by Amy Toledano
Real-life couple Amy Elliot and Scott Kettner have written a show about love and the borders that are physically and mentally between them. However this show lacks the comedy, strong narrative and emotion promised, and instead paints an image that is unrealistic, strange and miss-represented.
by Amy Toledano
Taking a fanciful journey through the life of the often forgotten museum cloakroom attendant, this one-woman show gives us a behind the scenes look at how we can turn the mundane into something really special.
by associate editor Joanna Trainor
“In a world where the truth is hard to come by, raising your voice and removing the mask can be the boldest act of them all.”
The above premise for Invisible Light sounds a little sanctimonious, but it’s not actually an hour of people patting themselves on the back for being so right-on. It’s really seven short stories that explore identity and what that means in 2018, and all but one* of them are a little bit tongue-in-cheek, or play with the idea in some way.
by guest critic Gregory Forrest
I really wanted to love this.
A new musical about gay men under Mussolini (politically, if not physically) sounds so exciting. Silvio Berlusconi’s claim that ‘Mussolini never killed people, just sent them to holiday camps’ brushes off the dark reality of imprisonment, violence, and unrecorded deaths. Yet by clearing out the closet, government officials gave gay men in particular the freedom to live openly and form tentative relationships in their Mediterranean exile. It was a queerly liberating sea breeze.
by an anonymous guest critic
Kali Theatre, a company dedicated to providing exciting opportunities for female theatre directors and leading roles for South Asian actors, have produced a series of readings inspired by women’s experiences in conflict zones. This is a beautiful evening of moving and poignant works-in-progress depicting the atrocity of war crimes and the ongoing realities of their victims’ lives.
by guest critic Meredith Jones Russell
All is not as tranquil as it seems on a quiet shallow of the Gulf of Mexico – Kendra and Betty sit on a boat one afternoon ostensibly to fish, but in reality to thrash out their relationship. As night sets in, they begin to wonder whether they can ever escape where they have ended up.
by guest critic Kudzanayi Chiwawa
Expat Underground tells the story of a modern day Italian migrant, who having ventured to London, the “Shiny Eldorado”, finds herself struggling with the metamorphosis from Italian to British, whilst still remaining Italian – a familiar journey for many who find themselves new in London.
Sam and Clara live the ordinary, domestic life of a young professional couple, until Sam’s sister Sophie turns up unannounced. The playful, carefree young woman eventually chameleons into someone much more sinister. Caught up in the criminal underworld, she’s back in town with an agenda. As Sophie lures Sam back to the adrenaline-junkie lifestyle of high-end burglary and fraud he’s desperate to leave behind, the siblings’ facade deteriorates further. No one is what they seem in Sublime, though the plodding script that should be thrilling never reaches its potential.
By an anonymous guest critic
If you’re a Marx Brothers fan like myself, you might go to this production by the company JUST SOME THEATRE with some trepidation. Are these four performers going to do justice to the Brother’s brilliant form of slapstick comedy? It’s nice to report that the answer is yes. The company’s attempt to create new Marx Brothers material is actually the strongest part of this show.
In the programme notes for Steven Dykes’ Glockenspiel, we are told that 40% of current personnel have been deployed more than once, and 27% of those veterans deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from anxiety disorders and/depression. A fifth of ex-service people are unemployed, and a fifth report cases of domestic violence. Male ex-service members are twice as likely to commit suicide than their non-serving peers. So it’s no secret that the US doesn’t look after its veterans very well. The play tries to look at the effects of service on those now finding their way in the civilian world, but Old Sole Theatre Company’s execution doesn’t deliver the power needed for this slowly-developing script.
