by guest critic Joanna Trainor
“Remember me; I sparkled.”
Philip Ridley’s ability to write about the most grotesque scenarios with the most beautiful language will never cease to amaze. The director tweeted to say he was glad I enjoyed the show, but “enjoy” never feels like the right word for Ridley. Uncomfortable, anxious, grossed out but oddly moved by the whole thing seems far more appropriate. And let’s face it, we wouldn’t want our in yer face theatre any other way.
by guest critic Ava Davies
all good artists are dead return with their second show as a collective: JOY is a wide-ranging and stretchy exploration of diaspora and sex. Dina Gordon performs as Joy, a woman who contains multitudes.
by guest critic Joanna Trainor
Nine characters, three stories, one not-so-boring room.
Loosely linked by themes of crime and mystery, The Boring Room is made up of three unusual pieces that finish moments before a satisfying ending. A door is about to open, a decision made, a body buried and the audience are plunged into darkness.
by guest critic Maeve Campbell
If you are invited to a party, and the host tells you: “It’s going to be crazy,” don’t go. It will inevitably be really, really boring.
by an anonymous guest critic
Witty, laugh-out-loud, Irish brilliance: Erica Murray’s London debut of The Cat’s Mother demonstrates how a female-centric production can truly be a hit.
by guest critic Ava Davies
Boys, the inaugural piece by physical theatre group The PappyShow, is about exactly that. It’s an exploration of manhood, of masculinity, of what it means to be a man of colour in the UK today. It’s about mess and silliness and play and pain. It’s about the complexity of selfhood – because how can one man possibly contain all these multitudes?
by guest critic Lara Alier
Uber, happy hour, Tinder, late night cheesy chips are all part of the vocabulary of a Londoner’s life. So are two complete strangers waking up next to each other. Usually one of them will remember, and even find a blurred picture of you both at 4 am surrounded by empty glasses. Yet neither has any memories of the night before.
by guest critic Steven Strauss
Heaps of deserved praise has been showered on Jeremy Herrin’s production of Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places & Things, with much directed at Denise Gough’s thrillingly committed performance of a struggling actor in rehab. Yet after seeing it at Wyndham’s Theatre in mid-2016 then its New York City run this year, it’s easy to see there’s more to it than Gough. A second, transatlantic viewing proves just how thoroughly the production theatricalises addicts’ experiences in order to generate audience empathy with the struggle to overcome addiction.
Since 2013, Natasha Langridge has watched her neighbourhood become unrecognisable. As the developers and their machinery creep ever closer with every passing month, she documents their journey along side her love life. Birds sing in trees as she falls in love with Dave who lives in Korea, and those trees are chopped down as she gets off with her much younger Drama Lover.
Nick Cassenbaum grew up in London’s Jewish community and experienced all the cultural mores that go with it – Spurs games, dubious summer camps, trips to Israel and discovering his willy isn’t like the other boys’ at school. Like many young people as he got older, he hadn’t quite found his place in the world. Until he went with his grandfather, Papa Alan, to the Canning Town bathhouse.
The Play's The Thing UK 