By guest critic Laura Dorn

The entrance to the jungle. For some, it is the threshold to freedom, a passageway into adventure, into uncertainty and discovery. 

The keeper of the gates decides who is ready for the adventure, who isn’t, who deserves to proceed, who is sent home. Once inside the jungle, animal instincts take over. Natural selection, survival of the fittest and everyone for themselves become the new guidelines. In the words of Rudyard Kipling: “Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky, and the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.” Abide by the rules and your time in the jungle will be a success, break them and the outcome could be tragic.  

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By guest critic Laura Vivio

Expectations are rarely exceeded or even met in critical theatre-going, yet this is certainly one case where they are. What I expected to be an impenetrable piece for anyone who does not have children, or has ever desired to become parent, turned out to be 90 minutes of intense and highly relatable theatre-making. 
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By guest critic Alistair Wilkinson

A father and a son. Two best friends. Immigration, refugees and global politics. It’s the mid-1970’s and Kabul is enjoying a time of peace and tranquillity. That is until a violent war engulfs Afghanistan tearing apart the friendship of Amir and Hassan. After a terrible incident alters their life forever, The Kite Runner is a story about guilt and redemption.

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Politics is a veritable pick n’ mix of source material for playwrights, and new works inspired by Trump and Brexit abound. No doubt we’ll soon see a wave of hot takes on the debacle that continues to be the general election. Writer Matthew Campling attempts it with his rapid response work set in Boston, Lincolnshire, where Leave votes had the highest national percentage. Framed by a local couple and their new neighbour, a city boy who wants a quiet, weekend pad in the countryside, The English Heart attempts to be a fast-paced, political, sex farce but doesn’t manage to settle on a political metaphor or writing style. 

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By guest critic Maeve Campbell

The audience enter a Globe theatre transformed into ‘The Club of the Unloved’, populated by a chorus of anorak wearing, bird-watching members. We are serenaded by a virtuosic Roy Orbison cover, foreshadowing the production’s impeccable soundtrack, performed by a slick live band. What follows is a show that is silly, scrappy and homemade looking, and at the same time unfeasibly magical. 

Based on a medieval folk tale, The Cornish King Mark has intentions to marry Yseult, sister of his defeated Irish enemy. He sends his loyal French knight Tristan to kidnap her. But he’s sexy and she’s sexy, and it’s love at first sip of a magical potion. Here ensues a messy love triangle and an anguished discovery of betrayal. 
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The staff at this scuzzy, traditional American-style diner in Birmingham may not be best, but they’re happily set in their ways. Eddie, his daughter Chantal, her boyfriend PJ and part time waitress Jean are doing just fine…until Marika turns up and wants to change everything. It’s a trope that’s been used in stories throughout time – a mysterious foreign woman arrives and positively impacts her community whilst evading questions about her past. When the truth is revealed, she disappears, leaving the world irrevocably changed in her wake. Combined with snippets of original music, plenty of comedy and influenced by Rocky Horror, contemporary immigration politics, romcoms and a variety of other sources, Roller Diner is a wonderfully silly yet touching testament to the power of outsider’s fresh perspective.

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Regardless of your thoughts on European theatre’s influence on our island’s stages, it’s impossible to deny it’s happening. Unicorn Theatre is one venue that isn’t shying away from international influence and experimentation in theatre for children and young people – they’re embracing it. Work produced and booked here challenges expectations of the genre and doesn’t patronise its young audiences.

Dutch company Theatre Artemis are no exception to their ethos. Understated clowning, public failure and live music create a metatheatrical world of mediocrity that is meant to be challenged. A musician supports a showman that claims to know it all, but who really can only partially list items in categories like ‘colours’ and ‘weather’, and bungles up counting in several languages. A hapless stagehand tries to help when not interrupting with offstage crashes and bangs. 

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A boy and his gran live in a lighthouse, high on a cliff. The town below them is a pile of houses where fisherfolk live who love tea and are wary of anyone from outside the town. Mythical creatures live in the depths of the sea that swirls below the cliff and supports the fishing boats, protected by the long-lost silver shell. Some of the creatures are friendly and some less so, but the fisherfolk think all of them are threats. The boy and his gran eventually need to intervene to help the fisherfolk understand that just because someone is from somewhere else, that doesn’t make them a bad person.

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