Riverside Studios Archives - North West End UK

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Riverside Studios

26Nov

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Riverside Studios

Douglas Adams' wildly inventive intergalactic adventure has landed in West London, allowing audiences to escape Earth by hitching a ride on the Heart of Gold spaceship with its infinite improbability drive. Accompanied by all the Hitchhikers' characters, the crew try not to panic as they seek the answer to the eternal question of life, the universe and everything. This beloved sci-fi classic has been given an immersive theatre adaptation by co-creators Arvind Ethan David and Jason Ardizzone-West with a cast of energetic and multi-talented performers. Benjamin Durham's Arthur Dent has the perfect expression of a man who doesn't know what's going on while he searches for his lost love and simultaneously tries to stop his home being bulldozed. Tamara Saffir as Fenchurch is also spot-on castin...

14Nov

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Old Fat F**k Up – Riverside Studios

“What are we going to do about all the men?” It’s a broad question that lacks any tangible answer, and “millennial, middle-aged theatremaker” Olly Hawes isn’t concerned with providing an answer. Instead, his new solo play Old Fat F**k Up occupies space within and around the question, tackling the meaty subjects of masculinity, fatherhood, and inherent violence. As Hawes clarifies at the top of the show, staged in an intimately small traverse that brings us right into the world he’s creating, this is not a stand-up comedy show. Nor is it an autobiographical tale – but he’d happily sell it to Netflix in exchange for a glossy 6-part limited series. Old Fat F**k Up is rather a blend of storytelling and comedy that runs for a well-oiled 70 minutes, and acts as an incredibly sturdy vehicle...

2Nov

By Savitha VenugopalNo Comments

London

Surinderella – Riverside Studios

Your regular pantomimes already come packed with beloved characters, popular music, and hilarity. Now give it a desi twist, and you have more colours, hip shaking, and drama than Bollywood itself can dish out. Written by Pravesh Kumar and directed by Ameet Chana, this is a bold new panto with lashings of South Asian flavour. As the name suggests, Surinderella is a retelling of Cinderella and when it comes to adding that desi-ness, the makers do not hold back. Surinder (Sonya Venugopal) lives on the edge of the Bolly Woods with her stepsisters Lovely and Bubbly, and her emotional support livestock and best friend, Basanti the cow. In the stepsisters we have our pantomime dames, played with sass and style by Neil Varu and Raheem Payne, whose crowd work and shenanigans were consistently...

13Oct

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Da Vinci’s Laundry – Riverside Studios

What gives a piece of art its value? Is it purely aesthetic? Is it arbitrary, decided in reverse once a piece’s price is set? Why did Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog sell for nearly $60 million? These are the questions grappled with by auctioneers Christopher and Milly in Da Vinci’s Laundry when they are forced to go through with a $450 million sale of a recently uncovered Da Vinci that they know is a fake. Keelan Kember's’ choice of high-end art as a subject is full of potential. He paints a picture of a world run by the dirty rich, where art experts’ opinions are reduced to box-ticking exercises that can in any case be overruled by those with enough power. Christopher, the timid auction house representative, is threatened with a 100-foot plummet from a gangster's balcony if he refuses to sell...

6Oct

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Blessings – Riverside Studios

The Deacons are a respectable middle-class Catholic family living in an English town, doing their best to raise a family and earn a living. But this is 1969. There is a social transformation going on in England. The permissive society is well on its way, women's voices are becoming increasingly strident, skirts are getting shorter, and pop music is embracing the youth movement. In the wider world: the Americans are getting close to putting a man on the moon and closer to home, the troubles in Northern Ireland are a continual concern. Sarah Shelton's new play, which premieres at the Riverside Studios, shows how the various members of the Deacon family struggle to come to terms with these new external realities and the pressure it places on family harmony. Beneath it all, there are som...

18Sep

By Savitha VenugopalNo Comments

London

Brown Girl Noise – Riverside Studios

Brightly coloured curtains hang behind painted step-stools, Hindi film songs play from the speakers. An apt stage setting for a play about South Asian stereotypes. Four brown girls gather for an audition. In an industry where the character choices for a South Asian actor are between “funny best friend”, “wedding guest” or “Bollywood dancer”, this here is a meaty role – to play Priti Patel. With the auditions delayed, the four find themselves with a lot of time to kill. In the forced proximity of that confined space they go from being rivals to building a sisterhood, brought together by the realities of growing up brown. Written by Kaya Uppal (who also plays one of the young women) and directed by Zarshaa Ismail, the play is a tapestry of experiences. In the waiting room, the women...

16Sep

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Shotgunned – Riverside Studios

Written and directed by Matt Anderson, Shotgunned gained some very good reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe and has now transferred to the Riverside Studios. It is an engaging 60 minutes of theatre. Cleverly written and excellently performed, it tells the story of a young couple, Roz and Dylan, charting their relationship from their first meeting at a party, through its highs and lows. The distinguishing feature of this production is that the story in not told linearly but in a series of short, some very short, vignettes in a seemingly almost random order. The fascination for the audience is piecing together from these fragments how the relationship has developed. This format presents particular challenges for the actors, who have to switch mood almost instantly during the s...

22Aug

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

A Manchester Anthem – Riverside Studios

A Manchester Anthem opens with Tommy (Tom Claxton) having it large to the 1990 dance classic ‘Anthem’ by N-Joi. He’s in underpants, dancing with the unhinged enthusiasm of a person who has no idea that anybody might be watching. It’s unsexy slapstick, totally relatable and introduces us to a character who’s about to take the audience on a one-man, one-hour trip into a messy night out in Manchester. When N-Joi released Anthem, I was at university in Liverpool and that summer, lived in a crazy rave squat in Hulme, Manchester. If you Google ‘Anthem by N-Joi Quadrant Park’ there’s a one-minute clip of the tune being dropped at the legendary Merseyside club. I was a regular at ‘The Quaddie’ and a loved-up devotee to the Hacienda too, but this show isn’t a misty-eyed flashback to ‘90s Madches...

17Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Collapse – Riverside Studios

Allison Moore’s ‘Collapse’ takes a familiar domestic setup and detonates it in spectacularly funny fashion. Hannah’s carefully maintained and tightly controlled life, already visibly fraying under the strain of infertility, financial uncertainty, threat of unemployment, and a husband adrift, tips into complete chaos when her rebellious (and hilariously funny) sister arrives with a mysterious package she has agreed to deliver to a guy called “Bulldog”. What follows is a darkly comic unravelling where love, fear, and survival collide. Emma Haines delivers a commanding central turn as Hannah, balancing brittle control with flashes of honest vulnerability. She moves seamlessly between sharp, fast-paced exchanges with her co-performers, and quieter solitary moments that land with unexpected ...

Three Billion Letters – Riverside Studios

13Aug

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Three Billion Letters – Riverside Studios

Mimmi Bauer, Patrycja Dynowska and Michal Szpak's Three Billion Letters focuses on the impact of DNA, how everyone everywhere is inter-related since the Neanderthals and how we are still evolving. These are interesting themes which could provide the basis for a fascinating exploration of heritage and cultural identity and a reminder that we leave our DNA traces everywhere. Unfortunately, this production comes over as part TED-talk on DNA science and part experimental drama workshop. Attempts to involve the audience fall flat. Sections of the audience are moved around the auditorium, with one group deemed to be "superior" because they can taste something the "inferior" group cannot. Later, for no discernible reason, the audience is split into those who have grey hair and thos...