REVIEW: Jewels

Reading Time: 3 minutesIn Jewels, writer and performer Tanwen Stokes brings a fresh, fun, and lovingly irreverent story of mediaeval womanhood onto the stage.

Reading Time: 3 minutesIn Jewels, writer and performer Tanwen Stokes brings a fresh, fun, and lovingly irreverent story of mediaeval womanhood onto the stage.

Reading Time: 2 minutesWritten and performed by Heather Massie, this interactive one-woman show explores the legacy of the iconic film star and inventor Hedy Lamarr, as her contributions to the modern technological world have largely been overlooked. Massie aims to encourage young women to follow in Hedy’s footsteps and pursue careers in science and technology, emphasising that brains and beauty are not mutually exclusive.

Reading Time: 2 minutesDirector Mya Kelln’s new adaptation of Ibsen’s classic play reimagines Hedda Gabler in a stark, minimalist style. Like much of Ibsen’s work, this 1891 play explores in lurid detail how people can damage one another, as the bored and disenfranchised newlywed Hedda causes waves of destruction in each of her relationships.

Reading Time: 4 minutesGeorge, a new play written by Léa des Garets and directed by Rute Costa, is a brilliantly imaginative dive into the world of George Sand.

Reading Time: 3 minutesLongitude, a new musical, details the story of John Harrison, the self-taught clockmaker whose inventions changed the landscape of 18th-century navigation.

Reading Time: 3 minutesSALT, a new play by writer and director Beau Hopkins, aims to create a unique performance style to immerse audiences in the world of a slowly unfolding family horror in a 1700’s fishing village. Man Billy (Mylo McDonald) and his mother, the Widow Pruttock (Emily Outred), live on the outskirts of this isolated community, where they meet Sheldis (Bess Roche), an alluring traveller with a dark past who threatens their intense and sheltered family relationship.

Reading Time: 3 minutesIn 1735, George Frideric Handel adapted a fanciful story from Ariosto’s Italian Renaissance epic, Orlando Furioso; the resulting opera, Alcina, is staged here by the Guildhall School in a playful and earnest exploration of a battle between true love and powerful enchantments.

Reading Time: 2 minutesThe European premiere of Kunstler brings a controversial American figure to the UK stage; Jeff McCarthy plays real-life lawyer William Kunstler, who delivers an imagined university lecture, dramatised by playwright Jeffrey Sweet. Nykila Norman plays Kerry, the fictional law student hosting Kunstler’s lecture who is torn between apologising for and sympathising with the protesters outside the hall.