Khushboo Shah, Author at North West End UK

5Oct

By Khushboo ShahNo Comments

London

The Gentlemen’s Club – Soho Theatre

If you want to experience drag cabaret Bollywood style woven into a well-crafted narrative about freedom, community and possibility, The Gentlemen’s Club is the place to be! Co-presented by the National Centre of Performing Arts and Soho Theatre, London’s finest cabaret-meets-theatre venue, The Gentlemen’s Club is not only Patchwork Ensemble’s debut in the UK but also India’s first Drag King show. The Gentlemen’s Club opens with a nostalgic act by Rocky aka Shamsher (Puja Sarup) playing a tribute to the legendary Shammi Kapoor and the golden era of Hindi cinema- performed to absolute perfection. As a senior among an ensemble of drag artists (Sheena Khalid, Ratnabali Bhattacharjee, Srishti Dixit and Amey Mehta) performing at the club, Rocky is both warmly welcoming and a lightly pat...

22May

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London

Passing Strange – Young Vic

If there was a list of stories that amaze and bewilder you, and make you feel a tad regretful of the decisions you made as a teenager that led you to your adult-self, Passing Strange would certainly make the cut. Originally directed by Annie Dorsen, the Tony Award-winning rock musical from Broadway makes its premiere on European soil at the Young Vic, burning the stage with electrifying music, wild performances, and a bold and quintessential coming-of-stage story. Passing Strange follows the narrative of Youth (Keenan Munn-Francis) who lives with his mother in a comfortable, laid-back, Churchish black household in LA in the seventies, where he is coaxed to attend the Church. While he fails to find God, he certainly discovers his tribe and a chance at making music, the only way he seems ...

14May

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London

Blizzard – Soho Theatre

A subtle yet impactful combination of tender, wacky and surreal, Emily Woof’s Blizzard is a light yet deep journey of love, identity and existence narrated by her character Dotty. She is persuaded by her husband, a neuroscientist also called Dotty, to deliver a lecture on ‘Criticality, Connectivity and the Neuronal Avalanche’ in Switzerland as he is ‘indisposed’. Despite displaying her incomprehension of and disinterest in the subject, she decides to stand-in for him so that his life’s work does not go down the drain; the specifics of why her and not another scientist, and why not cancel or postpone the lecture are not given but they are inconsequential to the story. As Dotty journeys to Switzerland, she discovers and simultaneously invites the audience to discover the meaning of those dry...

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear – Southwark Playhouse

1Apr

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London

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear – Southwark Playhouse

Blackeyed Theatre’s Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear makes its Spring 2024 revival at Southwark Playhouse Borough after a successful run in 2023 across the UK. Adapted and directed for stage by Nick Lane, the play weaves two plots set in the past and the present with stylised, engaging storytelling (Joseph Derrington) and neat choral transitions transporting the audience to a different time where mysteries and adventures are the norm. The play opens with Holmes (Bobby Bradley) decoding a mysterious message signalling “danger” with Dr. Watson (Derrington) and Mrs. Hudson (Alice Osmanski) at the iconic 221B Baker Street. This leads the duo on an adventure to an ancient manor house further unravelling a distant narrative set in Pennsylvanian Vermissa Valley involving a corrupt gang and ...

28Nov

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London

The Witches – National Theatre

If there was a list of children’s shows where the adults laughed perhaps more than children, The Witches would top the game. Bold, fierce, and oh, so hilarious! The Witches consumes you into its world with reverberating movement, savage one-liners, hit songs and theatrical design. Book and lyrics by Lucy Kirkwood, lyrics and music by Dave Malloy and directed by Lyndsey Turner, the play is adapted from Roald Dahl’s 1983 dark fantasy novel The Witches. It opens with a dark, mysterious animation of a terrified young person encountering a witch. The screen is surrounded by an even darker, iconic backdrop of violet and black-hued witch claws. The Witches ensemble enters with the first number, “A Note about Witches”, and transform from innocent middle-aged worki...

10Nov

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London

Mates in Chelsea – Royal Court Theatre

A fistful of comedy of manners, a pinch of absurdism with a hint of surreal topping and you get Rory Mullakey’s Mates in Chelsea directed by Royal Court Associate Director Sam Pritchard. It follows the story of a vain, leisure-loving, man-child viscount Theodore ‘Tug’ Bungay (Laurie Kynaston) who has been living off inherited wealth in a spacious West London flat with a housekeeper Mrs Hanratty (Amy Booth-Steel) until one day there is none left and her mother Lady Agrippina Bungay (Fenella Woolgar) is forced to sell their Northumberland castle to a Russian Oligarch. The larger-than-life yet empty-from-within tone is set right from the beginning with clever design (Milla Clarke) and directorial choices- an empty, high-rising, narrow-looking white apartment with steel fittings a...

12Oct

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London

The Empress – Lyric Hammersmith

Tanika Gupta takes on the mammoth task of weaving three narratives spanning over 13 years marking the golden era of the British Empire under the rule of Queen Victoria with her Golden Jubilee celebration. Directed by Pooja Ghai, The Empress reveals the larger truths about Asians, especially Indian Ayahs and lascars in Victorian Britain. A boat carries Rani (Tanya Katyal), an Indian Ayah accompanying a British family, Hari (Aaron Gill), a lascar/sailor, political leaders Dadabhai Naoroji (Simon Rivers), Gandhi (Anish Roy), and Abdul Karim (Raj Bajaj), an Indian servant meant to be a gift to Queen Victoria for her golden jubilee, to the cold British Isles, all with different expectations and dreams. As their narratives progress, colonial atrocities are revealed. While a 16-year-old Rani i...

6Oct

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London

Noises Off – Theatre Royal Haymarket

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary production of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off garners peals of laughter for nearly 2.5 hours straight! An exceptional piece of comedy, performed by a stellar cast with supreme comic timing, directed by Lindsay Posner with profound detail, this rendition successfully churns out maximum hilarity from Frayn’s brilliant writing. The play opens with Dotty (Felicity Kendal) who plays Mrs. Clackett, a housemaid for Nothing On. We are in a bright house owned by Mr and Mrs Brent (Jonathan Coy and Tamzin Outhwaite) who are seemingly holidaying in Spain. Director Llyod's (Alexander Hanson) rising frustration is probably at its lowest at this dress run at midnight as Dotty keeps messing up the “sardines”. Garry (Mathew Horne) and Brooke (Sasha F...

Paved with Gold and Ashes – Old Red Lion Theatre

11Aug

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London

Paved with Gold and Ashes – Old Red Lion Theatre

Julia Thurston’s Paved with Gold and Ashes effectively captures the “American” gold-dusted dreams and hopes of five of the many immigrant garment workers employed at The Triangle Shirt Waist Factory. Based on a true story, the play heart-warmingly encapsulates their journeys, working conditions, relationships with each other and the factory in a crisp hour, all leading to the tragic fire claiming the lives of 146 garment workers in 1911. Their interactions- shuffling between each other and the audience are cleverly and cohesively crafted using movement, song and visceral storytelling with directorial support from Maria Cristina Petitti, Warren Rusher, and Stephen Smith. An intimate black box with static warm golden lights, wooden chairs and white fabric create a stri...

The Motive and the Cue – National Theatre

8May

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London

The Motive and the Cue – National Theatre

Celebrating Broadway’s famous actor-director duo of the 60s, The Motive and the Cue depicts the journey of Sir Arthur John Gielgud (Mark Gatiss) and Richard Burton (John Flynn) arriving at a Hamlet that is meaningful to both. And in this exciting journey, layer after layer is revealed as reflected in the brilliant set and design of the play. It is the story of two Hamlets, generations, and experiences apart, and when they face each other, one as a “classicist [director] wanting to be modern, and a modern [actor] wanting to be a classicist”, one can hear clashes between theatre v/s film, old v/s new, craft v/s showbiz. Sam Mendes exceptionally directs a stellar cast and production involving Jack Thorne’s words intermingled with excerpts from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. What truly connects the duo...