In one sense, it’s the ultimate indulgence to a craving no-one asked for. I don’t mean “ban experiment; bring on the potboilers”, I mean that this production feels irrelevant, and that irrelevance is compounded by the awkward pose of its prose. No’s Knife is an adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s obscure mini-tales, Texts for Nothing, and […]
A very accomplished production of a show that boasts an utterly enchanting score, Floyd Collins is sophisticated, intriguing and beautifully performed with some truly breath-taking moments. It is clear that every detail of this carefully produced musical has been considered meticulously, with the piece emanating waves of meaning and feeling. Instantly you know you are in safe […]
If it takes seven people to tell a story, you hope it’s a good story. Luckily, The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas is a good story and a gripping performance. At the start of the production, the audience is tremendously confused. There is a guy named George who had bad luck in love and in life, but […]
Adapting a novel for the stage is certainly no easy feat. Sacrifices and changes must be made to slim down what can be a lengthy and detailed narrative into a coherent, streamlined and more visual medium. The risk lies in the impact this conversion can have on the end-product, specifically whether what works on the […]
There are, or at least have currently been presented, two ways of tackling autism on a London stage, and this probably goes for other mental illnesses as well: a subjective and an objective approach. The subjective integrates symptoms into a play’s form; the objective doesn’t. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is […]
It’s a grind to attend three hours of theatre. But grinds aren’t always bad. Sometimes, the alienation that accompanies “why I am watching this?” can induce some valuable critical distance. There are good questions to be raised about Suzan-Lori Parks’ Father Comes Home from the Wars. In the process of watching it: “why three parts?”, […]
A lot of Royal Court’s Upstairs programming is too dry for its own good. Not this. Nathaniel Martello-White’s Torn wears complexity on its sleeve. Angel arranges a circle of seats and then her family into a room, like an AA meeting, and wants to tackle the wrongs in her life. We don’t know her problem, […]
Taking inspiration from the many music legends who lost their lives at an early age, 27 is a brand new rock musical from debutant Sam Cassidy that, while boasting a decent original score, sadly plods its way through a particularly sub-par book that not even its undoubtedly talented cast can recover into something believable or […]