It’s St Patrick’s Day at an Irish pub in London. We’ve been there for awhile, but the night is young. There’s a five-strong band more focused on arguing the facts of Irish history than playing music. This becomes the story – drunken frontman Eamonn (Ian Horgan) attempts to tell us the story of the venerable saint. Numerous diversions, interaction, songs and plenty of banter follows a convoluted path through the power of storytelling, national identity and the veracity of history.
By guest critic Alistair Wilkinson
The fetishism of absorbing someone else’s life and making it your own is the theme explored in Swifties, particularly how to give your world meaning when everything seems so dismal. The play puts in to question why celebrities exist – is it for people like Nina and Yasmin, whose obsession with their idol Taylor Swift has totally taken control over their own identity?
Tristan is the stuff of Cornish legends. The Robin Hood-esque figure who lives along the Helford River gives much needed gifts to local people the moment they reach utter despair – or so people believe. The reality is rather different. Tristan does live on the Helford, on a boat with his teenaged daughter Kelsey. He can’t find a job so steals electronics from second homes and sells them on to make a living. He occasionally helps out locals when he’s feeling flush, but his virtue is up for debate. When Tristan meets Gale, a vegan activist who suddenly appears in Cornwall after years of drifting around Europe, his world is transformed, but not quite in the manner he expects.
Newly rebranded as The Other Palace and now part of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s empire, the former St Jame’s Theatre aims to focus on new British musical theatre. With Paul Taylor-Mills at the creative helm and two spaces in which to develop and showcase new work from the UK, their debut production is…(drumroll)…an American musical from 2000. An odd choice considering the Broadway production nearly two decades ago left critics unimpressed.
Camilla Whitehill’s grandmother died when her dad was 10 years old. He never talked much about her, but Camilla is fascinated by this woman she never met. Inspired by familial memory and grief, Whitehill and five other theatre makers draw on their own histories to create a playful homage to the endurance of family stories. It’s a joyful experience with a retro seaside aesthetic and a big heart, though lacking in polish and a consistent throughline.
by guest critic Jo Trainor
6 performers, 2 musicians, 1 speaker; Do Not Adjust Your Stage’s Wunderkammer is its own wonderful world of improv insanity.
Wunderkammer works by having a professional make a speech in front of the audience and performers, and from that the ensemble and musicians take ideas, stories and characters and make a series of comedic sketches. Think a funky extension of a TED talk.
by guest critic Jo Trainor
It’s pouring rain and three strangers are waiting. An endless wait that is made unbearable by the constant cellist in the corner of the room. Matei Visniec’s surreal comedy utilises the simplest scenario and creates a storm in a teacup.
by guest critic Martin Pettitt
We enter into a long damp and dingy chamber, in the distance there is a flashing screen with 3 sets of legs beneath, feet bedecked in shoes with multi-coloured lights, gyrating and popping to the pronounced beat of the music. The screen blinks with various versions of the words: We Are Ian. In terms of stage set, that was it apart from a bulb hanging from the ceiling and a vast amount of digestive biscuits.
by guest critic Martin Pettitt
After enduring the disorganisation of the first night of Vault Festival, entering the performance space is an instant antidote. Through hallways of cluttered objects and draped fabrics, we are guided by the music into a cavernous, atmospheric space arranged with a hotchpotch of tables and chairs and twinkling decorations. This physical preamble is wonderfully relevant to the down-the-rabbit-hole story we are treated to.
It’s uncomfortable to watch a play that conflicts with your politics or world view, and Liz Carr’s Assisted Suicide: The Musical does just that. The gay actor and comedian aligns with cuddly liberal ideology other than her avowed opposition to legalising assisted suicide in the UK. As a disabled woman, she worries that disabled people will consequently feel pressured to end their lives so they are no longer burdens on their loved ones, especially as many non-disabled people flippantly comment how hard their lives must be. After all, if you’re told the same thing over and over again, it’s too easy to start believing it.
The Play's The Thing UK 