Kira Daniels, Author at North West End UK

Empower in Motion: A Ballet Inclusive – Sadler’s Wells Theatre

9Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Empower in Motion: A Ballet Inclusive – Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Shocking, illuminating, poignant, and triumphant, Empower in Motion is unbeatable ballet. Fundraising for Children Today, this informal gala presents itself without ostentation but packs an overpowering punch. Featuring ten acts over the course of two hours, the strength and diversity of its featured dancers never fails to captivate for even a minute. The program is contextualized by video introductions to each act describing the work done by Children Today and celebrating the inclusive dance efforts made by the event’s various other partners. Host, Grace Spence Green, gives an invigorating preamble to the procession of performances each of which awes in turn. The evening starts strong with a seamless performance by Joseph Powell-Main and Hannah Rudd excerpted from The Royal Ballet’s Sl...

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell – Coach and Horses

6Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell – Coach and Horses

Both set and staged in the Coach and Horses pub on Greek Street, Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell is pub theatre par excellence. The play opens with a bang and a crash as attendees are suddenly plunged into darkness and Jeffrey Bernard himself stumbles out into the light, or rather, into the bar itself, knocking over several items on his way to the wall mounted switch by which he will reignite the room’s several chandeliers. This is the first of several pub tricks within a pub trick that delights and disturbs audiences. The environs are more than suitable, and service is good at the bar throughout the 20 minutes of liberal drink pouring that precedes each performance. Seated tickets take bar and benches while the rest of the crowd files into the available standing space, all of which is well u...

5Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

The Handmaid’s Tale – London Coliseum

How well do you remember the beginning of the end? Make sure to do your homework before attending this production of The Handmaid’s Tale where the London Coliseum transforms into the venue of a future-set historical conference where a stunning and severe white-pantsuited Professor Piexoto (Juliet Stevenson) directly addresses audience members in her introduction to the overtaped cassettes which comprise the narrative bulk of The Handmaid’s Tale. Eliciting a few laughs in her pithy introduction but primarily conveying static gravitas and the restrained sensitivity of an academic among peers, Stevenson commands the stage at the opera’s bookends. However, her forceful presence is at times an unfortunate distraction as she every so often, ever so covertly interrupts the action to change the ta...

2Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Stimmicanto – Barons Court Theatre

Do you keep more than five pictures of Paul Rudd on your laptop? Have you ever tried and failed to make small talk with your own brain? Do you find yourself giggling at peculiar street names on a regular basis? If so, consider this your sign to check out Stimmicanto, an hour of offbeat comedy full of surprises. The show, conceived and performed by comedian Paggy Gacheva, densely packs a wide-ranging slew of information into its 60-minute run time. Audiences are guided gently through its many transitions between topics, but their frequency and lack of clear directional focus prevent viewers from settling into consistent enjoyment, and the absence of an overall theme in the work at times makes it difficult to follow. The joy, or “encanto” Gacheva finds in performance is evident and...

29Jan

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Northanger Abbey – Orange Tree Theatre

Northanger Abbey? I hardly know ‘er! Zoe Cooper’s transformative adaptation of Austen’s offbeat gothic satire reinvents the much-neglected classic, leaning into its absurd humor, and imbuing it with a novel gravitas. Eschewing the modernizing impulse that so often muddies queer retellings of canonical works, this adaptation remains firmly rooted in the time and place of its origin and weaves a compelling original story out of each of the book’s special strands. This play packs a punch but doesn’t quite hit the spot. Designer Hannah Sibai’s work makes a most pleasing first impression. The cozy in-the-round Orange Tree Theatre is decked out in all hot pink and bedazzled with no less than seven chandeliers. A light aroma of fog pervades the space, hinting at the gothic vibes to come in the...

26Jan

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Last Rites – Shoreditch Town Hall

Devised and performed by Ramesh Meyyappan, this 65-minute work covers a broad swath of one family’s history. Beginning with one man’s arrival in India, accompanied by his young son, on a journey to lay his estranged father to rest, Meyyappan, the solitary performer, alone on stage throughout the show but for the most minimal of props, embodies all three generations. His performance is physically impressive and well directed by co-creator George Mann. An early comedic interlude depicting a series of cooking mishaps especially allows Meyyappan’s gifts to shine. Although rife with comedic moments the overall tone of the show is sobering, and it takes its subject matter seriously. As Meyyappan performs rituals over the body that is in turns both his own and his imagination’s, audiences are ...

20Jan

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Look Behind You – Theatre at the Tabard

The 25th anniversary performance of Strut & Fret’s Look Behind You features a completely updated book both classic in its recognizable theatrical tropes and urgent in its relevance to the present moment in arts and commerce. Daniel Wain’s love letter to “the bitchiest, barmiest, bravest business of them all,” encompasses the wide range of characters and character flaws that make a theatre tick. Set during the run of Christmas pantomime, Dick Whittington, at the aptly if unsubtly named, “Britannia” this play minces no words. Subtlety is wholly eschewed and in its absence something urgent, theatrical, and true, prevails. No matter how dazzling the script, and believe me it is dazzling, this is the kind of show in which one sour note might poison the whole symphony. Fortunately, each a...

20Jan

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Indestructible – Omnibus Theatre

Okay or not okay? Michael Jackson, Pablo Picasso, Kanye West… Who do we hold accountable? And how? Who even actually has this power that we’re supposed to be speaking truth to anyway? This ballsy production not only asks but demands answers to these questions. Written and directed by Proteus’s Artistic Director, Mary Swan, Indestructible is an unflinching examination of nauseatingly complex, and just plain nauseating, interplay between gender and power in the contemporary art world. Richly situated in a digital world built by the production team and multi-disciplinary artist Paula Varjack contextualizing all of the plays' imagined characters in an all too familiarly problematic alternate reality, this show offers audiences a non-traditionally immersive theatrical experience. The plot fo...

12Jan

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Swan Lake – Richmond Theatre

The brand new (2023 founded) Mergaliev Classical Ballet brings to Richmond’s now 125-year-old theatre a tame and traditional rendition of the tragic classic best suited for young audiences. Swan Lake is one of the dance world’s most famous ballets and for good reason. Tchaikovsky’s score is compelling and engaging and the story is simple and accessible. It follows Prince Siegfried (Azamat Askarov), a young man upon whom tragedy suddenly strikes. Urged to choose a bride he spurns the seductive court and ambles into the woods alone. Followed into the woods by the ominous and treacherous sorcerer Rothbart (Jackson Stewart), whose menacing musical motif is no less satisfying for its ubiquity, Siegfried is shocked to discover that the swans he hoped to spear are in fact beautiful maidens tem...