Martha Watson Allpress Archives

23May

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Lady Dealer – Bush Theatre

Business is booming. Bass is thumping. Charly’s heart is beating a little too fast, the world is spinning a little too quickly, and someone might be getting sick on the carpet any second now. In this production of Lady Dealer by Martha Watson Allpress, the explosive Alexa Davies plays Charly, the “Lady Dealer” breaking the greenhouse ceiling on feminist drug dealing. A whip smart and poetically eloquent but socially stunted and economically frustrated young woman cusping millennial and gen z identities, Charly is a dynamo in bed rot. Jasmine Araujo’s costume design is convincingly sloppy and effectively evocative of an era of isolation all too familiar to us all. The “Lady Dealer” is not a covid avoidant recluse, but her lifestyle will be comprehensible to anyone who at one point...

Patricia Gets Ready – Brixton House

“When the person you love hits you, it hurts.” Patricia Gets Ready is an honest, engaging, and compelling story, dealing with the struggles of meeting not only an ex-boyfriend, but an abusive ex-boyfriend who Patricia was forced to leave. After bumping into him on the street after almost a year, Patricia is too stunned to speak and unable to articulate her feelings. She struggled to voice her well-prepared speech that she had been sitting on since the relationship ended, instead agreeing to meet him for dinner that evening. We follow Patricia through her journey of getting ready for this rendezvous, as she reminisces, questions her actions, and reflects on her mental turmoil. The star of this one-woman show is Yasmin Dawes. Portraying Patricia as charismatic, funny, and most importan...

I Know, I Know, I Know – Southwark Playhouse

I Know, I Know, I Know, at the Southwark Playhouse was originally in place for The Vaults festival however with this year’s cancellation has moved. Starring Ethan Moorhouse, Hannah Khalique-Brown and Martha Watson Allpress, we are split between two locations: one where friends drive to a wedding discussing the success of the band they created and the other we watch a young woman writing the article, expressing her experience with this band member from the age of 16. The two scenes run side by side, weaving through each other as we grasp on what is truth and who could be lying. The tragedy of this piece is its relevance and the violence against the victims who come forward. It can take some attention to keep up with the pace of this piece, the rhythm is very tight and so harmonious with ...