Reading Time: 2 minutesCo-directed by Felix Barrett and Hector Harkness, and rewritten by Daisy Johnson based on Barry Pain's gothic mystery The Moon Slave, Viola's Room transforms the story into a fantastical fairy tale laced with a touch of uncanny horror, while
retaining its original essence of obsession and compulsion.
Reading Time: 2 minutesWritten by Stew, with music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, this 2008 Broadway production ventures itself into the 2024 Young Vic under the direction of Liesl Tommy. On a V-shaped stage resembling an indie rock concert (do they borrow it from their neighbour Machinal by the way?), the story unveils itself through a narrator (Giles Terera). The young man, referred to as "Youth" (Keenan Munn-Francis), discards his upbringing, attempts to find himself by wearing other personas to fit in, and finally matures at the price of losing a loved one. Though Munn-Francis indeed manoeuvres the character blending fragility, sincerity and perplexity, the plot remains still as dull as you might predict.
Reading Time: 3 minutesImagine yourself sitting inside Sadler's Wells, enveloped in absolute darkness and serenity. A baritone voice begins to hum Shubert’s art songs filled with suspense and sorrow. Suddenly, your hearing becomes extraordinarily sharp, almost as keen as a beast's. You hear someone coughing, someone sighing, and another zipping up their jacket. You feel a bit annoyed: is the audience always this loud and noisy? This sensation creates awareness and alienation: you belong to a group sharing the same state—the audience—yet it is you who feels that such state is disturbing, preventing you from enjoying the show. You are alone.
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhat would you expect from a story about a young woman growing up in a secret nuclear city in western China? This is the question posed not only to filmmaker Francesca (Francesca Marcolina), but also to the audience.
Reading Time: 3 minutesIntense, sensual, poignant. Dangerously intriguing, A Streetcar Named Desire has continuously lured its audience for more than half a century. Years ago, Scottish Ballet transformed this Tennessee Williams classic into a ballet piece blending traditional ballet techniques with contemporary choreography and a modern jazz orchestra (scored by Peter Salem and performed by the Scottish Ballet Orchestra). Several years later, it revisits Sadler's Wells under the direction of Nancy Meckler and choreography by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.
Reading Time: 2 minutesAt that time, Elsewhere was in its infancy, solely written, directed and performed by Haylin Cai. Now almost four or five years later, the show has progressed to its maturity, while still retains its familiar skeleton.
Reading Time: 2 minutesWritten, directed and performed Ofra Daniel, A Song of Songs rewrites the story from the Hebrew Bible with a feminist perspective (not really), embodying its inherited eroticism but minimalising its religious context.
Reading Time: 2 minutesWritten and performed by Ed Oulton, Barrier to Entry attempts to explore and examine the failures of the UK education system through the story of Connor, a young lad from Liverpool who fails his GCSE math several times.
Reading Time: 2 minutesSince Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet in 1965, no Shakespearean play has even been transcribed into ballet. This is somewhat in conceivable: how can you translate the epitome of Shakespearean language into sole physicality while still retain the substantial qualities of his plays? Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon took this challenge in 2014 together with composer Joby Talbot, successfully transforming The Winter's Tale into another in-house Shakespearean repertoire of the Royal Ballet. Now, a decade later, Wheeldon revisits this masterpiece with some upgraded technologies, but preserves the essence of this tragicomedy.
Reading Time: 2 minutesA Spectacle of Herself is a solo show written and performed by Laura Murphy and directed by Ursula Martinez.