London Archives - Page 132 of 150

15Oct

By Gemma PrinceNo Comments

London

SKANK – Pleasance Theatre

After a sellout Edinburgh Fringe run, The Times Critics Choice comedy drama SKANK returns to the stage at the Pleasance Theatre in London. Written and performed by Clementine Bogg-Hargroves and directed by Zoey Barnes, SKANK explores the life of Kate, a young woman just trying to get through life whilst battling anxiety and insecurities. The one-woman show explores sex, worries, job dissatisfaction and health concerns in a fifty-five-minute performance. Bogg-Hargroves truly commands the stage as Kate, as she struggles to make sense of the world around her. Feeling completely lost at her boring temp job with hopes of pursuing writing, Kate uses sex, partying and recycling to try and keep her worries at bay. The representation of the crippling impact that anxieties can have weaves through...

15Oct

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Screen 9 – The Pleasance Theatre

Making any artistic project that deals with someone’s lived experience is a challenging endeavour, especially when it touches upon trauma and hurt that one continues to live with every single day. Between remaining true to the testimonies that drive the story and holding a safe space for an audience to explore the subject area, it calls for a dramaturgy of care and empathy. Piccolo Theatre’s new verbatim show Screen 9 succeeds in doing precisely that. Based on the 2012 mass shooting incident that occurred in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, the show uses the real-life testimonies and interviews of survivors to reconstruct the gruesome July night which left 12 dead and over 70 injured. Focusing on the life of these survivors in the years since the shooting and their attempts to deal wit...

The Beauty Queen of Leenane – Lyric Hammersmith

15Oct

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

The Beauty Queen of Leenane – Lyric Hammersmith

The current revival of Martin McDonagh's 1996 play, "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" recently completed a successful run at Chichester and has now transferred to the Lyric Hammersmith. Mag, a mean elderly woman, is being looked after by her daughter, Maureen, an equally mean middle-aged woman who yearns to get away from the stifling and constricted life she leads looking after her demanding and manipulative mother in the isolation of a Connemara cottage. The unexpected return of an old friend, Pato, offers Maureen the chance of escape but Mag is determined to scupper her daughter's chance of a new life, which would leave her alone and without her carer. These are two women who are deeply flawed and unable to tell each other the truth - Mag hiding the fact that she doesn't need to rely e...

14Oct

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

No Fear! – Hoxton Hall

From an undercover operator and rebellious rock star to a manic mother and prolific performer, Linda Marlowe has lived many different lives within one lifetime. Interspersed with her real-life experiences, relationships and encounters as well as a larger personal commentary about her age and the legacy she wishes to leave behind, ‘No Fear!’ is a one-woman show being staged at the Hoxton Hall. The show is directed by Gavin Marshall, who joins Josie Lawrence and David Benson to share the writing credit. The production follows in the footsteps of Marlowe's previous stage productions such as ‘Berkoff’s Women’ and ‘Diatribe of Love’, in which she says she “expressed (her) love of physical theatre and, the power of words from two great writers, Berkoff and Marquez”. This production touches upon ...

13Oct

By Zoё MeeresNo Comments

London

Empty in Angel – Bloomsbury Theatre

‘Empty in Angel’, I soon discovered, is courier talk for “I am in (Angel) and I currently have no goods to collect or deliver”. An original play by James Woolf, Empty in Angel looks at the fight to improve workers’ rights in the so-called ‘gig economy’ and the common struggles faced by its community. Our narrator and protagonist is ‘Watsy’ (‘cos she’s from Watford. She has a friend called ‘Brighton’. She moans a lot) who is ably portrayed by the very energetic Darcy Willison. Alongside the central role, Willison takes on all bit-parts in this hour long one-(wo)man show and slips between characters with ease. She also manages to pull off a couple of pretty impressive raps and some genuinely moving monologues that at one point put a bit of a lump in my throat. Holding an audiences’ attent...

10Oct

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Roots – Wilton’s Music Hall

As I found myself settling into my seat at the historic Wilton’s Music Hall, I registered a strange feeling. Perhaps it was the humdrum of excited, hushed voices that swept the hall or maybe it was the fact that we were all gathered here, together, to listen to some folk tales. However, what followed next completely disarmed me (in a good way) and for the next hour, I surrendered myself to the lure of a good story. Independent performance company 1927’S Roots is a playful, multi-faceted exploration of stories from a simpler time. Written and directed by Suzanne Andrade with Paul Barritt on animation and design, the show is an anthology of ancient folk tales from the Aarne index which has categorized and numbered thousands of stories from all over the world. 1927’s trademark aesthetic combi...

Behind Closed Doors – Christ Church Spitalfields

8Oct

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Behind Closed Doors – Christ Church Spitalfields

If there’s one thing that transcends linguistic, cultural and socio-political boundaries for humans, it’s our curiosity about other human beings. More specifically, the people who live in our neighbourhoods and their lives. Multicultural collective 27 Degrees seeks to bring forth this innate curiosity about people who live next door to us through their show Behind Closed Doors, a site-specific theatrical experience that unfolds on the streets of East London. The journey begins at the steps of Christ Church in Spitalfields where you are invited to put on your headphones and access the audio instructions. Step by step, you are introduced to the rules of the world and you begin your journey on foot. Guided by audio, you cross different streets in and around Spitalfields. As you progress, y...

8Oct

By Zoё MeeresNo Comments

London

Eulogy – National Theatre Courtyard

Before I even arrived at the courtyard outside the National Theatre, I could see the large white container with EULOGY written in black letters along the side. In the ten minutes I was waiting for the performance to begin, two people came up to me and asked me what it was. It’s unusual for something to stick out on the Southbank – there are street performers and installations most weeks – but there’s something mysterious about the Eulogy set up that immediately captures your interest. Performance isn’t quite the right word; Eulogy is billed as an in-person, immersive experience and I can’t think of another way to sum it up. We take our seats in our “suite” don a pair of headphones and are plunged into such extreme darkness that at times I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or closed. I’ve...

7Oct

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Fritz & Matlock – The Pleasance Theatre

Fritz & Matlock is a new two-hander play by James Wallwork and Salvatore D'Aquilla that makes its way to the Pleasance Theatre’s autumn programming, after being written over Zoom during the pandemic. The show, produced by Part of the Main and directed by Jessica Millward, has been described as a contemporary 'Waiting for Godot’, an almost tongue-in-cheek reference to how its two titular characters find themselves trapped in a dingy basement, grappling with the consequences of an unfortunate incident, and are waiting to make their next move. These are childhood friends Carl Fritz (D'Aquilla) and Barry Matlock (Wallwork) whose vastly different outlooks on life are, perhaps, only exceeded by their considerably different approaches to the situation at hand. The story begins sometime mid...

5Oct

By Clare ChandlerNo Comments

London

Hamlet – Young Vic

Cush Jumbo is the big draw in this production of Shakespeare’s classic play, whipping up a storm as the tempestuous Prince of Elsinore. Cross gender, or gender blind, casting of this legendary protagonist is not a new fad, indeed the first ‘female’ Hamlet graced a London stage in 1796 - when Elizabeth Powell took on the role. There is also a 12th century Danish legend that states that he was in fact a she, and that Hamlet’s gender had been hidden by their mother to protect their claim to the throne. In Greg Hersov’s production Jumbo’s ‘unmanly grief’ is the undoing of Elsinore as Hersov’s edited text (which still runs at over three hours) aims for a mystery thriller flow to bring the piece alive for a contemporary audience. At its most successful the performance is an absolut...