Camden Fringe Review 2026 Archives

26Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Belated – Etcetera Theatre

Celebrating a milestone birthday almost a year late might suggest poor organisation, but for Anna, it represents something far more purposeful: a refusal to let disappointment have the final word. In ‘Belated’, a postponed party becomes the stage upon which she takes stock of middle age, abandoned ambitions and the uncomfortable feeling that everybody else’s life has progressed more successfully than her own. Anna once worked as a professional dancer but now teaches Pilates to wealthy and famous clients. Approaching her 51st birthday, she is contending with the demands of motherhood, the aftermath of a painful separation and the lingering frustration of creative aspirations left unexplored. Rather than quietly accepting that those opportunities have passed, she transforms her long d...

21Aug

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Earworm – Camden People’s Theatre

Earworm by Gur Arie Piepskovitz is pitched as an ‘anti-rom-com’ and certainly succeeds in presenting the contemporary queer relationship as a prospect of conflict, contradiction and angst. The story concerns alternative cabaret singer Guy (Avihud Tidhar), who is dating queer academic John (Brodie Bass). They are motivated by distinctly varying ambitions and have different needs in their relationship, which is obviously heading towards collapse. In a bold, post-modern meta move, Earworm opens with Guy (Tidhar) directly addressing the audience, as he tries to select a song to open the show. Waylon Jacobs and Reece Lewis sit either side of Guy, acting as an arch, critical chorus, analysing the emotional manipulations of theatrical conventions. The pair savage Guy’s efforts in real time...

20Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Dear Lihua – Canal Café Theatre

‘Dear Lihua’ is a highly accomplished piece of theatre, delicately constructed and performed with remarkable tenderness. Written by Xinyi Chen and directed by Zhaoyi Ying, this bilingual English and Mandarin production explore the loneliness of living abroad, the strain of communicating in a language that is not your own and the painful compromises sometimes demanded by cultural assimilation. After dying in London, Qiuqiu awakens in an “English-speaking heaven”, where even the afterlife is governed by bureaucracy and paperwork. To earn enough points to return to China, she is assigned to the “Department of Unanswered Letters” by God, sorting through correspondence that never received a reply. Among the abandoned words, she repeatedly encounters letters addressed to Lihua, gradually ...

How Do I Love Thee? – Circle and Star Theatre

19Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

How Do I Love Thee? – Circle and Star Theatre

Inspired by the life and work of English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ is an ambitious and emotionally intelligent piece of new writing from new company Aside Hustle. Tracing the Victorian poet’s journey from confinement in England to liberation in Italy with Robert Browning, Ruby Thomas’s script explores creativity, illness, love and the struggle of a woman determined to be heard in a society intent on restricting her. There is considerable beauty in the writing. Drawing upon Browning’s poetry and correspondence, Thomas constructs a thoughtful portrait of an artist discovering the courage to define herself. Her script possesses genuine emotional power and demonstrates substantial future potential, particularly in its examination of the relationship between ...