Currently on tour, Taking Flight is a selection of three plays, chosen as the winners of a competition that aimed to produce pieces by first-time playwrights from within the British East Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian communities. Obviously, the politics of the aim can’t be ignored: that there is something particular about British-Asian (or […]
This is not a review. The Company Theatre’s production of John– a dense, complex, hilarious personal epic by celebrated playwright Annie Baker- is extraordinary on a hundred different levels and every single person who has seen it (or certainly written about it) has said pretty much the same thing. I’m usually skeptical of consensus but […]
Written and performed by Laurel Brady, Surfacing is a story of a young woman telling her mother about her mental illness. In the programme notes, Brady confesses that the show was inspired by a monologue that she wrote about her own depression and anxiety. These are stories we are often afraid to tell other people, […]
#neverlookback You see the above hashtag for a second of Sh!t Theatre’s hour-long show. It’s in footage of Manor House, the duo’s local area, on a billboard apparently for an E-cig company called Vivid; I thought it was from Nike (of ‘Just Do It’ fame), because both sentiments suggest a vaguely life-affirming yet thoughtless life […]
Liv Stein at Canadian Stage manages to achieve the strange combination of beautiful mediocrity. Nino Haratischwili’s play is about a couple, Liv and Emil, their angst over the loss of their son, and that aftermath of that grief. Liv (Leslie Hope) is a pianist, someone once renowned for her interpretations and performances of Rachmaninov but […]
Kate Hennig’s contemporary history play traces the story of King Henry VIII’s sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr (Kate) – beginning with his awkward and aggressive pursuit of her, her negotiation of their marriage (and sex life, which was pretty impressive), to Kate’s attempt to be both a mother and political advocate for Mary and […]
Dirty Great Love Story started as a 10-minute poetry duet featuring the two writers, Richard Marsh and Katie Bonna. It then went on to Vault Festival, Edinburgh Fringe and became a massive success in various theatres across the UK. Poetry in a play? I was reluctant, to say the least. It seems that every time we […]
The Summoning, by Charlotte Ahlin, is an ambitious slapstick three-person play with comedic moments that never quite becomes more than the sum of its parts. From the moment I sat in my seat and saw a giant pentagram chalked on the stage floor, I really wanted to like this play. As a fan of science […]