London Archives - Page 2 of 174

16Sep

By Phil MeikleNo Comments

London

Man to Man – The Royal Court

Casting call: Oscar-winning Hollywood actress required for an 85-minute solo performance. Costume and make-up: predominantly a string vest, bright red Y-fronts and boots. Yellow stains under the armpits, white paint encrusted across the face and body, and a requirement to guzzle beer and be showered in it. Let's be honest, there's only really one Oscar-winning actress with the nerve to take on this role eight times a week. Enter the genre-defying Tilda Swinton. Returning to the stage for the first time in nearly 40 years, Swinton revisits the role of Ella/Max, a woman who assumes the identity of her deceased husband, a crane operator, by wearing his clothes in order to survive the Nazi regime. Man to Man explores gender fluidity, conformity and grief, but Ella is denied the opportuni...

The Seven Deadly Sins and The Human Voice – Charing Cross Theatre

14Sep

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

The Seven Deadly Sins and The Human Voice – Charing Cross Theatre

I am not an opera regular, so I arrived at this double bill with a certain curiosity about what it might feel like to encounter two works from very different European traditions, Germany and France, almost a century after they were written. This contemporary staging by Alejandro Bonatto offers an accessible entry point, presenting Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins alongside Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice. Synopsis: In The Seven Deadly Sins, Anna travels through American cities in pursuit of enough money to build a house, negotiating the expectations of her family and the moral compromises required to survive. The Human Voice follows Elle through a single telephone conversation with a former lover, as an attempt at connection gradually exposes emot...

14Sep

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

On Your Bike Baffo – Lyric Hammersmith

Baffo! Baffo! Baffo! You’ll be chanting and cheering, oohing and ahing, laughing, crying, and crying from laughing from the moment you enter his playing space. Baffo’s Band, performed with an air of erudition and easy going charm by Tom Penn, also writer of the show’s music, plays from the house opening until every last child has departed and in the time between gracefully weathers unending assaults by watergun, hair dryer, and tire. Baffo himself, devised and directed by Oliver Harrison but performed for this tour by consummate clown Dru Cripps, is the rare children’s performer whose comfort with the audience puts everyone at ease. Children are included in every step of the performance and treated with infinite patience by both performers who give participants ample opportunitie...

14Sep

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Night City – Southwark Playhouse

There’s no doubt that working conditions and employee power have slowly eroded in the past few decades. Secure jobs that are well paid and fulfilling are dwindling like ice caps. Decent employment options are likely to die out with the generation that once enjoyed them. Everyone ditched mini cab firms and black Hackney cabs for the cheap convenience of Uber, which is no longer the budget option it once was. Now, there are few alternatives to Uber, which seems to have a monopoly on the market and appears to be taking advantage of both drivers and customers. In the States, working as an app-based delivery driver is considered one of the deadliest occupations. A landmark report by the advocacy group Gig Workers Rising documented at least 80 app-based workers were murdered on the job betwee...

14Sep

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Fire Fire – Arcola Theatre

John Webber’s Fire Fire brings Paige, a middle-class queer climate activist of Nigerian heritage, and Eddie, a white retired oil worker, together at a country park in Essex. Their opposing positions on climate protest repeatedly bring them into conflict, until they recognise a shared struggle to be heard and decide to take drastic action together. There is something genuinely fiery about Fire Fire. Over its 80-minute runtime, the production sustains an extraordinary sense of urgency, not simply through the writing but through the physical and vocal energy of Gabrielle Brooks and Chris Simmons. Conversations arrive at a blistering pace, with exchanges that feel as though they have been waiting to happen. The intensity is felt in the bodies of the two performers as much as in the words th...

The Mirror Crack’d – The Mill at Sonning

14Sep

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

The Mirror Crack’d – The Mill at Sonning

A murder mystery by Agatha Christie welcomes Miss Marple played by the wonderful Liza Goddard to The Mill at Sonning. The Mirror Crack'd is everything you want it to be; a murder mystery with moments of suspense and wit. This village is coming to terms with a Murder at Gossington Hall the home of a Hollywood Movie star Marina Gregg and everyone is a suspect! or are they? Fans of Agatha Christie and Miss Marple will enjoy it, and new audiences will experience a night of pleasure at the plot twists and turns of this murder mystery. Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation has breathed new life into this classic work of Agatha Christie; a refresh whilst staying true to the blueprint of the original. The scenes changes are slick as the characters ebb and flow from Miss Marple’s Living room, the film st...

Until Proven Human – Barons Court Theatre

11Sep

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Until Proven Human – Barons Court Theatre

Until Proven Human invites its audience into a fictional ‘civic assembly’ following a series of troubling incidents. Through a sequence of questions, votes and collective decisions, citizens are asked to determine who among them might be a “monster”, gradually turning a seemingly simple civic exercise into an examination of conformity, authority and the consequences of individual choice. Created by Xiaomin Fan and directed by Jingwen Lu, the show is a spirited and ambitious piece of interactive theatre. Staged in the basement of Barons Court Theatre, the production begins before the performance has formally started. As we walk down the stairs, we encounter newspaper cuttings, recordings, objects and fragments of information that establish the world we are entering. There is an immed...

Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It – Soho Theatre

11Sep

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It – Soho Theatre

Flying high after a fourth Fringe First award at Edinburgh, NYC duo Xhloe and Natasha bring Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It to Soho Theatre for a victory lap. Having previously seen the pair perform What If They Ate The Baby? in the theatre’s studio space, I was delighted to see their unique blend of clowning, physical comedy and social commentary shine on Soho Theatre’s main stage. The extra space lets them play more with movement and allows a giant STOP sign, text projections on the back wall, and an imposing representation of Bigfoot to offer extra visual intrigue. Set in a small mountain town in the US, Bigfoot introduces us to a pair of teenagers who pretend they’ve spotted Bigfoot in the area to cover up their own misdeeds. This singular lie soon spirals into a web o...

Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie – Underbelly Soho

11Sep

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie – Underbelly Soho

A massive hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, this show is a timeless, joyous, authentic exploration of the life and times of Woody Guthrie, "the original folk hero" (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). Guthrie was born in 1912 into extreme poverty in Oklahoma, the family struggling to make ends meet after a catastrophic house fire. When he grew up, he would find scraps of work throughout the Great Depression, but often there wasn't sufficient work even in the orchards of California and desperate families would find themselves in debt to the Company Shop. He lost his mother to mental illness, which was eventually diagnosed as the Huntingdon's Disease that would also cruelly afflict him in later life. Having sung songs at his mother's knee, he took his guitar all over the US, playing songs of social prot...

9Sep

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

The Obituary – Jack Studio Theatre

The obituary in question is that of the migrant mother of three Chinese siblings, and the play deals with the decisions her children must make in dealing with the disposal of the family home where they grew up. They do this by completing a detailed property report to a very short deadline. The process of doing so brings back conflicting memories of their childhood and parents. This is a new play by Xinyu Lu, premiering at the Jack Studio Theatre. It is simply and stylistically staged, with the acting area demarcated by a white border, with representations of items wrapped for disposal. The floor is covered with sand and blank pieces of paper, used by the cast to represent photographs and artefacts to prompt their memories. The three actors, Kevin Ip, Chen Xu and Yijia Go...