by Zahid Fayyaz
The New York cabaret star returns to London after the previous success of their Smiths/Frankenstein tribute show, with this personal and sensitive show focusing on Annie Lennox, Judy Garland, as well as Kate Chopin’s groundbreaking feminist novel The Awakening. As part of his Living Record Collection project, all these elements are mixed up with autobiographical elements of his own life, in a stunning 90-minute long cabaret show of real power and sensitivity.
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By Diana Miranda
Leave all your Granny stereotypes at the door. Harriet Waterhouse’s debut dramedy Sex Chat Granny offers a unique perspective on a woman working on sex chat phone lines as she navigates the challenges of middle age and unpaid bills. The play provides glimpses into her life – stories filled with longing and stagnant dreams – interspersed with calls to her mother, who has dementia, and men seeking companionship.
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by Laura Kressly
The first pub theatre reopening after 5 months of COVID-19 closure feels like a celebration of survival. Given the governmental neglect of the theatre industry has faced since lockdown started, and the number of job losses this has caused across the industry, a tiny space in Clapham being able to stage its first socially-distanced, indoor production is huge. However, this unassuming new play by Michael Dunbar is more of a tangled character study that, though largely well-performed, consists of under-developed subplots and good intentions that aren’t effectively conveyed.
by Amber Pathak
Sukh Ojla brings tonnes of charm to the stage as she takes us through the grievances of a single, 30-something Punjabi woman living with her parents.
By Hannah Kennedy
Mental illness isn’t portrayed often enough in theatre, especially discussion on how it effects those around it. LOVE (Watching Madness) is a beautifully apt title for this piece performed and written by Isabelle Kabban, and directed by Ruth Anna Phillips. It explores the history of Kabban’s relationship with her mother and, specifically, her mother’s Bipolar Disorder.
by Isabel Becker
We get it. We do. Angst about our mothers – their infuriating quirks, the emotional and psychological damage passed down to us as though encased in our very DNA – it’s an oasis of material. The complexities of the mother-child relationship hold such potential for theatrical exploration, as we have seen from classical tragic melodramas like Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex to modern commercial musicals like Hairspray.
by Meredith Jones Russell
A mixture of confessional monologues, recorded interviews, dance, music, and a hefty smattering of hardcore porn, Harry Clayton-Wright’s deliberately shocking, no-holds-barred, one-man show attempts to address how we learn about sex and how that education informs our wants, needs and desires for the rest of our lives.
by Meredith Jones Russell
Crocodile Fever is a shocking, staggering, darkly hilarious play which comes into its own in its second, bizarre half.
by Laura Kressly
Michael and his best mate Charlie are typical teenage boys – they just want to hang out and play Fifa and party. Michael’s patient girlfriend Liv is often at their side, his mum is there to fret and nag, and his half-brother Josh reliably winds him up. They’re 17 and life is good – until it isn’t.
by an anonymous guest critic
CLASS, a play from Ireland co-written and directed by Iseult Golden and David Horan, is set around a teacher-parent meeting in a Dublin primary school. The teacher, Mr McAfferty (Will O’Connell), is a seemingly conscientious man who takes his job seriously. He invites the parents of one of his students, nine-year-old Jayden, to discuss his literacy learning difficulties.
The Play's The Thing UK 