by Maeve Campbell
There is so much to like about Biscuit and Field’s new show Paid Fantasist. Rebecca Biscuit (one half of Sh!t Theatre) and Nick Field are a charming, new double-act. They employ a fantastically kitsch science-fiction disco soundtrack, enviable gold lame and an impressive Kate Bush impression. The most intriguing thing, though, is the 1978 Times article at the centre of the piece, ‘A Life in the Day of Tom Baker.’
by Laura Kressly
A wholesome guy group from the 1950s with dreams of superstardom died in a bus crash before they could make it big. But for some inexplicable reasoning, a little-discussed deity gives them one more shot at fame. Plopped in front of an expectant audience seeking Christmas cheer, the Plaids muddle through their posthumous encore. Though the story is utterly baffling, the four performers have heaps of holiday charm.
by Maeve Campbell
It’s difficult to work out who the musical Seussical is for and why its been revived. Trying to imagine how a ten-year-old might watch this show doesn’t help answer these questions. In fact, it clouds the answer even more. I think if I was ten and watching this show, I’d feel utterly patronised by it.
by Laura Kressly
I contemplate a ratty t-shirt displayed on a podium alongside several other seemingly random items. I’m asked to write down how much I would pay for it. Determining it’s not something I’d wear or have any other use for, I wrote £0 on a slip of paper that I slid into a box behind it.
by Romy Foster
The Dark is an exhilarating and personal journey through the dusty backroads of Uganda in 1979. Jumping between then and present day, Michael Balogun tenderly tells author Nick Makoha’s story of how he and his mother escaped the terror of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s reign and crossed the border heading for the UK when he was four years old.
By Amy Toledano
Cuckoo by Lisa Carroll has all the elements of a wonderful coming-of-age story. Set in a small Irish town, this play packs many a punch, giving us a raw look at what it means to not fit in, to feel lonely in your hometown and how as a teenager, the need to be liked can seem more important than anything else.
By Laura Kressly
How can we radically reinvent myths and classic literature? I mean, really radically – not in a box ticking way, or a modernisation the production wears like a piece of costume that doesn’t really change the thematic core of the story. I mean thoroughly, totally, completely. So all traces of horrible ‘isms’ and ‘ists’ are either reframed or criticised.
by Maeve Campbell
Pinter Four continues Jamie Lloyd’s Pinter at the Pinter season with the Lyndsey Turner directed Moonlight starring Robert Glenister as ta dying patriarch who bemoans his family’s absence at his death bed to his long suffering wife (Brid Brennan). The second half play Night School, directed by Ed Stambollouian, is a totally different beast from a different Pinter era. Al Weaver plays a disgruntled ex-fraudster who discovers, on his release from prison, that his aunts have let out his bed-room to a mysterious and glamourous young school teacher (Jessica Barden).
by Meredith Jones Russell
Tamsin Greig steals the show in the star-studded third instalment of the six-month season of Harold Pinter’s short plays.
Pinter Three features 11 plays, allowing director Jamie Lloyd to vary tone, pace and style with shorter, more amusing sketches bookended by two more heavyweight works; Landscape and A Kind of Alaska.
by Amy Toledano
There have been several different mediums focusing on the story of the female prisoner, especially from the US and Gilded Butterflies, while following this same theme, pays particular attention to the prisoner herself. It gives her story a voice and allows for a deeper understanding of her perspective. This two-hander is a lovely exploration of not believing everything you hear.
The Play's The Thing UK 