With just one onstage performer and a great many ideas, Shallowspace proves that ambitious science-fiction theatre doesn’t need a blockbuster budget. Shallowspace I love small theatre productions with big ambitions. And what can be bigger than a timespan of thousands of years, an archive of humanity floating through space, pulled off with a single actor […]
In When We Were Us, new writing from Jade Winters at the Jack Studio Theatre, four friends meet for the first time in a long while, each bringing their own assumptions about what has changed, and what might still be left unsaid. Please Note: spoilers below.Content Warning: discussion of domestic abuse and coercive control. When […]
A lovely little (free) exhibition at the Wallace Collection shines a spotlight on Caravaggio’s cheeky cupid. More London Galleries With Free, Small Exhibitions? Don’t Mind if I Do! More like this please, London! I love a small exhibition. And a free one. Frequently, I go to the National Gallery for this purpose. They have a […]
In Trace of the Forgotten, writer-director Gabriela Torres Gil brings together live performance and digital media to explore what happens when memory, migration, and identity begin to blur. Trace of the Forgotten This week marked my second visit to Theatre Deli, which remains one of the more imaginative uses I’ve seen for an empty office […]
Suppliants of Syria is not just a play but an evening-long event, using Aeschylus’s ancient tragedy as a starting point for a discussion about asylum, testimony and hospitality today. Suppliants of Syria Like most of the (I imagine) fairly self-selecting audience for Border Crossings’ Suppliants of Syria, I arrived with an open mind – both […]
Two artists, two very different approaches to memory, and an unexpectedly clear favourite. It’s Yin Xuizhen: Heart to Heart and Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life, dual exhibitions on now at the Hayward Gallery. Yin Xuizhen: Heart to Heart Most people, I suspect, are here for Chiharu Shiota. Her looping webs of thread dominate the marketing […]
If you’ve ever wondered what happens after the “loveless landslide”, The Red Prince has a fairly bleak answer. The Red Prince Well. The story of a beleaguered and disillusioned Labour MP in Bolton – how timely. The Red Prince, a production by Nice New Tie on now at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre, is a […]
Four years on from the start of the war in Ukraine, The Village Where No One Suffers at the Jack Studio Theatre offers a look at what it means to leave – and what it means to return. The Village Where No One Suffers It’s strange to think the war in Ukraine began four years […]
A small exhibition at the National Gallery, From the Shadows makes the case for Joseph Wright of Derby as an important artist with a strong local identity. Wright of Derby: From the Shadows I’ve written many times before about exhibitions at the National Gallery – most recently about Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller’s Neo-Impressionists, and prior […]
I finally make it to Chislehurst Caves, and find an intriguing mix of pseudo-archaeology, WWII forebearance, and music history. Introducing Chislehurst Caves Let’s start by getting one thing straight. Despite the name, Chislehurst Caves aren’t caves. They area instead man-made tunnels and caverns, excavated as chalk and flint mines. The first mention of the mines, […]
