Alice Rose, Author at North West End UK

5Mar

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Persuasion – Rose Theatre

A fresh perspective on Jane Austen’s adaptation, Persuasion with WAP, Frank Ocean and a foam party. This production follows Anne and her desperate sisters on their conquest for love but as their 30s approach, they worry about compatibility and finding a match that will ensure a long and easy life. However, as with classical romance there is always one who suffers in the quest for true connection, Anne (Sasha Frost) and her desperate love for Captain Wentworth (Fred Fergus) are knocked together like conkers as they try to rekindle a love they once had. We are very much in an age of reflection and in result, seeing the return of a lot of classical texts. It’s refreshing more so to be seeing new interpretations and a wittier perspective on the structures we enforced upon ourselves. It spea...

3Mar

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Work.txt – Soho Theatre

An audience, mostly of whom are 9 to 5, maybe some are freelance, of mothers and fathers, of Pisces and Gemini’s, of people who hate their bosses and those who earn more than 30,000 a year have all bought tickets to an immersive show. There are no actors, just a stage manager but they are just clicking a button. We decide if we speak and we listen to those who do, we talk what is written and together we build a city. I was unsure where this play might take me. It’s a Wednesday night and I’m not that up to getting involved so I sit down on the front row with slight anxiety and my mask pulled up very high. I notice the subtle sound of ‘The Sims’ theme music playing, a horrible memory of my Covid pass-time activities. At this point, I’m flustered. As the lights dim, the projector ...

2Mar

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

The Woods – Southwark Playhouse

David Mamet’s ‘The Woods’ has always been a topic of conversation in its fantastical and mythical approach to the question of heterosexual relationships, and with Southwark Playhouse’s revival it’s likely to continue to be. However, since being written in 1977, I’m not sure of the play’s relevance to today/ what we are questioning since the rapid change of thought regarding our classic male and female stereotypes. Mamet’s original question was to ask why male and female’s fail to get along and where our differences to natural desire to ‘nesting’ lies- in that classically males may dream of it but fear once it becomes reality and female’s may feel most at ease when their nest has settled. When watching, it’s very frustrating to see that not once is this couple on the same page and can fo...

25Feb

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

The Collaboration – Young Vic

The thrill and danger of collaborating two differing artists is a risk. However, the result was intimate, powerful and devastating at times. You may never see the artist, only their work in which you project your own stories, but to see them firsthand on what inspires them to share such vulnerable images from their mind put onto a canvas, it’s a humbling experience. It’s without saying that this cast are masters at their craft. There was such a lack of ego between these actors, they gave themselves up completely to each other and it was almost quite terrifying how accurate the pair were to the artists. Jeremy Pope truly had snatched the breath out of everyone’s lungs in that theatre as he spins into whirlwinds of hysteria, too frightened to make a sound in case we were detrimental to hi...

17Feb

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Splintered – Soho Theatre

Splintered is a ‘part-play, part-cabaret’ which explores and celebrates the queer joy and coming out in a homophobic culture. Chanté Faucher, Melissa Saint and Alice Vilanculo grab our hands and pull us in as we hear the real words of Caribbean people telling their coming out stories and seeing how they keep that part of themselves secret due to the culture surrounding them. But this show promises queer joy and where people might find themselves with no hope, there is always something to celebrate ‘despite, IN SPITE’ of their oppressors. Emily Aboud, writer and director has created something beautiful. From the moment the lights go down, the audience were edging forward, clapping their hands and beaming from ear to ear. It is a show that you can only sit back in your chair after the bow...

10Feb

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Two Billion Beats – Orange Tree Theatre

Orange tree Theatre’s new show ‘Two Billion Beats’ follows two sisters who meet at the bus stop. Both tackling their secondary school experience in very different ways. Asha, the older sister and arguably the smartest in the school is inspired by the revolutionary figures of the past. Bettina, the younger is tackling a revolution of her own, against her bullies on the bus. We meet them at the bus stop, detention and the park as Bettina does her best to avoid being by herself but one day, she asks Asha for help and as their political beliefs and the cause and effect begins to unravel, we question the damage of our actions. Safiyya Ingar and Anoushka Chadha beautifully portray the sisters with such depth and humour, pushing each other’s buttons with rage and burning sisterly love. Their p...

An Evening Without Kate Bush – Soho Theatre

9Feb

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

An Evening Without Kate Bush – Soho Theatre

I discovered quite quickly that I was in a room full of super fans. Now, I’m a fan but mostly through my dad, who now and again will beautifully reminisce to Wuthering Heights as well as the heights of his vocal range. But as I watched a person enter the stage wearing a bird head piece, I knew I was in the hands of an artist who had carefully cherished her craft all of her life: her craft? Kate Bush. Sarah-Louise Young opens her arms to a bunch of strangers every night, but somehow gets us all on our feet and emotionally hand in hand by the time she’s done. Turning it around on us as we not only enjoy watching her have the time of her life but have that for ourselves too. After what seems like the most anxiety inducing and isolating years of our lives, it’s been a long time since I h...

Purple Snowflakes and Tittywanks – Royal Court

4Feb

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Purple Snowflakes and Tittywanks – Royal Court

This a revolutionary piece that follows a young woman from Ireland to London with the suffocating pressures of a nation devout to their beliefs and their religion. How this manifests is in the bodies of young people who cover their sexual frustrations, eating disorders, depression and anxieties. This slightly nonsensical piece is high energy, a thought a minute as she revisits her later years in school with the complication of discovery and in how unlocking knowledge can be just as limiting as you may have felt before. Photo: Luca Truffarelli Written and performed by Sarah Hanly, awarded with the 2019 Pinter Commission and one of Royal Court’s Long Form Writer’s Group- she has written a piece that speaks to a nation in recovery. It is powerful, funny and dark as we uncover the truth ...

20Jan

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Conundrum – Young Vic

Conundrum, written and directed by Paul Anthony Morris is an intimate and confronting piece that follows a person discovering the hidden elements of their own trauma and the journey to forgive oneself for the cycle of abuse brought onto them from society. Portrayed through movement and text, we watch how the trauma manifests itself pushing from inside mind, to grow throughout the body and into the space around them. We watch a person very comfortably enter the stage with boxes in hand in order to sort out the mess in the room, to then crumble by the memories and collapse with the overwhelming pressure of things that quite simply didn’t exist for certain others around him. Words, written all over the stage floor, chalk in hand and a mind that is more intelligent than most, this character...

17Dec

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Best of Enemies – Young Vic

Travelling back to 1968, we are thrown of where to look. Television screens dotted in all directors, visual designs bringing the floor to life and a sudden influx of the famous figures who used to run America’s screens. This incredibly insightful, heated performance of America’s leading news channels battling out to pull in the most viewers, follows the ABC network trying out a new form of entertainment: putting opposite political views together and discussing. Where this may be a very popular and everyday occurrence for this day and age, we see how this now, almost obsessive form of television was brought to life. In particular we follow William F Buckley, a conservative popular figure battle it out with the Liberal, ‘Gore Vidal’ as they discuss the upcoming election. Through these cun...