Anisha Pucadyil, Author at North West End UK

<strong>Mother Goose – Hackney Empire</strong>

2Dec

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Mother Goose – Hackney Empire

Mother Goose feels like that glass of mulled wine on a cold Christmassy evening. It has the rounded flavours, tastiest spices and leaves you smiling. If you want to join festive spirits, this is one celebration you wish to attend. The pantomime pays a fitting tribute to the ongoing 120 years that Hackney Empire came into being. The play brings together the familiar pantomime elements with some spectacular performances. A true testimony to this production's universality is to have younglings, grandparents and a 25-year-old celebrating their birthday in the audience! You will not be disappointed. Mother Goose is bright! Clive Rowe's presence and voice soar to the skies. The set is technicolour rainbow bursts of sunshine, the music lifts spirits while the improvised lyrics make you giggle ...

<strong>Cinderella – Theatre Royal, Stratford East</strong>

27Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Cinderella – Theatre Royal, Stratford East

The festive family shows at Stratford East have been happening for 130 years! It opened in 1884. Nine times performed, Cinderella returns to the stage but with many a twist and twirl. This year's production was a fitting tribute to Jo Melville, known popularly for her role in Eastenders but a mentor for so many in the community with her infectious enthusiasm for the Arts. For the third year in a row, the Stratford East is recording and taking theatre into hospitals to the community who could use a laugh. The play sets Cinderella near the pyramids! With exceptional puppetry skills, Kathryn Bond has you hooked with her all-knowing Sphinx cat. All the talented performers brought new avatars of familiar old characters to life. Gigi Zahir served Cleopatra with Zesty and feisty razzmatazz. Pa...

<strong>Baghdaddy – Royal Court Theatre</strong>

25Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Baghdaddy – Royal Court Theatre

Baghdaddy is a poignant and moving piece that shifts the lens on the indirect survivors of war. The play centres on the daughter-father relationship to provide an unseen perspective on the intergenerational trauma of war. It speaks to many truths - of being mixed heritage/ multilingual, making England home, the immigrant student experience, and witnessing war in one’s home country. The two Qareens and Jinn played by Souad Faress, Hayat Kamille and Noof Ousellam are captivating. Their obtuse costumes, clowning influences and magical aspects create a sanctuary for issues to be dwelled on but not be didactic. The memory of when we are first aware of where we are from. Zeroing on the feeling of a child watching an adult making sense of the war that unfolded kilometres away and bending time ...

<strong>Love Goddess: The Rita Hayworth Musical – Cockpit Theatre</strong>

22Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Love Goddess: The Rita Hayworth Musical – Cockpit Theatre

The Rita Hayworth Musical will leave you transfixed by the energetic dance, heady with the drama behind the scenes of Hollywood and mesmerised by the music. Almog Pail’s new production with music arrangements by Logan Medland is a fitting tribute to the charisma of Rita Hayworth. The Cockpit is the most suitable venue for the production, and the actors and dancers engage the audience by weaving the tale of the star intimately. Don’t be deterred by not being familiar with the fame of Rita Hayworth. The play takes you through all the milestones of the creation of the star. In doing so, it also unmasks the glamour of Hollywood. Rita had an unsafe childhood with adults around her making her work from a young age and taking advantage of her. To think in the era of black and white film, Holly...

<strong>The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show – London Palladium</strong>

20Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show – London Palladium

Rib tickling funny and hopeful! The divas of the queer universe of RuPaul’s Drag Race have arrived in London. And in a blink, this marks the duo’s fifth self-written holiday show produced and directed by BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon. In London for three days with a UK-wide tour, they bring oomph, holiday cheer and pragmatism. They bring together the best of drag, dance, and duets with entertainment that is sharp as chilli and cuddly as your favourite teddy bear. They sleigh through the decades trying to find that one moment that must have led to this ever-declining hellscape we face. They take us through the past eras of change. A critical look also at how the ‘save the planet’ jargon has transformed over the past years, always putting the onus on individual actions to avert commun...

<strong>La Clique – The Leicester Square Spiegeltent</strong>

16Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

La Clique – The Leicester Square Spiegeltent

La clique is wonderment, burlesque and excitement. It brings together popular music, extraordinary acrobatic movement and risqué entertainment all in one place. Before the show began, you could sense the enthusiasm and excitement ripe in the air. As the red curtains fall with the Guillaume Tell Overture, we dial back to a forgotten era of charm, poise and curiosity. Clique revels in the forbidden with many classy acts, a burlesque Jesus, a unicyclist putting his clothes on the move, trapeze artists who spin in abandonment, anti-gravity-defying Chinese pole play, and a clown who balances four parasols are some of the magical acts that will leave you spellbound during the show. Each performance bends prim and proper rules; drinking is encouraged in the tent with lots of popcorn and che...

<strong>The Mother Sh*t – Pleasance Theatre</strong>

15Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

**The Mother Sh*t – Pleasance Theatre**

The Mother Sh*t is a genre-bending delight. After their sell out run at Camden People’s Theatre with Frills and Spills, magicians of Stumble Trip Theatre who manage to craft beatboxing, physical theatre and personal stories of 50 participants verbatim in an hour! Part heart-warming, part heart-wrenching Mother sh*t has you in splits while weeping uncontrollably. I have never heard the audience break out in so many giggles throughout a show. Grace Church and Chloe Young are like a rubber band, connected at the hip; you can’t distinguish where one begins and the other ends. Their vibrancy is infectious. Their sense of play and curiosity is grounded by the diversity of stories they have collected. The background score is improvised by Conrad Murray, Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens and Dunja Botij who ...

<strong>Ikaria – Old Red Lion Theatre</strong>

11Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Ikaria – Old Red Lion Theatre

Ikaria is a moving capture of two young people's lives in college over a semester. The play recreates for us young love and passion. However, a cloud of loneliness and sadness lurks over our lead Simon. The protagonists' choices may shock and surprise you. We share the intimacy of being in their bedroom in the University halls, but all is not revealed to us until the last scene. Playwright Philippa Lawford's debut play, IKARIA, has won one of 5 runner-up awards for the Ambassador Theatre Group Playwrights' Prize 2022, in association with Platform Presents and Time Out. Her reflections during covid on loneliness, isolation and clinging to a personal relationship in the time of crisis are present in the characters' ruminations. A close observation of the challenges and realities of living...

<strong>Block’d Off – Camden People’s Theatre</strong>

10Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Block’d Off – Camden People’s Theatre

Bold, dynamic and unmissable. Block’d Off a brilliant addition to the curation of 'Theatre in times of crisis' autumn shows at Camden People's Theatre. The play illuminates the unspoken realities of surviving in London for the working class. The characters based on true stories, all portrayed by Camila Segal, are deeply churning. Kudos to first-time Writer and Director Kieton Saunders-Browne for some stunning stagecraft. The specificity of observations, from fixing Santander cycles to discussing the pieces of ham in their sandwich, will make you laugh. It also achieves the intricate suspension of the reality of going back and forth in time while the character's trajectories progress and intersect. We start the play with an older woman enjoying the joy of moving to music tha...

<strong>The Drought – Old Red Lion Theatre</strong>

3Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

The Drought – Old Red Lion Theatre

Nina Ates's The Drought is showing at the Old Red Lion theatre. The 600-year-old pub hosts the 40-year-old intimate theatre setting. The theatre is renowned for its off-west end theatre staging challenging and ambitious work that transfers to the west end and off-broadway. The drought is arresting in its use of light, sound and acting. Marooned in an imaginary time and place where the sea has vanished, the three men battle lack of sleep, food and desperation. The set has drapes of a sail of a boat. The wind's relentless sound on the wood sends a cold tickle down one's spine. The play unfolds bit by bit the circumstances of this lone Captain and Stewart, who seem to be grasping at the last straws of survival. The outsider, the whaler, arrives asking for refuge. He breaks the ritual...