Stewart Who?, Author at North West End UK

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo – Young Vic

12Dec

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo – Young Vic

The basic premise of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo prompted a profound reaction in this particular citizen of the planet, who also happens to love theatre. Rajiv Joseph has written a play addressing the cataclysmic consequences of the American invasion of Iraq and downfall of the Saddam regime. This is a topic that’s uncomfortable for many. It’s awkward for those who cheered, engineered and gleefully took part in it. It’s also a thorny subject for the millions who looked away as it unfolded and lazily enabled the horror. The former and current citizens of Iraq undoubtedly have feelings on this matter which run deeper than sporadic discomfort. There are many whose livelihoods and sanity are invested in either keeping this topic off the table, or muddying the waters. Creative projects w...

30Nov

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

The Grim – Southwark Playhouse

There are some of us who aren’t enthusiastic supporters of the supposed joy, goodwill and generosity which accompanies the season of Christmas. Whether this cynicism stems from resistance to consumerism, despair at an absence of spirituality or justified fear of family, one soon learns to limit such sentiments. Especially around children. This minority of Yuletide miseries tend to be cheered enormously when the usual cavalcade of schmaltz and plastic tat gives way to tales of horror or paranormal happenings. For the dark-hearted, the macabre is a comfort. With that in mind, three cheers for whoever commissioned The Grim for a run at Southwark Playhouse. First performed at Underbelly, Edinburgh Festival, the play enjoyed a sell-out season, before a critically acclaimed run at the Old Red...

24Nov

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London

Jobsworth – Park Theatre

Cast your mind back a few years and it’s easy to recall how the concept of a ‘zero hours contract’ was presented to the public as a gift to those seeking employment. Workers could choose when to work, without the onerous restrictions of a full or part-time contract. Students, single mothers, people with caring responsibilities and even those struggling with mental health problems would be able to dip in and out of work without compromising their other concerns. That was the spin. Like many aspects of late-stage capitalism, it was sold to the nation as freedom and choice. The reality has proved to be a boon to ruthless employers and tax-dodging global corporations. Even the term ‘gig economy’ feels less like a hipster lifestyle choice and more like a fun-sounding euphemism for workplace exp...

2Nov

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London

The Laramie Project – The Cornerhouse

It’s been 27 years since the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard. His death sparked a media frenzy and led to candlelit vigils in cities across the world. For anyone unfamiliar with the story, Shepard was a gay, American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die, while tied to a fence near Laramie on October 6,1998. It’s easy to forget that this homophobic attack also created an instant ‘culture war. There were abusive letters sent to the hospital which treated Shepard and protestors descended on the young man’s funeral carrying placards which declared that ‘God Hates Fags’. Home Office figures published last month (9 October 2025) show in the year ending March 2025 there were a total of 115,990 hate crime offences, up from 113,166 the pr...

29Oct

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London

Play Dead – The Horse Hospital

As the trend for celebrity performers and popular stories continues to dominate the West End, it becomes increasingly important to support and highlight new writing and underground talent. Last week, Nadine Rennie, co-chair of the Casting Directors Guild warned that this commercially driven, fever for the famous is like, “feeding a child too much sugar.” As the trend towards box office safe bets shows no sign of retreating, it was a bracing thrill to experience Play Dead by Bailey Edwards at The Horse Hospital. This wasn’t a spoonful of crowd-pleasing sugar. It more like a judicious jab of crystal meth, followed by a slap. Play Dead is a unique, queer, grimly comic modern myth about obsession, addiction, co-dependence and the fragile nature of sanity. It features the author, Edwards ...

14Oct

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London

Lifers – Southwark Playhouse Borough

As part of my drama degree in late ‘90s Liverpool, we were required to complete a Theatre In Education project (TIE). The aim was to bring live performance to a civic space where such larks are rare or unlikely. Stage a grime-infused Macbeth at an inner-city school. Perform avant garde ballet in a local authority funded care home. That type of thing. Together with my crew of fellow misfits on my course, we opted to bring our theatrical talents to the most captive of audiences, prison inmates. The concept shattered when faced with the complex, frustrating and brutal reality of staging anything in a prison. Simply visiting an inmate at a UK correctional facility is never less than a bureaucratic, dystopian terror trip. Do-gooding, weed-fuelled drama students are likely fall hard at the fi...

25Sep

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London

The Harder They Come – Stratford East

The Harder They Come, currently showing at Stratford East is an updated remix of the stage musical, last performed almost 20 years ago at the same venue. That pioneering production was an adaption of Perry Henzell’s 1972 cult film of the same name, co-written by Trevor Rhone. Henzell is regarded as the ‘Father of Jamaican film’. For his debut, the director cast the singer Jimmy Cliff in the lead role. This not only made Cliff a household name but arguably introduced Jamaican culture and reggae to a global audience. My first experience of the Harder They Come was at a late-night screening of the film at the notorious Scala cinema in King’s Cross. It was the late ‘80s and following Bob Marley’s death and the UK’s embrace of Ska via bands such as The Specials, Madness, and The Selecter, Ja...

24Aug

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Lobster Pot – The Space

The Space is a theatre on the Isle of Dogs, managed by St. Paul’s Arts Trust (registered charity no 801587). As an organisation, they aim to increase access to the arts and support new artists. The venue was formerly St Paul’s church, built by a Presbyterian mission that started praying in the area around 1856. It’s been operating as an arts space since the late ‘90s and boasts Ian Mckellan as a patron. It’s got a charming bohemian bar and lovely staff, but visitors to this theatre might be advised to plan their journey to this ‘hood with better precision than yours truly. A security guard at Canary Wharf had never heard of the D7 bus and sent me in the wrong direction, to a remote and incorrect bus stop. He was friendlier than Google Maps, but just as useless in the maze of me...

22Aug

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London

A Manchester Anthem – Riverside Studios

A Manchester Anthem opens with Tommy (Tom Claxton) having it large to the 1990 dance classic ‘Anthem’ by N-Joi. He’s in underpants, dancing with the unhinged enthusiasm of a person who has no idea that anybody might be watching. It’s unsexy slapstick, totally relatable and introduces us to a character who’s about to take the audience on a one-man, one-hour trip into a messy night out in Manchester. When N-Joi released Anthem, I was at university in Liverpool and that summer, lived in a crazy rave squat in Hulme, Manchester. If you Google ‘Anthem by N-Joi Quadrant Park’ there’s a one-minute clip of the tune being dropped at the legendary Merseyside club. I was a regular at ‘The Quaddie’ and a loved-up devotee to the Hacienda too, but this show isn’t a misty-eyed flashback to ‘90s Madches...

18Aug

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London

Foolish – Courtyard Theatre

Foolish by Kate-Lynn Du Plessis looks at the pitfalls and commercial consequences of attempting to navigate a romance under the brutal and often chaotic lens of social media. The couple in question are introduced to us in the opening of the play, when Kiera (Kate-Lynn Du Plessis) invites Xander (Kelvin Ade) back to her flat for the first time. The fumbling, passionate, highly charged energy of this encounter was portrayed with such enthusiasm and skill that it almost felt intrusive to witness. It’s extremely challenging to convey credible sexual attraction on stage. Movies have the advantage of editing, body doubles, prosthetics, CGI and the fact that viewers aren’t actually in the room with the fornicating couple. There’s nowhere to hide on the stage. An audience can feel fakery, r...