London Archives - Page 96 of 114

Epic Love and Pop Songs – New Wimbledon Theatre

21Oct

By Zoё MeeresNo Comments

London

Epic Love and Pop Songs – New Wimbledon Theatre

What do you call a musical that isn’t really a musical but sort of is a musical? And how do you explain it to people who might want to see the not-quite-a-play but not-quite-a-musical? Here is my attempt: Epic Love and Pop Songs is confusing; think Marmite but for your cultural tastebuds. The story explores the complex dynamics of teenage friendship; needing to find your tribe, wanting to belong and wanting to stick out at the same time, the politics of the secondary school hierarchy. It also looks at love, loss and tragedy - Doll and Ted are teenage friends, bound together by hurt and need, and their friendship will eventually be the making or the end of them both. From the off, the stage is cluttered and it’s not clear why, the basic props sort of work but I didn’t understand the c...

Chop Me Up or Let Me Go – Hen & Chickens Theatre

21Oct

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Chop Me Up or Let Me Go – Hen & Chickens Theatre

Among the things that we all have collectively experienced over the past year, one of them has to be the physical and mental limits we are pushed to in confinement (read: lockdown). This set-up is not unfamiliar to the dramatic world – being stuck in a place with nowhere to go and nothing to do – and has been aptly used as a narrative structure in this new production by the Albiston Line Theatre Company. Chop Me Up or Let Me Go is a terse two-hander written and directed by Lesley Ann Albiston that explores survival, obsession and human relations through the lens of its two characters. Thomas Reynolds, a famous actor, has been kidnapped by Astrid Barton, a researcher who swears she’s his biggest fan. Astrid’s motives for the kidnapping aren’t particularly clear but it’s evident that Thomas ...

19Oct

By Pooja SivaramanNo Comments

London

10 Nights – Bush Theatre

A playwright once told me that a good play will tell you exactly what they’re about in the title itself, because in storytelling, simple is good. 10 Nights is about a young man named Yasser and his decision to take part in itikaf for the last ten nights of Ramadan. The story is at once delightfully simple and gracefully complicated. Originally a one-man show written by Shahid Iqbal Khan, the production is directed by Kash Arshad and enacted by three people: Zaqi Ismail as Yasser, Safyan Iqbal as Aftab (Yasser’s friend who we find out early on has died), and Sumayya Si-Tayeb / Chandrika Gopalakrishnan who acts both as Aneela (Aftab’s girlfriend) and the performance interpreter of the show. The show is audio described, is captioned in English and Urdu, and inventively integrates British Sign...

17Oct

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Yellowfin – Southwark Playhouse

Yellowfin: Marek Horn’s second play and hilarious dive into the mindset of a life in a possible near future? Set in one room, we watch Calantini (Joshua James) interrogated by three senators: Marianne (Nancy Crane), Stephen (Beruce Khan) and the very sweet Roy (Nicholas Day) who reminds us all of our favourite family elder who cannot help but share their favourite memories of a time before. This play tackles a theme of which we are all apart of but also touches on something only a few may admit too: responsibility of the outcome. Calantini is questioned harshly about the death of his brother in relation to the disappearance of fish. He floats through their attacks skilfully with humour and pace, something this cast excelled at. Although this runs straight through with no interval, the a...

Love and Other Acts of Violence – Donmar Warehouse

17Oct

By Natalie J RomeoNo Comments

London

Love and Other Acts of Violence – Donmar Warehouse

Love and Other Acts of Violence delivers what it promises. As a subversive story of a couple who meet by chance and become embroiled in a dysfunctional relationship, it could be relatable to many for a multitude of reasons – none of which are very happy. The play draws on the history of the anti-Jewish violence in Poland from 1944-46, right at the end of World War 2, and examines the concept of inherited trauma. Do we feel the pain of the tragedies that befell our grandparents, and how does this influence us and our attitudes towards others- especially those who are perhaps descended from those that would have been opposing our ancestors? It’s an important question; one that has been right at the forefront of political and cultural discussions of late. But should any person be subjected...

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...