comedy

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s Globe

by Laura Kressly

Viewed through a contemporary lens, this can be considered one of Shakespeare’s more problematic plays. A woman prisoner forced to marry her conqueror’s leader, a man trying to force his daughter into an arranged marriage, and fairies forcing teenagers and each other to fall in love, are key aspects of the story that can’t be cut and all are framed by comedy. But at Michelle Terry’s gaff, director Sean Holmes deals with the first admirably and embraces the chaos of the latter two in this psychedelic, fever-dream of an interpretation that is colourful, pacey and full of contemporary jokes.

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Drag Becomes Her, Soho Theatre

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by Maeve Campbell

Drag auteur Peaches Christ has made their name as an adaptor of cult movies, directing the great and good of Ru-Paul’s Drag Race in leading roles. Drag Becomes Her stars charming long-term collaborator Jinx Monsoon and the ‘terminally delightful’ Ben DeLaCreme in the Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn film roles. What results is a raucous hour and half-long mess of a show, that’s both stressful and exciting to watch.

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Club Tropicana, New Wimbledon Theatre

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by Amy Toledano

An eighties jukebox musical set on the sunny coast of Spain sounds like a fun night out. However, Club Tropicana highlights the ignorance of British people on all-inclusive holidays, trivialises and stereotypes entire communities of people (in this instance the LGBTQ+ and Spanish communities), and scrapes the bottom of the barrel for a story that has clearly been written in order to serve the eighties tracks, with one-liners that are the lowest common denominator of gags.

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After Edward, Shakespeare’s Globe

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by Laura Kressly

A man who may or may not be King Edward II finds himself on a stage, with an audience watching and waiting to see what happens next. He has no idea where he is or how he got there, but he’s in good company. Gertrude Stein, Quentin Crisp and Harvey Milk are locked in with him, and they’re none the wiser as well. They all want to get out, but something sinister wants to get in and they can’t to escape until they determine why they’re there in the first place.

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One Million Tiny Plays About Reading, Progress Theatre

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by Louis Train

In One Million Tiny Plays About Reading, a pride parade passes through the town, two kids commiserate over their hard luck at school, a tour group visits the town centre, and an MP takes photos at a food bank. This charming kaleidoscope takes the model invented by Craig Taylor in his landmark play One Million Tiny Plays About Britain to present a few dozens vignettes about daily life in Reading.

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The Show in Which Hopefully Nothing Happens, Unicorn Theatre

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By Laura Kressly

For a show in which hopefully nothing happens, there are plenty of weird and wonderful things that unfold, of course. Because a children’s show – or one for adults for that matter – would be incredibly dull indeed if nothing happened, but that’s absolutely not a worry here. 

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How Eva Von Schnippisch Won WWII, Vault Festival

How Eva Von Schnippisch Won WWII

by an anonymous guest critic

The Vaults is the ideal venue for what is essentially a one-woman, Weimar era Cabaret show.

Stephanie Ware plays Eva Von Schnippisch, a hard-drinking, fun-loving cabaret performer in wartime Berlin. We learn about Eva’s rise to become one of Berlin’s top night club performers, which leads to the British secret service recruiting her to do undercover work gathering intelligence in the fight against Germany.

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Lamplighters, Vault Festival

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by Meredith Jones Russell

Billed as part theatre, part game, part improv comedy, Lamplighters is certainly attempting to cast its net as wide as possible when it comes to appeal. Based on host and star Neil Connolly’s attempt to relive his favourite childhood game, it asks willing audience members to join in a madcap game of John le Carré-style spies.

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