by an anonymous guest critic
This is a a tender and beautiful play that, within moments, makes you question why it hasn’t been staged in over 15 years.
Cry Blueberry, Cockpit Theatre
by guest critic Lara Alier
I’m sitting in the foyer and haven’t seen my friend for 2 weeks so we are catching up before the play starts. A man comes and offers us some blueberry, gluten free pie, then we have a little chat.
The Claim, Shoreditch Town Hall
by Laura Kressly
The sickly, yellow lights of a featureless meeting room are making Serge thirsty. He just wants some water, to tell his story and get back home to Streatham. An unnamed woman and man try and fail to listen to him, but they’re more concerned with whether his story is the kind that would enable their Western, colonial notion of helping.
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.
The Here and This and Now, Southwark Playhouse
By guest critic Lara Alier
As I walk to my seat my feet sink in grey carpet. On stage four people sit in what it looks like an office. One of the characters, a man in a suit, tells us how one day he didn’t go to work and stayed at home in order to spend time with his family.
The Crystal Egg, Vaults
By guest critic Lara Alier
Stepping inside the Vaults, we are thrown into a lively London street in the 19th Century. Here we engage with a fortune-teller, listen to a street musician and have to watch for pickpockets. My Barcelonian soul feels at home.
Lobster, Theatre503
By guest critic Jo Trainor
Breakups suck. Unexpectedly bumping into your ex sucks even more. For exes J and K it’s even worse, because they’re unknowingly about to be set up with each other.
The Children, Manhattan Theatre Club
by NY guest critic Steven Strauss
American dramaphiles tend to view Britain as a hotbed of hyper-verbal and hyper-intellectual plays, especially in comparison to our home-bred musicals that often lack the same resonant depth. This is of course a gross over-generalization with countless exceptions, but personally, I became a card-carrying theatrical anglophile thanks to the massive transatlantic influx of Stoppardian texts in which characters talk talk talk about Serious and Important Ideas.
Feature | Top Ten Shows of 2017
After 250 or so shows across London and Edinburgh, these are 2017’s top ten (and a few runners up) from The Play’s the Thing UK’s founding editor. Remarkable storytelling, socio-political relevance and innovative form combine to make all of these productions stand out.
10. Wish List, Royal Court
The Bruntwood Prize winner is a scathing political critique with fantastic performances and design. Moving vulnerability in the face of Tory cuts makes for an eye-opening, state of the nation play.
9. Bubble Schmeisis, Battersea Arts Centre
Ritual, family and religion collide in an intergenerational solo performance by Nick Cassenbaum on finding your place in the world.
8. Seanmhair, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Three women tell the epic love story of Jenny and Tommy, a couple who fell in love on Edinburgh’s cobblestone streets.
7. salt., Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Selina Thompson’s powerful narrative of her cargo ship journey retracing slave routes is a vital confrontation of the West’s success at the cost of black lives.
6. The Long Trick, VAULT Festival
A compelling Cornish story of one family’s poverty and river life is a polished affair with poetry, music and a fantastic script.
5. Translunar Paradise and Odyssey, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Perhaps it’s cheating to put two shows together, but these classic productions from Theatre Ad Infinitum are a fitting tribute to the company’s decade of groundbreaking physical theatre.
4. Palmyra, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas latest show was Summerhall’s hottest ticket at the Fringe. The aggressive political show forced the audience to make a difficult decision and face their accountability for the world’s wrongs.
3. The Nassim Plays, Bush Theatre
With Nassim debuting in Edinburgh, the Bush Theatre staged a retrospective of the Iranian writer’s work. The four plays make for an engaging look at a distinct style.
2. The Ferryman, Royal Court
British naturalism is shown at its best in Jed Butterworth’s family drama set in rural N. Ireland during the Troubles.
1. Girl from the North Country, Old Vic
Bob Dylan and Conor McPherson capture the essence of America’s Great Depression in the microcosmic world of a midwestern boarding house. Despair, hope and clinging onto the American Dream is complimented by stunning interpretations of Dylan classics.
Runners Up:
In no particular order, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, (I Could Go on Singing) Over the Rainbow, I Know You of Old, Killology and Thebes Land didn’t quite make the top 10, but all left powerful impressions in a year of theatregoing. Innovation, emotional engagement and solid dramaturgy are upheld consistently in these shows.
The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.
A Christmas Carol, Middle Temple Hall
By guest critic Laura Vivio
It’s hard to think of a more appropriate show to watch on a cold December day in London, but perhaps impossible if that day happened to be nothing short of the most magical day of the year: seeing this play on Christmas Eve was a real treat, and added another dimension to an experience that would have been jolly to begin with. One of Dicken’s masterpieces, A Christmas Carol is a natural classic for this time of the year, and contributed to creating the very notion of Christmas as we have known it for the past 174 years.
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