The Internet Was Made for Adults, VAULT Festival

by guest critic Joanna Trainor

A cabaret, but also Tinder, and a break up, sending nudes, watching porn for the first time and embracing or fearing female sexuality. The Internet was Made for Adults squashes a few too many storylines into one 70-minute show, some of which have almost nothing to do with the internet at all. Individually they would all make interesting and important subjects for a play, but crammed together it’s too disjointed to really
enjoy.

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Mary Stuart, Duke of York’s Theatre

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by guest critic Kudzanayi Chiwawa

Heads or tails – with the flip of a coin, on this evening, Juliet Stevenson is Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart is portrayed by Lia Williams.

The play opens with urgency, the stakes are high and the rhythm throughout doesn’t let up. It’s exhilarating. Williams commands the stage like a beautiful beast, burdened by captivity. We know how history reads for these two women, but the battle waged on stage, makes you wonder how will it end.

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Queen C*unt – Sacred or Profane?, Camden People’s Theatre

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by guest critic Lara Alier

Blood. Clit. Cunt. Period…Oh, and nipples. Does it make me feel uncomfortable? Not really. It’s 2018.

Yet I remember two days ago, one of my flatmates couldn’t pronounce the word “vagina” and almost had a fit, gesticulating and mumbling incomprehensible sounds.

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Expat Underground, Tristan Bates Theatre

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by guest critic Kudzanayi Chiwawa

Expat Underground tells the story of a modern day Italian migrant, who having ventured to London, the “Shiny Eldorado”, finds herself struggling with the metamorphosis from Italian to British, whilst still remaining Italian – a familiar journey for many who find themselves new in London.

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The Acid Test, Cockpit Theatre

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Jess, Dana and Ruth are living it up in a London flatshare. Fresh out of uni, they’re drinking and partying like it’s their job and generally loving life. But their blissful bubble is burst when Jess comes home with her dad in tow after her mum kicked him out of the house. As the night wears on and Jim joins in with his daughter and her flatmates’ antics, ugly truths are revealed in each of the four characters and there’s no going back.

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Good Girl, Old Red Lion

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by guest critic Joanna Trainor

“This is for people who burst at the seams.”

How do you cope with anxiety when you’re too young to know what it is? This initially appears to be what Good Girl is going to be about – how as children it is so instilled in us  to please others, that the pressure completely warps our sense of self and creates huge problems within our relationships.

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Ordinary Days, Drayton Arms Theatre

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by guest critic Gregory Forrest

A single piano backs this tongue-in- cheek trip into the lives of four ordinary New Yorkers living out ordinary days. In just 75 minutes we traverse heartbreaks, five-year plans, and the elaborate traffic network which swirls around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A distinctly American musical about Central Park, Broadway, and groceries from Gristedes, Ordinary Days doesn’t shake up the twenty-first century, but this is certainly a solid production.

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