Category ★★½☆☆

REVIEW: Mamela Nyamza: Hatched Ensemble

Sunday 25th June 2023. National Arts Festival 2023, 1820's Settler's National Monument, The Guy Butler Theatre, Makhanda (Grahamstown), Eastern Cape, South Africa. NATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL 2023! Day 4 - Hatched Ensemble. By Mamela's Artistic Movement NPC. Mamela Nyamza challanges the status quo with her new ensemble work. South Africa's annual multi-disciplinary arts festival, live in Makhanda has been supporting the arts for 49 years since its inception in 1974. The National Arts Festival runs from 21st June until 2nd July 2023. Come experience it for yourself, 'It Will Change You!'. A series of images taken of various artistic, dance, music and theatre performance pieces and exhibited installations and exhibitions done by a host of artists, dancers, musicians and performers amongst others during the National Arts Festival 2023 held in Makhanda (Grahamstown), Eastern Cape, South Africa. This image taken on Sunday 25th June 2023. PICTURE: MARK WESSELS. 25/06/2023. +27 (0)61 547 2729. superkwazi@gmail.com

Reading Time: 2 minutesDeveloped from her solo piece Hatched in 2007, Mamela Nyamza's Hatched Ensemble questions and confronts this legacy, eventually transformed into a celebration of South African culture and dance traditions.

REVIEW: The Shatter Box

Reading Time: 2 minutesKnight, played with dark intensity by Fred Wardale, finds himself locked in a cage in an anonymous interrogation centre, with no idea why. He undergoes brutal interrogation, psychological breakdown, and the fringes of insanity. To escape, he only needs to tell the truth. But what truth is this, who wants it and why, and how on earth is he supposed to discover it?

REVIEW: The Bastard Sons of Catford Elvis

Reading Time: 2 minutesWritten (and possibly directed) by Tim French, The Bastard Sons of Catford Elvis tells the story of two best friends, Danny (Mike Gillette) and Billy (Niall Hemingway). Together with Danny's mother Brigitte (Kathryn Haywood), they confront Danny's estranged birth father John (Neil Maddock and Tim French), after receiving a mysterious invitation to a rock&roll event. There, they meet John, a self-proclaimed rock star, and Lisa-Marie (Maggie McGuire), later Billy's love interest. John needs Danny's cooperation to seize upon a famous TV show which is actually produced by Lisa-Marie's father, while Danny sets up an Elvis quiz to challenge John's fatherhood.

REVIEW: Vanishing

Reading Time: 2 minutesVanishing is set against the backdrop of two diners, one in Hong Kong and the other in Los Angeles, and revolves around two characters, [A] and [B]. A mysterious telepathic phone call connects them across different times and spaces, allowing for a conversation that transcends temporal and spatial boundaries. At the heart of this play is the concept of memory tied to objects and spaces, which the creators have attempted to explore using cardboard box props and video projections. However, these innovative forms also render the play with many abstract symbols that leave the audience feeling confused.

REVIEW: Farm Hall

(c) Alex Brenner

Reading Time: 2 minutesAfter a successful run at Jermyn Street Theatre in 2023, Farm Hall has now transferred to Theatre Royal Haymarket, on until the end of August. The idea is initially intriguing, the plot being based on the true story of Operation Epsilon. This was when the Allied forces held a group of German scientists in a bugged house near Cambridge, intending to spy on them and listen to their conversations, primarily to determine how far Nazi Germany had been to making an atomic bomb.