By Bryony Rae Taylor
Expert storyteller Osama Al Azza conducts a tour of his home, Palestine’s smallest refugee camp Al Azza, within the city of Bethlehem. A short, sharp, site-specific show which imaginatively blends fun into a personal tale about the brutal reality of living under military occupation.
A review in five vignettes.
by Amber Pathak
Smoke fills the room, we’re all sitting upright in stiff wooden pews, and in the distance a steady drip echoes off the walls. Is this part of the show or is there a leak in the roof? I wonder. Either way it’s very atmospheric.
A spotlight pierces the darkness, illuminating her. As she goes on, it feels more like a sermon. There is a holiness about the whole effect that is totally compelling.
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 Zahid Fayyaz
A site-specific play with a slight immersive element for the audience, this is the latest
production from new company Bee in my Beanie. They establish a framing sequence consisting of the Archivist Society looking at a ‘story’, with the head archivist portrayed as a magnificent, giant puppet. This is mainly the story of Aamira and Gad, two children on opposite sides of a border conflict, forced to come together following a sudden loss.
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 Jade Pathak
What does it look like when you mix ethical, underground theatre with a Disney-esque musical that follows a heroic, Greta Thunberg-type, a gardener and an enigmatic polar bear? Well, Pigfoot Theatre show us, and it’s a whirlwind of fun for all ages with a live, whimsical score. Sharp, funny and informative, something special has been created here, and the care and love for this production is visible from every detail, from the bike powered lighting strips, to the recycled tin cans.
by Laura Kressly
Peyvand Sadeghian was born in Canning Town, and East London runs through her veins. Yet, there’s also the scent of something else, from somewhere far away – rose water and pomegranate, from an ancient civilisation the western world loves to demonise. She doesn’t give this much thought until she is 10 years old and first travels to Iran with her father. This is a turning point in her life; it’s when she finds she is not just one person, but two. As well as Peyvand the Londoner, she’s also Parisa the Persian girl. These two identities are set in opposition in this deliberately messy collage about having multiple citizenships and identities, and embedded with a spirit of revolution.
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 Dora Bodrogi
CW: war, migration, mental health, homelessness
How do you cope when the promise of the West turns out to be a city in the midst of a housing crisis, and you’re only one pay check away from homelessness? A.A. (Danaja Wass) doesn’t really know.
by Cara Lee
In the first of three one-woman shows performed by Katie Arnstein at the festival, she cleverly blends humour, emotion and the everyday sexism of our society to make powerful points. In this particular show, as she tells a story of “the day she became a feminist” as a teenager, she deftly weaves together women’s everyday experiences with the things everyone that age goes through, whilst adding a pinch of often ukulele-based comedy to lighten the tone of the whole thing.
The Play's The Thing UK 