by guest critic Nastazja Somers
It wasn’t by accident that I ended up seeing The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein’s new work The Notorious at The Barbican Centre. Give me feminism, plenty of liquids and general messiness on stage and I’m there, screaming my head off, like when Lucy McCormick performed her Triple Threat two years ago at Edinburgh Fringe.
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I have no interest in football, or any other sports for that matter. It’s not for lack of trying, what with growing up in a middle America that reveres sporting ability above all else. So I approach plays about football with caution, wary that my prejudices could sway my judgement. Fortunately, the tempestuous story of two ideologically opposed, minor league football men and the young player caught between them has little to do with the actual game and has a compelling, emotional narrative.
When Natasha Rickman and Unfolds Theatre were questioned about the motivation behind their cross-gendered Twelfth Night, they had a simple response – “because we want to”.
Zoe’s back at her commuter belt town’s refuge after her husband beat her up again. This time it’s because Palace lost. Last time, it was because she was nagging to much. She jokes about what will bring her here the next time with her new friend Dave, an anxious gay man who escaped through his bathroom window after his partner beat the shit out of him again. Dave’s not allowed in the refuge, but Zoe felt bad and snuck him in.
by guest critics Maeve Ryan & Mark Nilsson
The show opens with award-winning comedian Hannah Gadsby revealing that, actually, she plans to give up standup comedy. She confesses that she has spent her ten-year career doing the set up and punchline of jokes. Jokes, she says, are about tension: in the first part she creates the tension and in the second part she releases it, and then we laugh.
It’s no surprise to see shows with spooky or paranormal themes this time of year. For companies that produce Shakespeare, Macbeth is an easy and popular choice. But in the case of Devil You Know’s production, dated acting styles better off left dead and buried ruin one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces.
Progressive London audiences looking to embrace the macabre may be interested in Jekyll and Hyde by the National Youth Theatre at the Ambassador’s Theatre. Based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the production is directed by Roy Alexander Weise and written by Evan Placey.
The Play's The Thing UK 