Pleasance Theatre Archives - North West End UK

1Jun

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

30 and Out – Pleasance Theatre

Kit Sinclair's new work '30 and Out' chronicles the ins and outs of understanding one's gender and sexual expression, albeit not in one's teens. Based on Sinclair's honest journey, the solo show also intersperses audio recordings of interviews conducted with lesbians from diverse ages and lived realities. The show is funny, engaging and heartwarming. Kit Sinclair is such a talented artist; with her wit, charm, and an eclectic multiverse of characters, she brings to the front so many nuances of accepting oneself and allowing them to flourish as lesbian/non-binary. Following a successful sell-out Brighton Fringe run, '30 and Out' is spending this week in London at The Pleasance, ahead of concluding its mini tour at 53two in Manchester. Presented by Prentice Productions and assisted by he...

24Mar

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Slow Violence – The Pleasance Theatre

We are on the sixth floor of the office building of Happy Holidays. Claire is welcoming a new team member, Peter. Initially, things get off to a promising start, although there is a clear mismatch between the personalities; Claire, controlling but clearly needy, and Peter who is more restrained but wants to fit in and make a good impression. As the days turn into weeks and months the constraints of working in that office environment become dominant, it is far too hot, but the "people upstairs" will not allow the radiator to be turned down, the watercooler dispenses stagnant water, the electricity starts fusing, and there is flooding in the lower floors of the building water plus a leak from the ceiling. This is a brilliantly devised piece by Laura Ryder and Harry Kingscott...

24Mar

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Trade – Pleasance Theatre

Ella Dorman-Gajic's Trade comes to Pleasance theatre. A gripping tale with powerful performances by Katarina Novkovic, in the lead role of Jana, superbly supported by Eleanor Roberts and Ojan Genc. Trade follows the life of Jana, who gets hoodwinked into the European trafficking industry but rises to power to claim her autonomy. Trade was awarded an OffComm commendation by the OFFIE Awards. Trade gives us a taste of some of the manipulation, deception, and violence meted out on women to submit to being involved in the sex trade. It can reflect on the socio-economic politics of gender lack of sexual health awareness of the clientele survivors of trafficking, and modern slavery has to put up with. The artistically integrated captions make Trade accessible to d/Deaf audience...

17Feb

By Gonzalo SentanaNo Comments

London

Love Rash – Pleasance Theatre

First impressions can deceive. When the stage lights up, we see the least believable face possible, with a weird rictus in the face, and an even weirder voice filling the space, then the fear of having to endure a whole show like that becomes strong. Oh, my, how first impressions can deceive. Weirdness was just the tip of the iceberg (…or should I say fatberg?). From writer/performer Natasha Sutton Williams, this one-woman show of comedy at the Pleasance Theatre is an exhilarating and alienating incursion into human beings' desires and lust for connection. The first character (and the last) to appear is Gary Strange, a curious and thoughtful individual who screams offering for help from the sewers to the people who he records with his cassette recorder. He introduces us to the other ch...

<strong>The Mother Sh*t – Pleasance Theatre</strong>

15Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

**The Mother Sh*t – Pleasance Theatre**

The Mother Sh*t is a genre-bending delight. After their sell out run at Camden People’s Theatre with Frills and Spills, magicians of Stumble Trip Theatre who manage to craft beatboxing, physical theatre and personal stories of 50 participants verbatim in an hour! Part heart-warming, part heart-wrenching Mother sh*t has you in splits while weeping uncontrollably. I have never heard the audience break out in so many giggles throughout a show. Grace Church and Chloe Young are like a rubber band, connected at the hip; you can’t distinguish where one begins and the other ends. Their vibrancy is infectious. Their sense of play and curiosity is grounded by the diversity of stories they have collected. The background score is improvised by Conrad Murray, Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens and Dunja Botij who...

The Concrete Jungle Book – The Pleasance Theatre

2Jun

By Khushboo ShahNo Comments

London

The Concrete Jungle Book – The Pleasance Theatre

Twisting the colourful Disney version of The Jungle Book, reproducing the grimness of Rudyard Kipling’s classic, interpolating it with live rap music, grime, reggae and spoken word, the Highrise present a dynamic and reverberating Hip-hop musical The Concrete Jungle Book at the Pleasance. Written and directed by Dominic Garfield, the play explores homelessness, abandonment, and survival in a concrete jungle where “there’s no fair when there’s hunger in the air…” Set on the streets of London, the opening scene invites the audience into a run-down, dark, sketchy neighbourhood with a pulsating score often drowning the words of the actors. Nonetheless, their performance energy and commitment to the ensemble successfully transports the audience into a surreal world created brilliantly by ju...

17Mar

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Tempest – Pleasance Theatre

The production of the Tempest by Wildcard Theatre, currently running at the Pleasance Theatre is rather like the two-headed beast that Caliban and Trinculo create in act 2 scene 2 of Shakespeare's play, having two heads. One head is a serious attempt to present Shakespeare's famous play, the other the desire for a light-hearted music inspired evening. Instead of working together towards a common purpose the tension between them detracted from what could have been an extremely fine and inventive production. Pleasance Theatre’s main auditorium was a set out with tables rather than banks of auditorium seats, and the production took place on revolving stage, bare except for a metal construction of steps and stairs which was used inventively by the director, James Meteyard, for ...

28Nov

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Flinch – Pleasance Theatre

Emma Hemingford’s two-hander ‘Flinch’ returns for a new UK tour after its 2019 premiere at the Old Red Lion Theatre in London. Tracing the gradual breakdown of a young couple's relationship, Flinch offers a complex perspective on modern dating. Directed by Gemma Aked-Priestley and produced by Liam McLaughlin Productions, the show emphasizes the unrelenting negotiation between words and action in defining personal boundaries and shared intimacy. We meet Jess (Emma Hemingford), a 25-year old working actor who has just finished drama school and is on the lookout for her first break into the industry. She's expressive, extroverted and a little self-conscious. For the last three years, she has been dating Mark (Benjamin Aluwihare), a 25-year old working professional who works as a foreign e...

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 throug...

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 wi...