Threepenny Collective mine a dark story from history in L’Indiscipline, making its English-language debut as part of Voila! Theatre Festival. Content warning: discusses historic treatment of mental illness, including outdated practices and terms. L’Indiscipline Sometimes you don’t have to depart too far from reality to conjure up a story that seems stranger than fiction. That’s […]
Sophia Griffin’s After Sunday explores healing and harm in a medium-secure hospital’s weekly Caribbean cooking group. After Sunday I’m not sure that the saying ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ quite flies in this day and age. Smacks a bit of traditional gender roles. But I would argue that the way […]
Curating asks us to consider what the choices we make (or don’t) will mean to us once time’s run out. Curating Do we have some sort of innate fear, in the modern age, that the afterlife will involve paperwork? It’s certainly an idea that comes up from time to time in film and theatre. In […]
Infinite Space Theatre bring a healthy dose of Edwardian horror to the Hope Theatre, with their adaptation of The Monkey’s Paw. Content warning: discusses bereavement and baby loss. The Monkey’s Paw As I was away from London for Halloween, I hope you’ll allow me a last spooky theatre review for the season. Because when I […]
A feminist reworking of Frankenstein by British Touring Shakespeare brings new life to Gothic horror. On at the Bridge House Theatre just in time for Halloween. Frankenstein – British Touring Shakespeare I’m here today with another Halloween-appropriate offering for you. From mysterious bog bodies on our last spooky outing, we now return to classic Gothic […]
Twenty-five years after its premiere, Blue/Orange still feels disturbingly relevant. A timely reminder that the NHS’s struggles with race, class, and mental health are far from resolved. Blue/Orange, 25 Years On Twenty-five years after its first outing, Blue/Orange still says something uncomfortable and true about race and mental health, as well as the limits of […]
Inertia, part of SEEN Lewisham at the Broadway Theatre Catford, uses near-future technology and virtual entrapment to explore racism in AI, addiction, faith, and the politics of identity from a distinctly Black British perspective. Virtual Futures, Real Inequalities Inertia sits neatly within SEEN Lewisham’s remit to platform underrepresented voices, and it does so by tackling […]
A horror influencer turns playwright in Bog Body, Olivia Cordell’s solo show that mixes lecture theatre with supernatural scares. Bog Body Are bog bodies having a moment? It would seem so, with two different shows currently on the fringe circuit with that title. I saw Olivia Cordell’s version last night at The Glitch, a one-off […]
Oscar Wilde’s rarely-performed first play Vera; Or, the Nihilists receives a sympathetic revival in this production at the Jack Studio Theatre in Brockley. Oscar Wilde’s First Play Now here’s a question. If a play by a relatively popular playwright is rarely performed, why is that? Surely some are criminally overlooked. Others might be… how shall […]
One particular magnetic performance overcomes limitations in the writing in Born With Teeth. And it might not be the Elizabethan playwright you’d first think of. Born With Teeth One thing’s for sure: Ncuti Gatwa has charisma in spades. His Kit Marlowe is confident, flirty, and absolutely mesmerising. Having not seen any of his high profile […]
