by guest critic Ava Davies
Nicole is tired of not seeing herself onstage. Nicole is tired of people telling her that racism and sexism don’t exist. Nicole is angry and she is ready to do something about that.
POC
Wild Life FM, Unicorn Theatre
by guest critic Kudzanayi Chiwawa
Kim Noble, Pol Heyvaert, Jakob Ampe and the nine, young singer/songwriters they worked with describe this piece as part gig and part play, and it’s exactly that. The show unfolds as if in a radio station’s live broadcast, with a clearly confident cast carrying you through the unusual format, allowing the audience to simply enjoy it.
Hamilton, Victoria Palace Theatre
Let’s get this out of the way first – does Hamilton live up to the hype? Yes. It’s very good. Though the revolution in the plot doesn’t influence the dramaturgy, that doesn’t mean it’s not a fantastic show that musically updates the genre and skillfully triggers a spectrum of emotions. It’s simultaneously epic and intimate, staged surprisingly simply with striking, sculptural choreography and utterly engaging throughout.
But this pro-immigration, hip-hop reinvention of the all-American musical about a country gaining independence from a distant, tyrannical overlord resonates rather differently in Brexit Britain than it does in America. Forget the NHS bus – could Hamilton be the new symbol of the Leave campaign?
Bad Roads, Royal Court
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.
Double Trouble, Intermission Youth Theatre
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.
Because We Want To, Rose Playhouse
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”.
Joy, Theatre Royal Stratford East
An increase in conversations on diversity indicates that people are starting to come round to the importance of more than a token few woman and people of colour on our stages. White male dominance in theatre is increasingly being called out, with some small and mid-sized venues and companies leading the way on diversifying their work. But physical disability draws less attention in the diversity debate, and learning disability even less so.
Beowulf, Unicorn Theatre
.jpg)
Two walls of Marshall amps sit either side of gleaming trusses. A DJ booth manned by a black-clad figure sports a banner for a place called Heorot. Smoke seeps through vents in the floor and a woman in goth metal dress prowls the stage.
Feature | An open letter to Music Theatre Wales
by Paulina Brahm
A letter to Music Theatre Wales:
I’d also like to engage The British Council and additionally Birmingham Repertory and
Hackney Empire in my letter, as both Birmingham Repertory and Hackney Empire are Arts Council-funded.
I’m Paulina Brahm; an Asian-American actress, singer, and voiceover artist. I trained in
voice and acting in New York City; acting under much-missed Broadway director Gene
Frankel and voice under leading spinto soprano Dolores Mari of the New York City Opera. I am a full lyric soprano with coloratura flexibility and I now live, work and sing in the UK.
Laika, Unicorn Theatre
Sami and his mum are preparing for her to go to Mars for years and years and years. Both obsessed with space, Sami’s proud of her but worried that he might never see her again. To help him come to terms with her imminent departure, mum buys him a book about Laika, the first dog to go to space.
The Play's The Thing UK 