Sunday, December 22

Author: Khushboo Shah

Bad Clowns: Invasion – New Wimbledon Theatre
London

Bad Clowns: Invasion – New Wimbledon Theatre

Promising an hour of absolute tomfoolery, laughter, and hoots, the Bad Clowns Trio presented Bad Clowns: Invasion at the New Wimbledon Theatre as part of their fringe festival. The Bureau for Alien Defence (B.A.D.) is faced with an arduous task which is to locate a mind-controlling alien and diffuse a time bomb that can wipe off the entire planet. Trying all kinds of unique and hilarious gimmicks to complete the task at hand, do Agents Sam and Christian succeed? The small black box theatre space known as the Studio welcomed the audience with two special agents curiously questioning spectators about their favourite planet, occasionally showing off their pistols. This interaction was enough to predict the laughter that was delivered quite efficiently in the due course of the play. The sho...
The Concrete Jungle Book – The Pleasance Theatre
London

The Concrete Jungle Book – The Pleasance Theatre

Twisting the colourful Disney version of The Jungle Book, reproducing the grimness of Rudyard Kipling’s classic, interpolating it with live rap music, grime, reggae and spoken word, the Highrise present a dynamic and reverberating Hip-hop musical The Concrete Jungle Book at the Pleasance. Written and directed by Dominic Garfield, the play explores homelessness, abandonment, and survival in a concrete jungle where “there’s no fair when there’s hunger in the air…” Set on the streets of London, the opening scene invites the audience into a run-down, dark, sketchy neighbourhood with a pulsating score often drowning the words of the actors. Nonetheless, their performance energy and commitment to the ensemble successfully transports the audience into a surreal world created brilliantly by jux...
Dirty Dancing in Concert- Eventim Apollo
London

Dirty Dancing in Concert- Eventim Apollo

The timeless classic, Dirty Dancing, hit the cinema screen once again celebrating the film’s 35th anniversary at Eventim Apollo on 19 May 2022. But this time, it returned with a powerful live band to give the audience ‘the time of their lives…’ Written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino, starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, the 1987 summer romance was brought to life by Lionsgate, TEG MJR, GEA Live and the producer of the stage musical version of the film, Karl Sydow. The audience cheered as the concert performers took centre stage and started their rendition of ‘Be my Baby…’ while the opening credits played on the screen. Set in Catskills resort in the summer of 1963, the film portrays the summer romance of Baby Houseman (Jennifer Grey) and Johnny (Patrick Swayze...
A Good Time Was Had by All – The Hope Theatre
London

A Good Time Was Had by All – The Hope Theatre

A black box theatre, dimly lit, with a lack-lustre dinner table placed at the centre, invites the audience to settle on chairs laid on nearly all four sides of the room. The suspenseful score foreshadows the action in the play and Liz (played by Bethany Monk-Lane) inconspicuously starts setting up the table, arranging it with precision and control. Her serious demeanour yet again foreshadows what is to unfold- stark, bizarre, and powerful. Written and directed by Sam Smithson, A Good Time Was Had by All poses important questions about exercising justice and blows the extent to which one can go to take a stand - “I acted when it mattered.” A dinner party hosted by Liz, who has recently returned from a war zone, for a bunch of university friends quickly turns into a surreal amalgamation o...
Fatal Attraction – Richmond Theatre
London

Fatal Attraction – Richmond Theatre

From screen to stage, Fatal Attraction does make a long journey, making it relevant to a 21st-century audience after its release on screen 35 years ago. Written by the original screenwriter James Dearden, directed by Loveday Ingram, the play is indeed “a psychological thriller” and “a cautionary tale” as described by Ingram and Dearden respectively. The play opens suddenly with a swift shift in light and a suspenseful sound effect hushing a chatty audience and immediately demanding engagement. Dan Gallagher (Oliver Farnworth) is a lawyer, happily married to Beth Gallagher (Louise Redknapp). When Beth and Ellen (voiced by Charlotte Holden), their daughter, visit out of town, Dan’s casual drink with Alex Forrest (Susie Amy) at a recently opened bar turns into a one-night stand. What occur...
Gulliver’s Travels – Unicorn Theatre
London

Gulliver’s Travels – Unicorn Theatre

Gulliver’s adventures come to life with the bizarre and delightful production of Gulliver’s Travels playing at the Unicorn Theatre for age 7+. Directed by Jay Woodcock-Stewart, Lulu Raczka’s rendition of Jonathan’s Swift classic brilliantly uses form to share Gulliver’s narrative to a vivacious audience of young people accompanied by adults. Leah Brotherhood, Mae Munuo (Gulliver), Sam Swann, and Jacoba Williams make an energetic entrance to hip-hop music with a camera and a portable spotlight on a whitewashed stage with multiple tables set at a corner. They set the tone of the play, dancing and celebrating, interacting with the audience, and playing with the camera as their movements are projected on the white backdrop. Photo: Marc Brenner The narrative seamlessly begins as the da...
Uncanny Valley – Battersea Arts Centre
London

Uncanny Valley – Battersea Arts Centre

Theatre has been pedestaled, historically, to create a sense of empathy within audiences. We identify with the players on stage. If the production is stirring enough, we end up following the performers’ breath patterns. But, what if the actor on stage is a robot? Would we still feel empathy? Would we still be able to release emotions or scramble for answers to explain our reality? Rimini Protokoll’s Uncanny Valley subverts the position of theatre and human existence by casting a lifelike animatronic model of Thomas Melle, the writer of The World at My Back. Conceived, written, and directed by Stefan Kaegi, Rimini Protocoll once again uses a novel and disruptive form to raise questions on human conditioning and its dependency on machines- “Are we human by our randomness?” Or are we just lik...
Turtle – Hens and Chickens Theatre
London

Turtle – Hens and Chickens Theatre

Created at the intersection of stand-up comedy, spoken-word poetry, and theatre, Bróccán Tyzack-Carlin’s Turtle entertained the audience for an entire hour at a cozy and warm Hens and Chickens theatre. Bróccán’s energetic and zestful entrance gripped the audience right at the beginning and he successfully managed to keep them rolling in the aisles throughout the show. Without adhering strictly to one form, Bróccán boldly explored multiple genres of performance and spoke about all kinds of topics- his life in North-East England, his education at Durham University, sex toys, politics and statues, juxtaposing Marxism and Spice Girls, and his obsession with Tim Westwood and turtles. These explorations were supported by strong characterisations performed with distinct accents, felicitous ...
TRADE – Omnibus Theatre
London

TRADE – Omnibus Theatre

“We are…human. They try to make us forget it, but we don’t.” TRADE is a powerful narrative reflecting the issue of sex trafficking in Europe. Performed by Tanya Cubric (Jana), Ojan Genc, and Eleanor Roberts, TRADE is directed by Maddy Corner and written by Ella Dorman-Gajic. Jana, a young Serbian woman, prepares to move to London with her first boyfriend, Stefan, to make a living for her family. Little does she know that life will push her into the deep, dark, gruesome world of sex-trafficking. In the years to come, Jana is faced with several moral choices. Once a victim, she now plays the perpetrator. TRADE unravels the motives behind a young, helpless Jana’s transformation into a compliant trafficker, posing complex moral questions on her journey. The play along with the statistical d...
SAMAADHI – Riverside Studios
London

SAMAADHI – Riverside Studios

SAMAADHI, performed by Mohit Mathur and Ivanity Novak at the Riverside Studios as part of the Bitesize Festival, depicts India’s most significant and lamentable colonial event, the Jallianwala Baug Massacre. The audience is welcomed into the auditorium by an ongoing audio news report on the heart-wrenching episode blended with Indian instrumental music. While the news report seems befitting, direct, and aptly contextual, the melodious music does little to set the stage for a rather dark, traumatic, and painful performance to follow. The ‘show in development’ opens to a desolate stage with Mathur dragging a suitcase packed with burnt papers, a winter coat, a piece of cloth, a bullet, and a long stick summing up the minimalistic prop list for the show. The duo uses physical theatre and sp...