Olivia Cox, Author at North West End UK

30May

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Strategic Love Play – Soho Theatre

Two singletons walk into a bar, ready for (at least) a polite two drinks’ worth of getting-to-know-you chatter with a person they’ve never met outside the confines of their phone screen. What could go wrong? The dating app-induced first date is a scene many of us are all too familiar with, and it sets up the premise of Miriam Battye’s Strategic Love Play, currently playing at Soho Theatre until 15th June. We join the two characters — simply referred to as Woman (Letty Thomas) and Man (Archie Backhouse) — at their first meeting, and it’s abundantly clear from the get-go that they’re not on the same wavelength. While Man seems content exchanging bumbling pleasantries that avoid any risk of a genuinely enlightening conversation, Woman is bitingly honest and desperate to dig deeper....

Jean-Michel Bernard Plays Lalo Schifrin – Coronet Theatre

20May

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Jean-Michel Bernard Plays Lalo Schifrin – Coronet Theatre

Acclaimed French pianist and composer Jean-Michel Bernard is best known for writing, performing, and scoring for films such as Hugo and Be Kind Rewind. But in his second of two nights delighting audiences at Notting Hill’s Coronet Theatre, Bernard played tribute to another icon of the genre, Lalo Schifrin. Bernard delicately took us along a journey through Schifrin’s music, as well as other compositions inspired by his artistry, for an evening that highlighted the inimitable power of music to transport us to another time and place entirely. Accompanied by nothing but his piano, simple lighting and an adorable picture of his beloved chihuahua Onion, Bernard had an astutely commanding presence in the characterful space, and his effortless mastery of his instrument was bewitching. ...

19Apr

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

F**king Men – Waterloo East

When Tony Award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro first started writing his all-male adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde, he didn’t think anyone would be interested in producing it. So, he gave it what he considered to be an ‘un-producible title’: F**king Men. As the title of this review gives away, the play not only went on to be produced, but it was a runaway success. Debuting in London over 15 years ago, F**king Men became a fringe classic, and DiPietro’s updated version is back for a six-week run at Waterloo East Theatre until 26th May. Drawing back the curtains on the interconnecting sexual encounters between ten different men, F**king Men offers the audience a glimpse into the lives of modern gay men navigating sex, love, and monogamy in a world that still too often discri...

12Apr

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Artificially Yours – Riverside Studios

You can’t escape talk about AI these days. Whether it’s dubious photo editing or a dodgy script in an ill-fated Willy Wonka experience, this tech has well and truly permeated our collective consciousness, so it comes as no surprise that it’s starting to be explored through theatre. Enter: Aaron Thakar’s Artificially Yours, playing its first-ever run at Riverside Studios until 21st April. The play revolves around the domestic lives of three couples: Pippa and Martin (Leslie Ash and Paul Giddings), Lilah and Ash (Destiny Mayers and Aaron Thakar), and Ellie and Noah (Ella Jarvis and Jake Mavis) — all of whom have welcomed Agapē, the AI-powered virtual relationship therapist, into their homes. Each couple navigates various disputes that one person in the relationship believes can be reso...

3Apr

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Holly Spillar: HOLE – Soho Theatre

Holly Spillar is obsessed with holes: the ones in your face, the ones in Warburton’s crumpets, and especially the ones in our pants. After being diagnosed with vaginismus (a condition that causes the vagina to suddenly tighten when something is inserted, making penetrative sex painful), she’s become particularly fixated on why her hole can’t easily welcome a pole. This quest to try and achieve the “basic, beige sex life of her dreams” is the premise of her one-woman show HOLE, playing at Soho Theatre until 3rd April. Accompanied on stage with nothing but a loop pedal and a microphone, Spillar takes us on a surreal musical and comic journey about her experiences of navigating a litany of gaslighting doctors, terrible one-night stands, and internal misogyny. Spillar’s deft use of the l...

26Mar

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Priscilla the Party! – Here at Outernet

Immersive theatre is all the rage in 2024. From Guys and Dolls to Mamma Mia! plenty of stories are returning to the stage with an up-close-and-personal twist. At London’s HERE at Outernet, it’s Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’s turn to get in on the immersive fun with Priscilla The Party! Until the end of September, Priscilla The Party! is transforming HERE at Outernet into the sparkling, disco ball-covered Cockatoo Club, where audiences are brought right into the iconic story of acceptance and self-empowerment. Seated tickets are available, but those who have a standing ticket (like I did) watch the show from the dancefloor, where parts of the stage move, and actors sometimes weave through the crowd. The party starts before the show even begins, with a series of cabaret perform...

23Mar

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Red Pitch – Soho Place

For Tyrell Williams’s Red Pitch, making its West End debut at Soho Place after two sold-out runs at the Bush Theatre, it’s not a case of ‘third time’s the charm’, but rather ‘third time’s an even bigger charm’. A story about the friendship between London-based, football-obsessed teenagers Bilal (Kedar Williams-Stirling), Joey (Emeka Sesay), and Omz (Francis Lovehall), Tyrell Williams was inspired to write Red Pitch after passing by his childhood football pitch to find it had been demolished and replaced with unoccupied housing. All the action is set at the titular ‘red pitch’, where the three friends play football together and dream of professional superstardom. But the pitch plays a much bigger role for the trio than simply providing a space to indulge in their favourite hobby. T...

20Mar

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Karen – The Other Palace

Break-ups are always hard, but Karen’s Protagonist (Sarah Cameron-West, also the writer and producer) has just had a particularly rough one: it’s her 30th birthday, she’s at Alton Towers eating a Calippo, and she’s just been unceremoniously dumped by her long-term boyfriend, Joe. And if things couldn’t get any worse for our Protagonist, it turns out Joe has also been having an affair with her office nemesis, Karen. This very unfortunate event kicks off Karen, a laugh-a-minute, utterly shameless exploration of the messiest parts of heartbreak and self-discovery. For the next 60 minutes, Karen immerses the audience in the internal and external worlds of Protagonist, who often breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience as if they’re the other characters she’s interacting with. ...

A Most Pressing Issue – New Wimbledon Theatre

14Mar

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

A Most Pressing Issue – New Wimbledon Theatre

If you imagine a prison, it probably doesn’t strike you as a place teeming with comic potential. Add in the fact that the prison is on fire, and you’re probably visualising a very dark segment on the News at Ten rather than a comedy. But somehow, Tim Harris manages to turn this rather bleak scenario into a very funny 60-minute show in A Most Pressing Issue, playing this week at Studio at New Wimbledon Theatre. At the centre of this caper is Penton (Harris), the prison’s arrogant and sleazy warden who is desperately on the pull, and his nice-but-dim assistant Orly (Matt Williams, who also collaborated on the script). As the pair plan out how they can woo women — while also dealing with the minor inconvenience of the prison somehow catching fire — the two actors show off their brill...

8Mar

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Oedipus Electronica – Brixton House

Of all the iconic Greek myths that have firmly held their place in our collective consciousness, the story of Oedipus is one of the most infamous. So, what do you get if you take this tragic tale and add a 21st century London setting, strobe lighting, and live electronic music? You get Pecho Mama’s Oedipus Electronica, currently playing at Brixton House until 9th March. Flipping the notorious story of Oedipus, the plot centres around Jocasta (Mella Faye), a writer struggling to complete a script ahead of a rapidly approaching deadline. But when she discovers she’s pregnant with her husband Laius (Kwame Bentil), she feels an almost supernatural compulsion to write about the son she had taken away from her when she was young. Propelled by a force greater than herself, she unknowingly star...