Holly Sewell, Author at North West End UK

3Aug

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Ophelia — Etcetera Theatre

Ophelia by TheArchive is, in the company’s own words, not an adaptation; not a rewrite; it’s a reckoning. In Samuel George-Thomas’ new script, co-directed with Ava Benkova, the eponymous tragic heroine is given the opportunity to explain what really went down between her and Hamlet during the collapse of their relationship in Shakespeare’s play. TheArchive’s beautiful production steers clear of the cliché and contrived sass which sometimes accompany feminist retellings of famous stories, and instead leans into the poetry of Shakespeare’s language, the sincerity of Ophelia’s character, and the impossible double-bind of existing as a woman in a man’s world. The action of Ophelia takes place broadly over the same time period as Hamlet, often behind the closed doors of Ophelia’s room. I...

9Jun

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Are You Watching – Royal Court

A ten-foot pool of blood spilling across a white-tiled floor is the final image in Georgie Dettmer’s professional playwriting debut at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. In it, two teenage girls are playing: they are reimagining the end of Gisèle Pelicot’s story. In the girls’ fictionalised version of events, Pelicot gets her revenge by shooting and killing her husband. They find their catharsis and go to sleep covered in blood. Are You Watching? follows a number of stories in vignettes, all of which have to do with voyeurism in some form. The stories look at sexual violence in the age of the Internet and AI — sometimes digital in origin, always physical and bodily in effect. A son finds deepfake porn, made using his own childhood pictures, on his father’s iPad; a famous ac...

16Feb

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Sweetmeats – Bush Theatre

In the aftermath of grief, it’s a long and difficult lesson to re-learn: we’re better off with people than without them. Relationships are tedious, those we love exasperating; loss deepens with age, caution grows. It takes courage to start again when experience tells you the best days are past. Sweetmeats’ Hema and Liaquat, a widow and widower who become unlikely friends when they are forced to pair up as the ‘scary Indian woman’ and ‘irritating Pakistani man’ at their diabetes support group, are no strangers to the pain of love. Character-wise, they complete each other. Shobu Kapoor’s Hema is anxious, health-conscious, self-sufficient; as Liaquat, Rehan Sheikh is a joker, childish, indulgent despite his diagnosis. Playwright Kharim Khan makes fun of them with a brilliant, musical wit; ...

31Oct

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

The Line of Beauty – Almeida Theatre

Alan Hollinghurst’s 2004 novel The Line of Beauty takes its title from William Hogarth’s work on the empirical analysis of aesthetics. Its protagonist, Nick Guest, is obsessed with this idea of beauty; he drifts from gorgeous lover to gorgeous lover, coming alive only for sex and conversations about Henry James; he is enticed by the lifestyle of the wealthy, but doesn’t quite belong in their world. The Almeida's adaptation of the novel grapples with Nick’s struggle between his aesthete sensibilities and impossibility of life as a young gay man during Thatcherism and the AIDS crisis. Michael Grandage’s production captures the ‘80s zeitgeist deliciously. There’s ‘80s pop anthems throughout, booming from the radio onstage and smoothing over scene transitions; and, conversely, there’s the e...

13Oct

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Da Vinci’s Laundry – Riverside Studios

What gives a piece of art its value? Is it purely aesthetic? Is it arbitrary, decided in reverse once a piece’s price is set? Why did Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog sell for nearly $60 million? These are the questions grappled with by auctioneers Christopher and Milly in Da Vinci’s Laundry when they are forced to go through with a $450 million sale of a recently uncovered Da Vinci that they know is a fake. Keelan Kember's’ choice of high-end art as a subject is full of potential. He paints a picture of a world run by the dirty rich, where art experts’ opinions are reduced to box-ticking exercises that can in any case be overruled by those with enough power. Christopher, the timid auction house representative, is threatened with a 100-foot plummet from a gangster's balcony if he refuses to sell...

3Oct

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Bacchae – National Theatre

Nima Taleghani’s Bacchae is an explicitly pro-women reading of the Euripedes’ tragedy, if one that feels slightly dated (and not because of the Ancient Greek setting). It flips the focus of the play to its Greek chorus: the women of the Bacchae narrate, while the traditionally leading Dionysos, Agave and Pentheus become funnier, more ridiculous and more pitiable characters. The chorus of Bacchae is led by Vida, brought to gritty and sparkling life by Clare Perkins. Dionysos’ foster mother, she guides them through the mountains to arrive at Thebes, where they plan to liberate every woman from patriarchy, join their cult, and drink, suck and fuck to her heart’s desire. Indhu Rubasingham’s production and Taleghani’s script are both undeniably fun. The atmosphere in the Olivier is joyful...

18Sep

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Romans: A Novel – Almeida Theatre

Three brothers are born to daughterless parents sometime in the eighteenth century. Each is uniquely traumatised by his upbringing: the beatings of boarding school, the horrors of war, the witnessing of his father’s suicide by a gunshot to the roof of the mouth. And yet each must go on with life. Romans: A Novel is a story of three men, spanning 150 years, trying to answer the question of what it means to be a man - in other words, what it means to live. Alice Birch’s study of masculinity is focused, among other things, on the importance of the written word in deciding who gets to have a voice. Its structure is informed by the development of the novel: we begin with Jack Roman narrating his own life alone onstage, wandering into the fog and meeting his long-lost uncle, presumed dead fro...

The Pitchfork Disney – King’s Head Theatre

3Sep

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

The Pitchfork Disney – King’s Head Theatre

“Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear / and fear is the most divine emotion.” Zora Neale Hurston’s sermon-like words, which open The Pitchfork Disney’s epigraph, paint fear as a sacramental rite in the pursuit of wisdom. Fear allows us to know truth; it is holy because it is the realest thing there is. Pitchfork’s characters live in the realm of dreams, but their words are devastating precisely because they touch the darkest knowledge each of us carries in our gut: we are afraid, and we are right to be. Philip Ridley’s debut play is often credited for sparking the ‘90s ‘in-yer-face’ British theatre movement. Its influence extends to the likes of Sarah Kane and Jez Butterworth: the blood, guts, sex and violence that is so unflinchingly depicted in Ridley’s script carries over i...

19Jul

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Four Play – King’s Head Theatre

If you’re queer and living in London in 2025, chances are you know someone in an open relationship. You might think it’s a fad; you might think it’s the only reasonable response to widespread capitalist ideas about love. Either way, it feels like monogamy is increasingly followed by a question mark in discussions around modern dating. Monogamy, non-monogamy and their common downfalls are the subject of Jake Brunger’s Four Play. A couple of seven (and a half!) years strong start to feel the itch. They believe that a one-off arrangement with their friend Michael will solve the problem: one shag each, questions answered, book closed. Michael’s relationship governs that he cannot sleep with friends, but a discussion with his partner gives him the green light. The arrangement proceeds, and t...

9Jul

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

The Constant Wife – Swan Theatre

W. Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife, written and set nearly half a century after A Doll’s House, transforms Ibsen’s critiques of marriage into a sparkling 1920s comedy of manners. It’s hard not to compare with Ibsen’s masterpiece, but the purpose here is different: less a rallying cry, more a pragmatic question. What should you do if your perfect husband has an affair? The eponymous Constance is married to the right kind of man, with the right kind of job, in the right kind of house. Unfortunately, the man in question is having an affair with Constance’s best friend. By a stroke of (bad?) luck, Constance catches the two of them in the act - but decides to keep it to herself. Over the course of the next year, she hatches a plan to gain economic independence from her husband in secret...