Author: laurakressly

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Wrath of Achilles, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

by Laura Kressly

The epic journeys, high tragedy, gods and monsters in Greek myths provide theatremakers with a wealth of source material for new works. In this new play with music, Jack Fairey scales down The Iliad to an intimate three characters and gives it a gay spin. As Achilles and his best friend Patroclus wait at their army’s camp with their Trojan prisoner Briseis, they consider the ethics of how women are treated in war, and Achilles and Patroclus realise they are more than just mates.

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80 Days: A Real-World Adventure, Underbelly Southbank

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By Meredith Jones Russell

Loosely based on Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel Around the World in 80 Days, Fire Hazard Games’ new immersive game 80 Days: A Real-World Adventure invites groups to race across central London solving clues, raising funds, making critical expedition purchases and deciding whether or not to trust the characters they meet along the way.

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The Time of Our Lies, Park Theatre

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by Laura Kressly

When Howard Zinn was a bombardier in WWII, his plane was too high up to see the damage caused by the bombs he dropped. As a young academic after the war, he visited some of these places, rebuilt but with civilian trauma still fresh in survivors’ minds. These experiences cemented a life-long opposition to war and social injustice, manifested in activism, writing and scholarship. He believed that learning about history was the best way to avoid repeating it, and that listening to the stories from anyone other than the victors is crucial to that learning process.

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Mating in Captivity, King’s Head

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by Laura Kressly

Annie and Rob fall through their door, drunk and giggling. It’s their wedding night and they’ve got plans, but it turns out they’re not alone. When Annie discovers a naked man in their bed who turns out to be Rob’s ex-boyfriend, a hilariously weird chain of events kicks off with unpredictable results.

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Crystal Clear, Old Red Lion

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by Laura Kressly

Richard is an art dealer living a Bohemian life in the early 1980s – his London bedsit is cluttered with quirky finds from Portobello Market, he fills his time with music, wine and women. When years of not taking care of himself eventually take their toll on his body, writer Phil Young wants us to feel sorry for Richard but his misogynistic and abusive behaviour in this 1982 play makes this difficult to achieve.

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Chambers_, a secret location

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By Michaela Clement-Hayes

There’s a growing trend for immersive experiences. In a world of AI and 3D printing, we don’t just want to see and hear our entertainment – we want to touch and taste it as well. Much like the thrills children crave at a fun fair, our expectation is that we will get a huge burst of adrenaline as we fully experience something unique.

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Ladylike, Arcola Theatre

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by Nastazja Somers

Casa Festival, London’s largest Latin American arts festival is an annual event that is not
to be missed. Some of the most groundbreaking and refreshing work I’ve seen in my 8 years in London was staged at Casa, including the incredible, heart-stopping 2017 production of Mendoza, a Mexican adaptation of Macbeth. British theatre reflects British society so to say a resistance to staging international work is quite present would be an understatement.

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10 Things I Hate About Taming of the Shrew, Greenwich Theatre

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by Meredith Jones Russell

“When men insist on telling women’s stories for them, not only do they miss the point of telling a story, but they tell it wrong too.”

Armed with a glitzy jacket, a notebook and a whole lot of anger, Gillian English uses William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and it’s 1999 teen adaption 10 Things I Hate About You to explore gender roles in traditional and modern art and how they shape us as a society.

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Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, Royal Court

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by Romy Foster

Kylie Jenner has just been announced as the world’s first ‘self-made billionaire’ and Cleo is VEX. Feeling this is undeserved, she has launched a tirade of tweets from her anonymous Twitter account @Incognegro about how to kill a social media entrepreneur or, as Cleo thinks of her, a ‘con artist-cum-provocateur’. She is now shut in her bedroom receiving persistent whatsapps from best friend Kara, who is worried about Cleo’s online rant.

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Lunatic 19’s, Finborough Theatre

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by Laura Kressly

As ICE parasitically invade peaceful American neighbourhoods and imprisons people in concentration camps, the country’s president spaffs racism from his twitter feed and white supremacists take to the streets. Life for immigrants in the US, documented or not, is terrifying right now and Tegan McLeod’s “deportational road trip”, certainly proves this. Though immigration control and the human face it takes on here is horrifying, McLeod’s script never quite settles on the narrative she wants to tell.

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