London Archives - Page 2 of 128

4Jun

By Aditi DalalNo Comments

London

In Praise of Love – Orange Tree Theatre

There’s something truly magnetic about a play that holds you at the edge of your seat, slowly pulling you deeper into its world with every passing moment. In Praise of Love does just that, creating a charged atmosphere where tension builds quietly, but persistently, in the midst of seemingly everyday exchanges. A beautiful balance of humour and heartbreak, this play keeps you engaged from start to finish, delivering its emotional punches with grace. Set in 1970s England, In Praise of Love follows Lydia, an Estonian refugee, and her husband Sebastian, a sharp-tongued literary critic, as they each try to protect the other with carefully kept secrets. Written by Terence Rattigan, the play brings to life four sharply drawn characters, each carrying their own secrets, loyalties, and regrets....

3Jun

By Zandra OdetundeNo Comments

London

Permission – Tara Theatre

Permission is protest theatre with teeth. It’s urgent, intimate, and unexpectedly funny. Set between a Heathrow immigration line and a rooftop in Karachi, it’s a story that pulses with the politics of belonging, but never forgets the bruises left behind in private. The play tackles respectability, resistance, and the slippery myth of freedom, especially when your body, your story, and your silence have been weaponised. Hanna, played with quiet ache and steel by Anisa Butt, is a Pakistani-born student trying to stake out her own version of liberation in London, far from the weight of family and the hum of Karachi’s rooftop revolution was astounding in her role. Rea Malhotra Mukhtyar delivers something magnetic — playing both Hanna’s childhood best friend Minza, and later, Anush...

31May

By Savitha VenugopalNo Comments

London

Bog Body – Arches Lane Theatre

Love is more than language, Petra tells you, more than just words. She convinces you that it transcends the confines of time, form, and existence even. You see, she has fallen in love with a man who died 2,000 years ago. The bog body in the title refers to Lindow Man, the preserved human cadaver from the Iron Age recovered from the peat bogs of Lindow Moss, and Petra is preparing to marry him. In the 30 minutes before she is to tie the knot, dressed in white, she talks about her love and of her twin sister’s death. From off stage, the disembodied voices of her dead sister and the psychologist help her along in introspection. Is the idea of falling in love with a person long gone ridiculous and mad, or entirely normal? If you listen to Petra, you will be convinced of the latter. Losin...

31May

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Failure Project – Soho Theatre

Yolanda Mercy’s Failure Project is a sharp, cathartic and touching story of a woman who just can’t seem to catch a break - professionally, personally or creatively. It’s a sobering reflection of the theatre industry for emerging and mid-career writers, and the realities that face anyone trying to forge a career in the arts. The story follows a 33-year-old playwright, Ade, who is commissioned by a London theatre to write a script about her time on a scholarship at a posh private school. Over six months, her story is distorted beyond recognition by a production team that sidelines her as soon as the script is done. She is dismissed as an actor, interrupted and ignored. Still, the commission stands. To the outside world, Ade is a success. Mercy digs into failure in every facet of Ade’s...

Application 39 (For The 2048 Gaza Summer Olympics) – Shubbak Festival

30May

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Application 39 (For The 2048 Gaza Summer Olympics) – Shubbak Festival

Application 39 invites you; to witness, to weep and to hope. Written by Ahmed Masoud supported with an absolutely fabulous cast of Sara Masry, Sama Rantisi, Joe Haddad. With its tightrope balancing act of rooting in reality while developing wings for at least our collective imagination to fly. The punchy dialogue, razor sharp satire and moving light/ sound choices make this a piece of theatre that will stay in the depth of your bones forever. Set in Gaza in 2048, where being herded by flying talking robots is normal, two young IT professionals reformat France’s application to host the olympics and suggest Gaza. What follows is not only reliving of the ghosts of the many buried past, the decisions affecting so many futures. The play is a treatise to the most forgotten collateral damag...

Return to Palestine: Freedom Theatre – Shubbak Festival

30May

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Return to Palestine: Freedom Theatre – Shubbak Festival

Freedom Theatre’s reputation precedes its arrival in London. Holding a bastion for young adults in the heart of Gaza with theatre tools. It held pastoral care for the young adults and a treatise to the spirit of Gaza. Connected deeply to one’s soil, produce, relationships and people it makes one wonder, about one’s own ‘homecoming’ and deeper connection of belonging to the land one is born in. During the pandemic Playback theatre was a stepping stone for many to find artistry, expression and community as the world shut down. I learnt about the Freedom bus from Ben Rivers, one of the co- founders. I celebrated Freedom Theatre hosting the Feminist Theatre Festival in September 2023 just before all hell broke loose. Return to Palestine is directed by Micaela Miranda and devised together wi...

This Is Not a Murder Mystery – Drayton Arms Theatre

29May

By Zain RussellNo Comments

London

This Is Not a Murder Mystery – Drayton Arms Theatre

This Is Not a Murder Mystery is a sharply written and tightly directed comedy-thriller by Peter Rae, performed in the intimate upstairs theatre above the charming Drayton Arms pub. With direction by Helen Bang—who also stars as the whimsical, scene-stealing Elizabeth Treasure—this fast-paced production delivers an evening full of energy, cleverness, and an unexpected twist. Set entirely in a regional theatre’s dressing room on the opening night of a fictional murder mystery, the play cleverly blurs the lines between backstage drama and on-stage intrigue. From the moment the lights go up, we’re immersed in a chaotic, hilarious, and occasionally poignant world of ageing actresses, youthful optimism, and theatrical egos. Helen Bang, Rosalind Blessed, and Laura Morgan have an infectious ...

29May

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Marriage Material – Lyric Hammersmith

The clash of cultures is a tale as old as time. Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera's novel, itself a take on Arnold Bennett's 1908 "The Old Wives' Tale", focuses on the conflict between tradition and change within a Sikh Punjabi family in the 1960s and over the following decades. Family and cultural expectations demand that sisters Kamaljit and Surinder marry, have children, and work in the family business, the corner shop that forms the centrepiece of the story. Their mother juggles the demands of the family, managing the shop after her husband falls ill while fending off suggestions from "Uncle" Dhandra, a more successful shop-owner, that she sell the shop to him. She's a firm, sometimes even cruel matriarch, determined like her sick husband to make a better life for h...

29May

By Sadie PearsonNo Comments

London

House of Life – Soho Theatre

Mad, glitzy and totally camp, what a glorious night of theatre House of Life is. A silly show with heaps of heart, The Raverend (Ben Welch) and Trev (Laurence Cole) take their audience on a journey of joyous enlightenment through a 6 step plan to get happy quick. Mad as a concept, the performance is less of a story and more of a cabaret-come-religious-experience, with glorious concoction of house, gospel and a cracking set of pipes (the Raverend in particular knocking it out the park vocally every time). Attacking the audience's insecurities with mantras of radical self love, honesty and community, House of Life’s great success is that it leaves no audience member un-nurtured. Chickens often the theme - an unsubtle metaphor for rebirth - we are offered egg-maracas (as well as f...

Radiant Boy: A Haunting – Southwark Playhouse Borough

26May

By Ben PearsonNo Comments

London

Radiant Boy: A Haunting – Southwark Playhouse Borough

Radiant Boy is a unique, evocative, and intensely personal play that explores a young man’s relationship with his mother, his sexuality, and his faith. Russell has returned home after a ‘sickness’ prevented him from continuing his singing training in London. Unsure of how else to help Russell, his mother Maud has called a Priest who specialises in supernatural occurrences. Part kitchen-sink drama, part Exorcist style horror, Nancy Netherwood’s script effortlessly moves from understated but heartfelt conversations between a mother and son one moment and a dramatic exorcism the next. Her use of music, particularly traditional folk and New Wave, not only add to the atmosphere of the play but also embody Russell’s internal struggle. As Netherwood says in her Playwright’s note, folk and New Wav...