Courtyard Theatre Archives - North West End UK

Who Else Did Sam Hill Kill? – The Courtyard Theatre

22Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

London

Who Else Did Sam Hill Kill? – The Courtyard Theatre

Who is Sam Hill? He is the guy that everyone puts upon, feeds his Aunt’s cat, covers other work-mate’s shifts at work without being asked if he minds – he is single, and he is invisible! How easy would it be to blame a murder on him when he never raises his voice in protest, a perfect scapegoat! This farce dreamed up by Christian McKeon, is a mad-cap hour of fast paced theatre, which is fun, silly, and cleverly conceived. The plot has Sam Hill (Raphael Kris) working at Costello’s, when his Aunt Sal (Bylli Gomez) requires him to visit her flat to feed her cat, but when Sam arrives Sal is dead, allegedly by a self-imposed shot to the head, but how easy is it to shoot yourself from behind? As further people in Sam’s life are killed, all eyes turn to Sam, b...

18Aug

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Foolish – Courtyard Theatre

Foolish by Kate-Lynn Du Plessis looks at the pitfalls and commercial consequences of attempting to navigate a romance under the brutal and often chaotic lens of social media. The couple in question are introduced to us in the opening of the play, when Kiera (Kate-Lynn Du Plessis) invites Xander (Kelvin Ade) back to her flat for the first time. The fumbling, passionate, highly charged energy of this encounter was portrayed with such enthusiasm and skill that it almost felt intrusive to witness. It’s extremely challenging to convey credible sexual attraction on stage. Movies have the advantage of editing, body doubles, prosthetics, CGI and the fact that viewers aren’t actually in the room with the fornicating couple. There’s nowhere to hide on the stage. An audience can feel fakery, r...

17Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Feminine Rage – Courtyard Theatre

Part of this year’s Camden Fringe, Feminine Rage tackles one of the most urgent and devastating issues in modern Europe: the wave of femicides in Greece. Writer Venice Billia weaves a concept of striking potency, imagining victims of male violence gathering in the afterlife to build a fragile sanctuary for themselves. It is an idea that resonates deeply; these women deserve voice, presence, and dignity, and the framing offers a space to mourn and reflect on a crisis too often pushed aside. The script carries weight, particularly when it edges toward naming and acknowledging the silenced women. Yet, the production struggles to match the gravity of its subject. The set is stark to the point of looking unfinished, reminiscent of a school-level staging rather than a professional platfor...

17Aug

By Eleanor HallNo Comments

London

On the Nose – Courtyard Theatre

‘On the Nose’ is a feel-good flounce between the friendships of two working clowns, Buddy and Dorothy. Directed by Izzy Ponsford, the clown world presented in the play tested our sense of belonging - not without generous helpings of metatheatrical references! With some fruitful audience interactions and echoes of familiar gags, these birthday clowns sprinkled silly all over. That is, until the friendship of this co-working duo is threatened by Buddy’s sudden desire to become an actor. There was an implicit interrogation of queer actors’ exclusion from particular acting roles by the ‘high brows’ of theatre. The career-changing plight gave way to Buddy not being ‘straight enough’ to be an effective understudy for a catapult. Similarly, the strain on the pair’s friendship allowed fo...

Wakaresaseya or How to End Things – Courtyard Theatre

11Aug

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Wakaresaseya or How to End Things – Courtyard Theatre

Renting in London is not for the squeamish. Trying to find a place to rest your head in a city so inhospitable that its train platforms are plastered with propaganda assuring international transplants that friendship and family are just around the corner if they keep hanging on, is no mean feat. BuildingRockets, a theatrical cohort of three international artists, have created in Wakaresaseya or How to End Things a deceptively and dangerously funny stage thriller as sexy as it is sickening. Director Samuel Topper manipulates the undeveloped domain of the cramped and comfortless Courtyard Theatre into an immersive storytelling environment utilizing a potent combination of projection, light, and erotic audio to enhance the anxiety of claustrophobia common to both flat sharing and black...

Tales of a Jane Austen Spinster – Courtyard Theatre

10Aug

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Tales of a Jane Austen Spinster – Courtyard Theatre

What’s a girl to do? When you’ve been on the shelf — the literal bookshelf, that is — for more than 200 years, this question becomes ever more pressing. Should Liliana, a neglected heroine from an unfinished scrap of Jane Austen’s writing, remain a wallflower for all eternity, awaiting the extended hand of a mysterious gentleman to pluck her from her obscure perch and carry her away to freedom and fulfillment? The play wouldn’t be very fun if she did. Fortunately for all involved, this is not the fate playwright and performer Alexandra Jorgensen has mapped out for her. Her Liliana, an earnest young woman with that blend of self-righteousness and self-consciousness that has come to characterize Austenian adaptation, is out to seize control of the narrative. Jorgensen, operating he...

6Aug

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Echoes of Empire – Courtyard Theatre

When it comes to post-colonial mood music, Britain is in a league of its own. The symphonic sound of English Empire is often ugly tunes, tone-deaf lyrics and long broken instruments. Fellow colonial contenders such as the Dutch, Spanish or Portuguese tend to be guiltily mute about their marauding past or attempt to address their empirical history with glacial pace and limited scope. The United Kingdom can boast the biggest Empire, and possibly, the most monstrous legacy. British Empire has a habit of being viewed with a gobby pride which shouts down evidence of the brutal costs for former and current colonies. Britain continues to swerve a hard reckoning and often seeks to silence nuanced perspectives of Empire and many of the basic, but awkward facts. If the education system, media...

3Aug

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Romeo & Juliet – Courtyard Theatre

My last brush with Romeo and Juliet was at Wilton’s Music Hall 3 years ago for Rachel Garnet’s excellent Starcrossed, which focussed on the fractious relationship between Mercutio and Tybalt, but added an erotic queer twist to their violent passions. It was an audacious, yet clever spin on Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy and a prime example of the Romeo and Juliet Industrial Complex. From Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 blockbusting film (Romeo + Juliet) to Arthur Laurents’ musical, West Side Story, audiences are highly familiar with twists, takes and remixes of the most pop play from in the Bard’s canon. Adding another layer to this theatrical mille-feuille is Romeo and Juliet: Out of Pocket, devised by Argentinian playwright Emiliano Dionisi and directed by Alonso Íñiguez. This boldly inventiv...

imitating the dog are back with All Bloods Runs Red at Leeds Playhouse

24Jan

By NewsdeskNo Comments

NEWS

imitating the dog are back with All Bloods Runs Red at Leeds Playhouse

Tech wizards imitating the dog are back to tell the little known story of pioneering black fighter pilot Eugene Bullard who went onto work with iconic French dancer Josephine Baker and American jazz legend Duke Ellington. All Blood Runs Red premieres in the Courtyard Theatre at Leeds Playhouse on 14-15 February. Bullard’s extraordinary life story traces many of the 20th century’s most important moments and is named after the inscription on his World War One fighter plane. The production features imitating the dog’s brilliantly constructed stagecraft, digital wizardry and songs begins with what seems like a straightforward tale of survival, resistance and fighting for acceptance. Decades before, Bullard had made France his home, seeking acceptance after fleeing segregation in Ameri...

5Aug

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Edward II – Courtyard Theatre

The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer is a title too long by half but hardly shorter than this abridged adaptation of Marlowe’s malleable history. Cut down to a run time of a mere fifty minutes by the Small Beer Theatre company this fun size production powers through pages of plot at an astonishing pace. Beginning with the recall of controversial courtier and king’s favourite Piers Gaveston (Ciaran Barker) to Edward II’s (Alex Levy) well fashioned domestic abode and ending with a slew of homebrewed murders, the play’s middle section is populated with brief love scenes and extensive ireful monologues. Gaveston’s sway (and bend) over the delicate monarch draws the wrath of Queen Isabella (Zoe Mavri...