Posts in Theatre Reviews
Review: Frankenstein

Frankenstein sets itself firmly in the 80s before the show begins with a thumping and iconic 80s soundtrack. As you enter the “squat” space and are greeted by a group with a very strong ‘Legs Akimbo‘ vibe telling ghost stories. As Mary speaks, she tells of a dream she had – a dream the group shared of a family suffering a tragedy.

As they tell it the story takes over and we are led through their interpretation of Frankenstein.

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Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream

A sparse set made up of a split level stage and a large paper suspended lamp are what greets us as we take our seats for this performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This sparse staging plays well with the venue itself, as the light dims, the shadows cast on the rough walls become more dreamlike. The lamp turns from sun to moon and back as the play goes on, and this clever use of light guides us through the progress of what can be a confusing production of a confusing play.

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Review: Matilda

The set is stunning. You’re greeted as you take your seat with a cavalcade of letters all making up words you’ll spend possibly too much of your night working out. On occasion, it will obscure your view, but as there’s so much to look at, that matters little. t sets a high expectation of the kind of entertainment we can expect, and that Matilda delivers in spades.

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Review: Strictly Ballroom

Strictly Ballroom the musical was everything I hoped it would be and worried it wouldn’t deliver. Bringing this classic that I’ve loved for 26 years to the West End stage is an audacious move, but it works. That’s the key. It would work for someone who’s never seen the film, and it works for those of us whose videos wore out at that moment Scott moved his hips just so….

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Review: Significant Other Festival

This piece has so much promise it is worth seeing in its raw form to understand the journey the hopeful end product will go through.

It is the end product of an interesting experiment, weaving ten 10-minute plays into one –  more or less –  coherent whole. It does this by showing us different aspects of factory life one day in 1988 leading up to the retirement party of factory stalwart Jack.

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Review: Love Me Now

HE NEVER LOVED ME. NOT EVEN FOR A MOMENT.

It’s weird when you see what you think was your own private pain, your own personal grief, felt so long ago, written on stage as an experience universal enough to have every woman in the room nodding and gasping. Meanwhile, the men – the fucking men – laugh inappropriately in all the wrong places. They’re laughing at her. Her desperation, her neediness. By extension, they’re laughing at me.

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Review: Somnai

How do you simulate someone else’s dreams? That’s the struggle at the heart of Somnai – an experience that blends virtual reality and immersive theatre to try to give participants a sense of lucid dreaming. The problem was that at no point did I have unexpected sex with a minor celebrity my waking mind had previously shown no interest in (which happens in a surprising number of my actual dreams).

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Review: The Here and Now and This

I often struggle with dramatic depictions of salespeople. This is because I was one once. I know the tricks of the trade, had the gift of the gab, knew the art of the deal. And as a result, I know that a lot of what is written when we depict salespeople in dramas they are not realistic. It’s an artistic rendering of the grubbiness of commerce and the self-aggrandisement of the kind of people who would genuinely describe themselves as having the ‘gift of the gab’, often imbued with the kind of snobbery that values the art and the artist above all else.

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