by Diana Miranda
Forrest Gump’s mama said it best: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” Featuring ten short pieces that delve into the tapestry of human experiences, LIFE: The Beginning, the End, and Everything in Between reflects precisely that variety. Produced by Northern Spirit, this eclectic evening of new writing at The Lion and Unicorn Theatre has the creative energy of a poetry slam and a scratch night put together.
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by Luisa De la Concha Montes
Cutting the Tightrope hosts a series of short sketches that are united by the same topic: censorship. It was created as a direct response to the Arts Council England’s now retracted guidance that political statements made by individuals linked to an organisation can cause reputational risks. From the war in Gaza to the rise of authoritarian regimes, each sketch explores the political, social and emotional effects that the lack of freedom of expression may have.
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by Laura Kressly
In each of the three unrelated scenes that make up this triptych, a different Emily and an Emile tackle big ideas. Two flatmates argue about class privilege, a pair of flight attendants mull over love and confronting fears, and grief dominates the conversation between a man and his dead boyfriend’s sister. Each scene has some strong moments and the issues are prescient, but the writing quality varies and it’s unclear why these particular stories are produced together.
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The Emoji Project runs through 14 August, and is live streamed on 15 August.
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by Laura Kressly
In the middle of a dark room, I am ushered into what looks like a largish, stand-alone cupboard. With a spotlight above a single chair facing a perspex sheet covered with a window blind, there is an immediate sense of the audience becoming the performer. Given that the four mini-plays making up this event are semi-improvised character pieces relying on audience interaction, this feeling is apt. As much the playlets are highly theatrical and often disarming, they are also intimate and conversational. In a time where many of us are learning how to just be in the same space as another person, unmediated by a computer screen, Theatre for Two is comforting and familiar as well as challenging what has become normal disconnect from people and the world we live in.
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by Dora Bodrogi
The Network Theatre Company has put together a brilliant night of short plays that are certainly entertaining, if slightly alarming about where the world is heading. The Future is Mental gives us an assemblage of six near-future, ‘soft-dystopian’ stories, admittedly inspired by Black Mirror, that makes us take a step back and really rethink our present lifestyles.
by Laura Kressly
A new Caryl Churchill play is a special occasion, but four at once is a treat. Radically different in tone and theme, this collection ranges from pleasantly surreal to shocking and strange. Though they stand alone as short plays, as a whole they take on an array of society’s ills – but the pronounced concepts that Churchill is known for occasionally stale here, despite regular moments of brilliance.
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 Gregory Forrest
A whole day of Pinter. “Christ,” my landlord said, “I couldn’t think of anything worse.”
Jamie Lloyd is embarking on an epic project: to stage every single one of the influential
playwright Harold Pinter’s short plays over a six month period, at the theatre which bears his name. Pinter at the Pinter. Pretty neat huh?
by Laura Kressly
There are many reasons why the classics are still read and performed, with their enduring relevance one of them. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a narrative poem containing more than 250 different myths, is a wealth of flexible source material that can easily be updated and applied to modern socio-political landscapes. Here, five different myths are updated by five different playwrights to comment on a range of current topics, from #MeToo to the refugee crisis. Ranging in style and quality, the new writing night is largely well-curated and impactful.
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