by Amy Toledano
“Fame!” – we all know the infamous song. The lyrics, “I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly, HIGH” are not well known just because of the original 1980 film, but because of the subsequent television series, film remake and musicals that followed. The title song is a good one by all accounts, however this revival of the 1988 musical serves up little else that’s at its level.
By Joanna Trainor
Poltergeist Theatre Company’s Alice Boyd could read you the yellow pages, and it would sound like the most magical book you’ve ever heard.
What is art? Who gets to decide that? Why is it so hard to draw a moustache on your own face? Poltergeist Theatre Company deal with all of life’s big questions in their follow up show to last year’s sell-out smash Lights Over Tesco Car Park.
by Joanna Trainor
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
Jessica Siân opens Work Bitch with an utterly manic laugh. The awful kind of laugh you develop when you have to laugh or you’ll cry. This is a proper tragicomedy at its core. The intelligent writing makes you laugh at these larger than life characters, all played by Siân, and then hits you with the added details – like the expression of the cook, who works every shift he can, when he thinks no one’s watching.
by Joanna Trainor
Please, you’ve got to stop eating the floor mushrooms!
It’s 1989 in Oregon. Political scientist and author Francis Fukuyama has declared it the “End of History” as the Berlin Wall is pulled down and the Cold War is finished. And in the Malheur National Forest in Oregon, mushrooms are popping up all over the place.
by Joanna Trainor
“If you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.” – Kelly Sue Deconnick
By Joanna Trainor
Jill, Lola and Ketamine Kerry are on the precipice of greatness. Tonight will change their lives forever; a representative from Diamond Records is coming to see the G Stringz play at the Half Moon pub. If he likes them the band will be signed on the spot. That’s a lot of pressure for 18-year-olds, but these kick-ass women have got it covered. They will not apologise for the space they take up, and their songs are feminist anthems, surely they’ve got this in the bag.
by Laura Kressly
There’s a world of difference between London and the impoverished estates in Britain’s small towns. Mickey grew up on one in Hartlepool, a place famous for its historic execution of a monkey mistaken for a Frenchman, the more recent fraud case committed by John ‘Canoe Man’ Darwin, and not much else. Some of the town’s citizens maintain its xenophobic, monkey-slaughtering legacy in the form of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant protests, even though they’ve never met anyone off the estate. Micky escaped these attitudes through a successful career as a children’s entertainer – or so he thought.
