Southwark Playhouse Archives - Page 3 of 4

11Oct

By Akshay RahejaNo Comments

London

Ruckus – Southwark Playhouse

Written and performed by Jenna Fincken, Ruckus is a single-act, one-woman performance that narrates the aging of a toxic relationship. The play brings to life the experience of being with a coercive partner and interrogates the subjectivity of consent in a relationship. There are many parallels between ‘Ruckus’ and the iconic ‘A Doll’s House’ by Henrik Ibsen. Just as Torvald creates a Doll house for Nora Helmer, in Ruckus the protagonist moves in with her partner in a beachouse that she had always dreamt of. Just as A doll’s House contemplates the fracture of this house by Nora’s departure, Ruckus explores the fracture in the architecture of a house built on shallow foundations. The protagonist continues to pity and continues to live through the thicks of her relationship. Bu...

14Sep

By Zoё MeeresNo Comments

London

Doctor Faustus – Southwark Playhouse

The plot of Doctorr Faustus is well trodden in the arts – character thinks s/he is getting everything they’ve ever wanted, turns out the small print doesn’t exactly chime with that. Spoiler alert - your heart’s desire may not be all it’s cracked up to be and/or comes with some undesirable side effects. But Faustus really should have known better – he knows he is quite literally making a deal with the devil and even back in the Elizabethan era should probably have known that might come back to bite him. The stage set up at the Southwark Playhouse (never been, would definitely return – front of house staff charming, drinks reasonably priced, delightfully air-conditioned space) is a little confusing. The setting is very 80s with a dial-up telephone and recording apparatus, yet the backdro...

6Jul

By Klervi GavetNo Comments

London

The Lesson – Southwark Playhouse

A zealous pupil comes over a professor’s house to study for her total doctorate, an educational certificate in all subjects of life. The excessively polite and timid professor grows restless and domineering as his ignorant student struggles to level up with his academic demands. The pupil develops a painful toothache which renders her incapable of listening to the professor’s teachings. Their mutual pains turn lethal when in an orgasmic climax, the professor murders the young girl. The maid comes in and reprimands the professor - this is his 40th kill of the day… Fortunately she knows how to get him out of trouble and cleans it all up before another student comes to the front door, starting the play all over again. The Lesson is a seminal text in the Theatre of the Absurd, a short-live...

28Jun

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Evelyn – Southwark Playhouse

In a small Northern beach town, an accomplice to the murder of her own child has moved under police protection after serving 3 years in prison. Escaping her abusive relationship, her grief and horrific past she begins to start life anew with a new relationship and friends. Only until the power of social media, the mob isn’t far behind on a hunt to find out where Evelyn Mills escaped to with an obsessive mission to make sure she knows she doesn’t belong. Focusing on the concept of internet mobs taking justice into their own hands and questioning when forgiveness is actually accepted by the community allowing the rehabilitation of criminals into our society. Evelyn played by Nicola Harrison was a dark, quiet presence on stage who controlled how much she was seen as a person desperately t...

Five Characters in Search of a Good Night’s Sleep – Southwark Playhouse

30Apr

By Riana HowarthNo Comments

London

Five Characters in Search of a Good Night’s Sleep – Southwark Playhouse

Five characters reveal their subconscious minds as they grapple with their day-time angst and woes. They sit in chairs, each in their individual homes but sharing a temporal space in a dream-like lilac and blue clouded set designed by Agnes Treplin. Devised by Mike Alfreds, Sonja Linden and ViSiBLE, it has the feel of verbatim as the stories are inspired by the actors’ own lives. All of the cast fully inhabit their characters so that from their first few lines, you immediately get a strong sense of their personalities. The triviality of their problems and their unextravagant, ordinary lives are endearing and poetic in their realism. This and the truthfulness with which these stories are told make it easy to become invested in and hang on their words. Sally Knyvette’s Helen...

I Know, I Know, I Know – Southwark Playhouse

10Apr

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

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...

Anyone Can Whistle – Southwark Playhouse

6Apr

By Samantha CollettNo Comments

London

Anyone Can Whistle – Southwark Playhouse

What is a miracle? What is madness? What is normal? These are just some of the questions you’ll be thinking as you tap your foot to Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ 1964 musical. But this is a musical like no others – this is as surreal as it is subversive, an off-the wall political satire that’s hugely unconventional, but all the more clever for its presentation as a song and dance show with huge layers of meaning. ‘Anyone Can Whistle’ is the story of a corrupt Mayoress, Cora Hoover Hooper (Alex Young), who along with her crack team of adulating men (a greedy but brilliant businessman, the town treasurer and the chief of police) devise a plan to make their bankrupt town money. The plan is simple: fake a miracle, this will then result in people paying pilgrimage to see the said mi...

2Mar

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

The Woods – Southwark Playhouse

David Mamet’s ‘The Woods’ has always been a topic of conversation in its fantastical and mythical approach to the question of heterosexual relationships, and with Southwark Playhouse’s revival it’s likely to continue to be. However, since being written in 1977, I’m not sure of the play’s relevance to today/ what we are questioning since the rapid change of thought regarding our classic male and female stereotypes. Mamet’s original question was to ask why male and female’s fail to get along and where our differences to natural desire to ‘nesting’ lies- in that classically males may dream of it but fear once it becomes reality and female’s may feel most at ease when their nest has settled. When watching, it’s very frustrating to see that not once is this couple on the same page and can f...

Operation Mincemeat – Southwark Playhouse

19Jan

By Robert BartleyNo Comments

London

Operation Mincemeat – Southwark Playhouse

One of the craziest true stories in Britain’s history, ‘Operation Mincemeat’ was a wartime deception that somehow successfully fooled Hitler into changing his invasion plans in 1943, and all thanks to the well-dressed corpse of a homeless man who’d died by ingesting rat poison and was shipped off to Spain with a briefcase full of fabricated documents. Production company SpitLip got their hands on this fascinating historical nugget, thought “that would make a great musical”, threw in some ‘Monty Python’-style shenanigans alongside the catchy tunes, and the result is a brilliantly entertaining show that is playing right now at the Southwark Playhouse, after enjoying successful runs in 2020 and 2021 following its 2019 debut at the New Diorama Theatre. ‘Operation Mincemeat’ is the...

17Oct

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Yellowfin – Southwark Playhouse

Yellowfin: Marek Horn’s second play and hilarious dive into the mindset of a life in a possible near future? Set in one room, we watch Calantini (Joshua James) interrogated by three senators: Marianne (Nancy Crane), Stephen (Beruce Khan) and the very sweet Roy (Nicholas Day) who reminds us all of our favourite family elder who cannot help but share their favourite memories of a time before. This play tackles a theme of which we are all apart of but also touches on something only a few may admit too: responsibility of the outcome. Calantini is questioned harshly about the death of his brother in relation to the disappearance of fish. He floats through their attacks skilfully with humour and pace, something this cast excelled at. Although this runs straight through with no interval, the ...