Shakespeare often seems to come in cycles, with several productions of the same play on at once in different venues. At the moment, it’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream though it’s a common summer favourite anyway. With so much competition, individual productions need to distinguish themselves from the rest as well as have a distinctive concept, even if that concept is to stick to tradition. New company Wildcard takes a modern approach to the play and adds quite a bit of music, but a range of performance abilities, homogenous delivery and few unique elements make this production feel like a student or recent graduate production. There is a lack of confidence in the direction and the concept is not new or exciting, apart from the use of music. Though it has some good performances, this production isn’t awful, but is largely forgettable.

Amongst the thirteen actors, a few distinguish themselves from the rest of the company. Natasha Killam is a fantastic Hermia, in love, expressive and fully committed to the role. The hipster has an emo best friend in Helena, who plays the character with a dull indifference. Whilst this makes sense to the character stereotype, it’s boring to watch – though this is likely to be a directorial choice. Peter Dewhurst as a townie Demetrius is also very good, eventually matched by Joshua Leese’s hippie Lysander after Puck drugs him in the forest. As representatives from four distinct social tribes, the likelihood of them being in love in real life, let alone friends, is rather implausible, though. A sulking Helena dressed all in black in love with a polo shirted, jumper round the shoulders, Demetrius? Really? This is another of director James Meteyard’s inexperienced and unjustified decisions. 

The most inspired casting is Theseus and Oberon as a woman (both played by Abi McLoughlin), a nice touch but still shows the power imbalance between them and Titania and Hippolyta (Rhiannon Sommers). There are a few female mechanicals (Elly Lowney as Starveling, Christie Peto as Snug and Harriet Ruffer as Quince), which is also great to see. With seven of the thirteen actors women, it goes some way in adding diversity in the entirely white cast of whom nearly all have identical, Home Counties accents and all look to be about the same age. The character types represented are also generally associated with white, middle class people, further showing a blatant lack of diversity in race or social class. Whilst this isn’t an issue in and of itself, it is most definitely a sign of the lack of diversity in theatre.

Some of the lighting design is pretty to look at, though some of the changes are so dramatic that attention is drawn to the lights rather than the performance. There are some pretty strings of fairy lights, but these add to the studenty feel of the piece. There are a couple of retro easy chairs that initially look out of place, but are used well to comedic effect later in the play.

Meteyard tries to further update by adding off-text dialogue and heaps of verbal pauses, Most of which cause the energy and pace to drop. There’s also a lot of slow, even delivery, particularly in the first half, across most of the characters. Fortunately, it picks up up in the lovers’ best scene, which is played well and gets plenty of laughs. He seems to have little experience directing Shakespeare, though he excels with the music. Puck sings most of his monologues, which is really lovely (though why is he in leather trousers, topless and covered in glitter?) and the mechanicals accompany both onstage and off, creating a rich soundscape.

With the music the strongest element of the production, particularly at the end with a delightfully surprising jig, it’s not all pedestrian. But this young company is still very much finding their feet with classical work.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs through 23 July.

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We don’t often see Antipodean theatre on the London fringe, but when we do, it’s certainly a bit different from British progressive performance. CUT, a cinematic, fragmented solo performance with elements of interactive theatre and immersive installation, effectively evokes a constant sense of unease but the range of styles and influences create a convoluted message. Technology is used effectively to maintain audience tension, with light and sound breaking up the narrative creating an extreme environment. But despite CUT‘s slickness and a fractured story that holds viewers’ focus, there is no clear reason why the story of an anonymous female flight attendant pursued by a male stranger is told. There is no predominant theme or message, just a story that, though it is told well, isn’t particularly dynamic or interesting.

Hannah Norris, an Australian actor based in London, is the only performer but the audience is a vital contributor to the piece so it’s easy to forget this is a solo performance. We are boarded onto a plane and accompany her throughout her shift and her subsequent journey home, with regular interruptions of nightmarish flashbacks, surreal characters, blackouts and loud noises. Norris’ character constantly narrates the journey, but it is never made clear what this episode from her life is meant to say. They man following her perhaps comments on male objectification of women, but it’s not particularly clear if this is an actual message of the piece – if that is the piece’s intention, it lacks conviction. The focus could just as easily be the possibilities of contemporary narrative structure influenced by pop culture and technology. The programme notes by writer/director Duncan Graham fail to elucidate despite an explanation of influences.

Regardless of the lack of clarity behind the piece, Norris is an excellent performer. She morphs and changes within the blackouts, always surprising and maintaining attention. Her timing and characterisation are impeccable within the often third-person text. Sam Hopkins and Russell Goldsmith’s design almost becomes characters within their prominence, but they do not overwhelm. The nerve wracking harmony between Norris, sound and light is exquisite.

With production elements that are much more impressive than the piece as a whole, CUT still has plenty of positives, but the story behind the suspense it creates is unsatisfying and anticlimactic. The narration and tech creates emotional distance, but perhaps the favouring of style over substance is too blunt for a British audience.

CUT runs through 31 July.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Char and Luce are free spirits who live their lives totally in the moment, but not in a happy, hippie sort of way. These inseparable 30-somethings work in a factory in Little England and spend their spare time clubbing, drinking and fucking. They have no life plans, just the immediate goals of getting pissed and getting off with blokes in toilets. Their line manager Paulo and Luce’s transgender mum Doris try their best to save them, but the self-absorbed duo don’t want to know. Kathryn O’Reilly’s debut play Screwed admirably endows women with stereotypically laddish behaviours, but there’s an uncomfortably judgemental tone taken on the lack of goodness within these women. The wonderfully biting dialogue and excellent performances from the cast of four easily seduce the audience, but the script’s message evokes troubling questions.

The two women are verbally abusive, physically violent and without a care for anyone else. Instant gratification is all that matters and they stop at nothing to get it. Their behaviour predictably catches up with them, but there’s little reform after disaster strikes. In contrast, the men in the story are as virtuous as the women are abhorrent. Why? What is this juxtaposition meant to say? Is it to prove that women can be just as bad a men? That male sensitivity is real and should be respected? That women should behave like this in order to feel empowered? Their working class background is obvious, though so is Paulo’s – but his ambition contrasts their lack of it. Is this a comment on social class as well as gender? There is clear reference to the  cycle of poverty, but it’s certainly not viewed with sympathy. All of these themes are raised, but none are particularly positive by the limited emotional range endowed on the duo. The harsh spotlight may be brutal and honest representation of working class, small town Britain but its sweeping generalisations about women and social class are unclear at best, and worrying at the worst.

Samantha Robinson and Eloise Joseph are Char and Luce. Their attack on the roles is positively electric, as is their chemistry and threat to anyone that crosses their path. Stephen Myott-Meadows  as Paulo is a quiet romantic with a biblical capacity for forgiveness. He’s the Nice Guy that always gets friendzoned, taken advantage of, and keeps coming back for more in the hope that things have changed. They never do, and his hurt is inevitable. In this case, it’s horrific. Derek Elroy is Luce’s saintly mother, unappreciated by her daughter, who still lives with her despite being in her third decade, on a daily basis. Elroy’s calm is a fantastic foil to Luce’s viciousness. 

Catherine Morgan’s simple set is a remarkable continuous line that forms the landscape Char and Luce barrel through on a day-to-day basis. As soothing to look at as Elroy’s voice is to hear, it’s metallic smoothness is a reminder of the connection between all things in the world. The girls’ behaviour might seem trivial on a small scale, but it deeply effects those closest to them.

Screwed is a difficult play to pin down. On the surface, it’s fantastic. But upon pondering what O’Reilly wants to communicate, it becomes more troubling, a judgment of male and female behaviour within working class suburbia. There is clear moralising, but the moral of this story is not a comfortable one to take in.

Screwed runs through 23 July.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.