REVIEWS Archives - Page 194 of 348

Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch – Underbelly, George Square

21Aug

By Kat CliffordNo Comments

Scotland

Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch – Underbelly, George Square

Can I give this show 6 stars?! Unfortunate is a phenomenal, intelligent, filthy, satirical extravaganza! Every part of this camp, queer, raunchy retelling of the little mermaid from the perspective of Ursula, the sea witch, was on point. The cast were an extremely gifted group of individuals. Ursula, played in this performance by Robyn Grant, was absolutely magnetic and had a voice that was pure electricity. Nearly the entire cast played multiple characters and their portrayals were so unique and different it really felt like watching an entirely different person each change. This is an extremely talented group of performers who have honed their craft to near flawless. The duets between Triton (George Whitty) and Ursula were exhilarating and every song in the show was performed w...

21Aug

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

Muse by FLIP Fabrique – Assembly Hall

Muse is an empowering, magical and witty show like no other that explores gender and social pressures in which we put on ourselves and others. Football or Ballet? Two sport industries designed for all, but gender assigned by the masses. What happens when a girl wants to play football? A man wants to be a ballerina? Or neither fancy either path? Delve into these topics with the use of acrobatics, circus skills and song (although for the most part the music is in French). The show carries throughout the symbol of the apple, the first sin. But to look in to the first sin is to decide if it was indeed a sin or just a woman making a choice. Muse urges you to take the apple like eve, break the rules and be who you really are. Despite little speech the whole performance is innovative and m...

20Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

Midnight – Daniel Lewis Wilson

Midnight – written, directed, and filmed by Daniel Lewis Wilson – is the sobering tale of what happens when an affair goes wrong and two lovers (Natasha Hale; Pete Austen) have to deal with its aftermath. Austen captures the anger and frustration of the man whilst Hale’s more pensive and reflective woman hints towards the twist that will follow in this riveting short piece whose words and performances really hold the attention, with a natural awkwardness to their chemistry befitting of the moment they find themselves in. Filmed in a single location, Wilson’s use of dark, light and shadow techniques, with the merest touch of colour, really adds to the intrigue and suspense, holding our attention whilst Marko Maksimovic’s Dark Ambient provides the perfect accompaniment. With ed...

The Failure Cabaret – Underbelly, Cowgate

20Aug

By Natalie LewisNo Comments

Scotland

The Failure Cabaret – Underbelly, Cowgate

Stephanie Dodd and Justin Badger’s ‘Failure Cabaret’ was a misguided attempt at comedy which indulged in the standard of American humour with a non-American audience. The pair discuss their life together from meeting in New York to accidentally moving to a middle-class white haven to somewhat turbulent and abusive fights they’ve been having (unclear whether this is said in jest or in sincerity). The music was lively and well written. Their voices: very pleasant to listen to, making it certainly a feel-good show and very easily listening. However, this was subverted by the inelegant humor surrounding abusive within the relationship of the characters, ultimately put down to bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, ultimately leading to deep depressive episodes a...

Bareback: Horseplay – Underbelly, Cowgate

20Aug

By Natalie LewisNo Comments

Scotland

Bareback: Horseplay – Underbelly, Cowgate

PBJ’s ‘Bareback: Horseplay” was a torrent and a torment of absurdity lacking any semblance of grounding or substance which would facilitate such an outlandish production, resulting in an unmelodic raucous of a sketch show and wasting the extraordinary talent of the actors involved. The premise itself is turbulent: sketch comedy show bouncing from social satire to philosophical inanity, resulting in an audience exhaustingly attempting to keep up with a fast moving, unexplained (unexplainable?) parade of celebrity caricatures, genitalia, aged talk show hosts, homosexual Irish children and slam poetry. The duo were dressed in nude bodysuits which did facilitate fast movements from one character to the next, impressively taking on the roles. The actors’ ranges of accents and charact...

20Aug

By Ezzy LaBelleNo Comments

London

Domitius – Camden Fringe Online

Revamping Roman history for a modern audience, Domitius bursts with energy and electrifying rock musical scores. Expect the unexpected from Domitius Production Collective LLP! Making its Camden Fringe debut, the musical is available to watch online and follows the vain Roman Emperor Nero (also known as Domitius) and his ambitions to seek life as a poet and performer. However, thrust into power prematurely the audience, and history, bears witness to his descent into despotism instead. Featuring a roll call of names from Rome’s historic hall of fame - Seneca, Octavia, Agrippa, Poppaea and Nero – Domitius offers accuracy in events and finds a lively, original way to portray the period of 1st Century Rome. The internal conflict of Nero is one which cuts across time and cultures and into...

Blippi: The Musical – Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue

20Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

Blippi: The Musical – Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue

For the very first time, the well-loved character Blippi hits the stage in the UK for only three weeks from 16th August until the 4th September. Spanning a variety of media platforms, Blippi has become the soundtrack to many childrens’, and subsequently families’, lives since his inception in 2014. The character Blippi was created, and originally played, by Stevin John before Clayton Grimm took over in May 2021 and is whom we saw today. The show follows Blippi and his buddies in their quest to fix the Party Machine, whilst having a variety of detours courtesy of their vast array of friends in need of help. Even though the show is targeted at families and for ages 2+, I went in with an open mind and was ready to review it with a focus on the kids’ enjoyment more than my own – a...

The Lovely Boys – Just The Tonic at The Caves

20Aug

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

The Lovely Boys – Just The Tonic at The Caves

It’s very rare that a reviewer is left speechless after a comedy show but hours later, I’m still not sure what I had actually watched. The lovely boys are not your average stand-up comedy duo, in fact the show could better be described as a strange psychedelic dream crammed into a nightmare-ish underground vault. This is not a comedy style that would fit the masses, but then Mr Bean became famous because of his clowning antics, why couldn’t these two. The show is described by the duo as “one big hour of chaos glory” and they certainly aren’t wrong on the chaos part. Strange and disturbing character sketches had the audience wildly laughing almost as much as the two men had been laughing at themselves. Our primary characters “our two lovely boys” were the funniest part of the sho...

Stop The World We’re Getting Off – The Space, Venue 45

20Aug

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

Stop The World We’re Getting Off – The Space, Venue 45

Stop The World We’re Getting Off takes a different approach to the concept of “the apocalypse”, no zombies, no nuke war, just the results of the damage that we the human race are currently doing to the world. The play takes place in a not-so-distant future when the world is no longer inhabitable due to a thick smog that has taken over as a result of the human races’ lack of care for the planet. 5 Survivors find themselves living their day to day lives hiding away in a bunker, however 5 is soon to become 6 when Ava (Georgie Cunningham) falls pregnant and dark secrets are revealed. With oxygen running low and so little time before the baby can arrive, it’s up to the team to work together to find an improbable solution. Tenderfoot Theatre Company are a global activist group specializin...

20Aug

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Intelligence – Assembly Roxy

Inside the basement of the US State Department, two young Foreign Officers Paige (Sarah Street) and Lee (Joy Sunday) are reluctantly assisting Special Envoy Sarah MacIntyre (Laura Jordan), recently returned from a top-secret and personal mission to a volatile foreign country. MacIntyre needs to prepare a report to convince the president, or the repercussions could mean death for many… if she’s right. But is she? The exact region the situation is happening in is kept purposefully vague, the reason given being that the junior officials Paige and Lee aren't cleared for the specifics of this operation, which is itself tied into an attempt by their superiors and other departments to ensure MacIntyre's initiative fails. This haziness works, mostly, as it doesn't tie the show down to a specif...