London Archives - Page 9 of 147

20Sep

By Zain RussellNo Comments

London

Oscar at the Crown – The Crown

Oscar at the Crown follows the story of Oscar Wilde, reimagined in a dystopian futuristic world. This particular night marked the debut of Jan Sport stepping into the role of Wilde, and they delivered an electric performance. From the very start, the energy was high, with sharp, high-octane choreography lighting up the stage. The atmosphere is immersive from the moment you arrive. Walking down the stairs, you’re greeted with nostalgic clips from 90s TV classic The O.C., setting the tone before you even reach the venue. Entering feels more like stepping into a nightclub than a theatre, with a live DJ, dancers, and an audience swept into the action right away. The production lays out its “three rules,” encouraging the audience to move freely throughout the performance, following the ca...

20Sep

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

LENNY. – Omnibus Theatre

Lenny, also known as ‘big man’ by his best friend Carly is soon to be turning 30. Living with flatmates he doesn’t like, a job that fulfills him with no purpose and a huge burning desire to be loved. Written and performed by Alfie Webster and directed by Sarah Stacey, this 80-minute piece travels through the usual spots Lenny exists like the cinema, a nightclub, the nightclub’s cubicle and back in his room where even there he struggles to take up space. But on this particular day he is haunted by a dream, in which he had sex with a banana. This unravels him completely as he realises his own loneliness. His mission becomes clear, to prove the banana wrong and make sense of who he is. Location to location, Webster invites us into his lens of life. He finds humour in almost anything mundan...

19Sep

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

The Lady From The Sea – Bridge Theatre

Simon Stone's extensive reworking of Ibsen's 1888 play relocates the action from the Norwegian fjords to Ullswater in the Lake District. In this idyllic setting, neurologist Edward (Andrew Lincoln) tries, and mostly fails, to be a good father to teenage daughters Asa (Gracie Oddie-James) and Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike). Now remarried to Ellida (Alicia Vikander) after the death by suicide of his first wife, Ed struggles to keep the peace within the family and particularly between his daughters and their stepmother. Ed's best friend, Lyle (John MacMillan) is a support for the family, although his involvement is not always regarded positively by Ed. Into this scenario comes Heath (Joe Alwyn), a young patient of Ed's who is awaiting the outcome of tests that will confirm whether his m...

18Sep

By Savitha VenugopalNo Comments

London

Brown Girl Noise – Riverside Studios

Brightly coloured curtains hang behind painted step-stools, Hindi film songs play from the speakers. An apt stage setting for a play about South Asian stereotypes. Four brown girls gather for an audition. In an industry where the character choices for a South Asian actor are between “funny best friend”, “wedding guest” or “Bollywood dancer”, this here is a meaty role – to play Priti Patel. With the auditions delayed, the four find themselves with a lot of time to kill. In the forced proximity of that confined space they go from being rivals to building a sisterhood, brought together by the realities of growing up brown. Written by Kaya Uppal (who also plays one of the young women) and directed by Zarshaa Ismail, the play is a tapestry of experiences. In the waiting room, the women...

18Sep

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Romans: A Novel – Almeida Theatre

Three brothers are born to daughterless parents sometime in the eighteenth century. Each is uniquely traumatised by his upbringing: the beatings of boarding school, the horrors of war, the witnessing of his father’s suicide by a gunshot to the roof of the mouth. And yet each must go on with life. Romans: A Novel is a story of three men, spanning 150 years, trying to answer the question of what it means to be a man - in other words, what it means to live. Alice Birch’s study of masculinity is focused, among other things, on the importance of the written word in deciding who gets to have a voice. Its structure is informed by the development of the novel: we begin with Jack Roman narrating his own life alone onstage, wandering into the fog and meeting his long-lost uncle, presumed dead fro...

18Sep

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Reunion – Kiln Theatre

This is a tough one. A storm-weathered family convenes on “an island off the west coast of Ireland,” and all hell—less so breaks than steadily chips loose. En route from the Galway International Arts Festival, this production of Mark O’Rowe’s Reunion much like its island setting, holds a captive audience. Its dialogue is natural and intriguing, and O’Rowe resists the kitchen sink dramatist’s persistent impulse to make his characters as mean as possible. A perfectly gender-split cast of five and five places surprising emphasis on its female characters’ internality, relegating its men to timorous punchlines at best (in the case of Stephen Brennan’s adorably addlepated Felix) and tremendous encumbrances at worst (in the case of Ian-Lloyd Anderson’s incredibly effectively irritating Aonghus...

16Sep

By Charles PipeNo Comments

London

Dagmarr’s Dimanche – Crazy Coqs

Hidden away beneath the streets of Picadilly, glitzy Art Deco venue Crazy Coqs provides the perfect venue for an anachronistic cabaret show performed by a vampire: Dagmarr’s Dimanche. Singer Hersh Dagmarr has absolute command of the stage. His voice is powerful and emotive, and he effortlessly draws the audience into the stories contained within the lyrics. With songs arranged by pianist Karen Newby, the eclectic setlist playfully jumps around from Édith Piaf to Kylie Minogue, via Cole Porter, Madonna, Sondheim, and the Pet Shop Boys. Dagmarr continually plays with the audience’s expectations, teasing one song and then performing another. A Kylie Minogue medley featuring riffs from ‘Willkommen’ and ‘Mack the Knife’ caught the audience especially off-guard, in the best possible way. My p...

16Sep

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Shotgunned – Riverside Studios

Written and directed by Matt Anderson, Shotgunned gained some very good reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe and has now transferred to the Riverside Studios. It is an engaging 60 minutes of theatre. Cleverly written and excellently performed, it tells the story of a young couple, Roz and Dylan, charting their relationship from their first meeting at a party, through its highs and lows. The distinguishing feature of this production is that the story in not told linearly but in a series of short, some very short, vignettes in a seemingly almost random order. The fascination for the audience is piecing together from these fragments how the relationship has developed. This format presents particular challenges for the actors, who have to switch mood almost instantly during the s...

15Sep

By Zandra OdetundeNo Comments

London

Black Power Desk – Brixton House

Theatre has rarely felt this alive, urgent, and unapologetically Black. Black Power Desk, an original musical directed by Gbolahan Obisesan, is a searing, soulful exploration of sisterhood, grief, and resistance, set against the backdrop of the covert operations of New Scotland Yard’s infamous “Black Power Desk” in 1970s London. Loosely inspired by the Mangrove Nine, the play follows two sisters, Celia (Rochelle Rose) and Dina (Veronica Carabai), as they navigate love, politics, and survival in a Britain defined by racial tension and state surveillance. The result? An electrifying blend of theatre, live music, and political storytelling that refuses to soften its edges. The entire ensemble delivers powerhouse performances, seamlessly balancing individual brilliance with collective ch...

12Sep

By Zain RussellNo Comments

London

Every Brilliant Thing – SohoPlace

Every Brilliant Thing is a one-person play that features different actors across its 14-week run. I had the chance to watch Ambika Mod take on this ambitious challenge, guiding us through the life of her character, beginning at the age of seven, when she is first confronted with her mother’s attempted suicide. This is a profoundly moving story that highlights the small joys around us and the little things that can make life worth living. From Club Penguin to the joy of sharing a book with someone and seeing them love it too, the play reminds us of the beauty in seemingly ordinary moments. Although technically a one-woman show, this production cleverly incorporates a great deal of planned audience participation. Each performance sees audience members randomly chosen to read out lines,...