 3 relationships that never quite end the way you expect
Review: Five Go Off on One
The Famous Five, without one, go off on an adventure on summer hols for jolly japes and smuggling scrapes.
Review: Finding Joy
Bittersweet comedy about the relationship between a teenage boy and his grandmother who has dementia
Review: Jeu Jeu La Foille: Frontal Lobotomy
Burlesque, poetry, puppetry and the history of frontal lobotomy
Review: The Unknown Soldier
A solo play that will stay with you long after you have left the theatre
Review: Present Laughter
Expertly-tailored, classy and for the most part surely-pitched fare: Stephen Unwin is sure-footed too and coaxes the best from his ensemble: jewel-like precision, light-footed blocking and quotable gestures makes this a production ravishingly conscious of its superiority.
Review: Rapture
A hip hop infused dive into the lives and loves of a group of British Muslim teenagers
Review: The Seagull
Olivia Vinall provides a tremulous foil for Joshua James’ vulnerable volatile Konstanin in a fresh emphasis on youth superbly undermined by Anna Chancellor and Geoffrey Streatfeild. World-class English-speaking Chekhov.
