by Bryony Rae Taylor
Katie Arnstein’s show Sexy Lamp tears down the acting industry, its gendered prejudices, its inclination to dispose of women and to objectify them, all in the space of an hour. She is eloquent, gentle, and the show packs a long-lasting impact.
by Lawrence Osborne
This is a tale of a midnight rendezvous of a very suspect nature between what, at first sight, seems to be just a dealer and his runner. The story explores aspects of a life in crime and the personal history between the pair. It sounds fairly simple at first.
by Laura Kressly
In a recent article, Nick Chater explains that the majority of people aren’t likely to rebel against tyrannical governments. Most of us are predisposed to follow rules, no matter how arbitrary they are. We might think that we would lead a revolution, but in all likelihood, most of us will do what we’re told.
by Meredith Jones Russell
Often misunderstood, neglected and under-reported, Northern Ireland is just across the water but can often feel a million miles away. Kate Reid’s new script tackles this issue with a powerful and compelling look at real-life, contemporary Northern Irish stories.
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 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 Dora Bodrogi
Climate, sexuality, religion, growing up, friendship, abandonment, and cats come together in the dystopian yet quirky play. Natasha Collie invites us to a small seaside town on the verge of disappearing. As the coast erodes further and further, the waves and the merciless demolition authorities threaten the community’s homes. Coming of age in a place that is succumbing piece by piece to the sea is a strange experience.
by Fergus Church
It’s a strange thing to hear the sea when you’re 40 odd miles from it, sat on a wooden bench underneath train tracks and footsteps.
A blue tarpaulin. Plastic crates. The stuff of seafarers.
The dampness in the underground air acquires a salty tang.
The high brick walls crag themselves into cliffs embracing a beach.
The sea suddenly feels close.
We are sat around in the half-dark, waiting for something to happen, the tide to come in at dusk.
Then the blueness is unfurled and the waves are lapping at our toes.
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 