by guest critic Amy Toledano
Walking into the Royal Court to see Rory Mullarkey’s new show Pity, one is welcomed by a full brass band, a working ice-cream stand and a heck of a lot of colour. The energy in the room is buzzing but has a slight edge. From the first moment it is evident that this show is going to be a new theatre experience for me.
By guest critic Gregory Forrest
I swear to God the Theatre Upstairs is gonna give me an aneurism. An explosion. Pitch black. Shouts and screams and gunfire. The immediate sense of panic is all consuming, and I don’t blame one lady for having to bow out of Cordelia Lynn’s startling new play One For Sorrow.
by Laura Kressly
A woman stands on a pastel blue stage and starts at the beginning. She tells us a love story – how she met a man in an airport, fell in love and built a life with him. Great jobs, a family, a house, the full works. It’s perfect. Until it’s not.
by Laura Kressly
A newborn lamb lies on the ground. It’s dead. It’s mother will soon follow, but there are others that are still alive or yet to be born, and they need help. Bec and Anna fight for the survival of these tiny creatures as if their lives depend on it.
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.
by guest critic Gregory Forrest
You have goat to be kidding me: the Royal Court’s latest experiment is a tonally-confused take on the Syrian conflict, fake news, and livestock management.
The bleating heart of Liwaa Yazji’s narrative is fascinating. For every son martyred in the ongoing war, local government will provide their grieving family with a goat. Children replaced by milk-laden mammals – it is a compensation scheme of twisted proportions. Local party leader Abu al-Tayyib goes as far as to declare ‘Our vision is for every house in the nation to have its own goat.’
Imagine a world where our inner monologues are voiced at all times. Sure, it would make the world a much louder place and we’d probably always have sore throats. But think of the things we’d hear. The mundane, the extraordinary, the intimate – there would be no secrets, lies or hiding.
