by Meredith Jones Russell
Life and Death of a Journalist follows Laura, an English reporter who returns home from Hong Kong to be offered the job of a lifetime on a China-backed newspaper. However, as the paper goes to further lengths to appease its censor-happy investors, Laura gets more conflicted about her journalistic ethics.
by Becky Lennon
Presented by Just Add Milk (JAM), Conor Hunt’s Who Cares is a powerful and moving piece of theatre which explores the challenges faced in society today because of austerity. We join Jamie (Reece Pantry), who is enjoying a pint in his local pub The Crown, served by the charming bartender Dan (Kyle Rowe), who claims he is the ‘Shakespeare of Swears’. We follow the pair on their journey to create a final send-off for the pub, in hope that they can save their beloved local by showcasing the need for this community space, which is so important to Jamie and Dan in different ways.
by Amber Pathak
Sukh Ojla brings tonnes of charm to the stage as she takes us through the grievances of a single, 30-something Punjabi woman living with her parents.
by Dora Bodrogi
“But it’s getting better, right?”
This is the question I get the most often when I mention institutionalised homophobia in a country I’ve left, Hungary. And it’s not so bad there in this regard, they ‘only’ have a ban on marriage equality, same-sex joint adoption, and Gender Studies. After all, a Pride march isn’t the same without skinheads booing from the cordons, and pulling out of Eurovision because it doesn’t agree with traditional national values (read: because it’s too gay). It could be worse.
by Amber Pathak
The play opens with three, young lads playing games. As it reaches dinner time they begin to debate whose country’s food is better: Jamaica, Cameroon or Ghana? This is the basis of Jollof Wars – an argument between two families that will see relationships broken and mended. Focusing on the engagement of a Ghanaian man to a Nigerian woman, Jollof Wars gives a witty yet poignant insight into how culture influences our choices, and in turn impacts the rest of our lives.
By Keagan Fransch
Adham is a bodyguard, steady and serious, and a stickler for propriety and safe proximity. Raushan is an excitable and curious Imam with a joy for life and an (almost) unshakeable positivity that’s hard to resist. On a rainy day in London, outside Raushan’s mosque, the two unlikely companions strike up a conversation that leads to an odd-couple friendship that changes and grows as they do. However, when Adham asks Raushan to pretend to be his husband (so that he can avoid being ‘set-up’ by his boss), their easy friendship is inevitably put to a difficult test.
by Lizzie Jackson
A greater force does a good job of weaving together the lives of these lost Lǎowàis, causing many awkward, funny, and heartfelt moments to materialise. The term ‘Lǎowài’ means ‘foreigner’ or more literally ‘cold outsider’, which is telling of the reason that fate keeps bringing this bunch of misfits together.
By Becky Lennon
content warning: discussions of domestic violence
Patricia has spent the past year constructing the perfect speech to deliver to the man who used to hit her. Patricia now has to decide if she is going to go have dinner with him, what she is going to say, how she is going to say this, as well as what she is going to wear.
by Emma Lamond
This play is a confronting and heartbreaking window into the human resilience, strength and determination of people caught up in conflict, and forced to migrate and seek refuge in another country.
by Isabel Becker
New artistic company Creative Destruction bring forward a pertinent interrogation of the hypocrisies behind the climate crisis movement in their entertaining and moving play. Despite the laziness of the production’s title, which sounds like a draft idea that never quite made it to review (the play is still a work in progress), Zoe Lafferty’s autobiographical story of the 2019 climate protests certainly takes ownership of the theatre as a powerful vehicle for social change.
The Play's The Thing UK 