by guest critic Joanna Trainor
“This is for people who burst at the seams.”
How do you cope with anxiety when you’re too young to know what it is? This initially appears to be what Good Girl is going to be about – how as children it is so instilled in us to please others, that the pressure completely warps our sense of self and creates huge problems within our relationships.
Whilst war rages in the Ukraine, a journalist goes to the front lines and falls in love. Girls sit on a park bench, waiting for their soldier boyfriends. A poor couple takes advantage of a minor accident. A man is stopped at a checkpoint.
It’s rare that I’m intimidated by a show. But as three bare bottoms on the edge of a trestle table ridicule the negative reviews the attached bodies have received, I can’t help but feel vulnerable with my pen in hand and notebook on my lap. Though comedians Zoe Coombs Marr, Ursula Martinez and Adrienne Truscott are the owners of the brazen bums, it’s us critics left with our pants down in this cleverly constructed, meta-meta-theatrical work.
by guest critic Gregory Forrest
A single piano backs this tongue-in- cheek trip into the lives of four ordinary New Yorkers living out ordinary days. In just 75 minutes we traverse heartbreaks, five-year plans, and the elaborate traffic network which swirls around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A distinctly American musical about Central Park, Broadway, and groceries from Gristedes, Ordinary Days doesn’t shake up the twenty-first century, but this is certainly a solid production.
by guest critic Maeve Campbell
The performance begins on entering the Saatchi Gallery, and we are asked to fill out questionnaires on preferences of social action. These are then used to tailor our experiences of the performance. We are led into a clinical waiting room, briefed and provided with balaclavas and protest signs. From there we are taken on a journey through Pussy Riot’s experience of the Russian judicial system and labour camps they were subjected to after they stormed Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow in 2012.
By guest critic Nastazja Somers
Theatre N16 has set up the First Credit initiative in order to help drama school graduates land their first gig in a paid, professional environment, something that proves nearly impossible for most people when they first enter this industry. This year’s First Credit particularly suits the mood of our society at present, as Last Man Standing depicts a story of a group of young people from Yorkshire during World War I.
By an anonymous guest critic
There are few sadder sights than two old blokes trying to describe their team scoring a goal. Yet in Red Ladder’s production of The Damned United, we are subjected to this sight a few times. And this isn’t even the worst of its crimes.
by guest critic Gregory Forrest
What a mess! David Hoyle’s exploration of rainbow Britain and his own career is a rather queer turn of events. It plays. It experiments. It breaks. Above all, it asks whether there may be something truly radical in messiness. And it never gives a straight answer.
by guest critic Nastazja Somers
France 1944. A young French girl Elodike runs to meet her lover, a German soldier Otto. Their love is innocent and pure, the exact opposite of the world around them. This is a place that has been torn by war, despair and hunger. Yet the young pair of lovers find time and space to make love, talk about their family and friends, and most importantly connect – despite their differences.
It can be tough to get kids to engage with Shakespeare. Many of them see the foreign-sounding language and old-fashioned stories as irrelevant to the issues they battle as growing up today. Fortunately, Intermission Youth Theatre artistic director Darren Raymond focuses on exploring contemporary themes in Shakespeare’s work with the 16-25s that make up the theatre company and convinces them to love the Bard.
The Play's The Thing UK 