REVIEW: Coffee Break
Reading Time: 2 minutesTwo friends are stuck in a room somewhere, waiting for something in this Camden Fringe production/
Category ★★½☆☆
REVIEW: Tones – A HipHop Opera
Reading Time: 2 minutesTones combines the gritty underground sounds of hip-hop, grime and drill with the melodrama of opera to present a piece of gig theatre like no other, as Jerome, aka The Professor, navigates his way through a treacherous path to self-discovery.
REVIEW: Armed Robbery and Suicidal Intent
Reading Time: 2 minutesGiven how golden the premise is, it's disappointing to say the entire show fails to really capitalise on it. A suicidal woman being confronted with a robber mid attempt, has a great capacity for drama, comedy, tragedy, yet very little of all three is actually achieved.
REVIEW: BED: a one man show
Reading Time: 2 minutesYou can tell a lot about someone from what they keep in their suitcase. This premise made 2021 video-game Unpacking a smash hit, with players developing a hatred for a boyfriend they’d never even met. It’s also the jumping-off point for Bed, as an unnamed protagonist (‘Boy’, played by Ben Donaghy) goes through a suitcase of mementos, sharing their stories. His objects transport the audience across a series of bedrooms throughout Europe, gradually revealing the man on stage.
REVIEW: Wind/Rush Generation(s)
Reading Time: 2 minutesMojisola Adebayo’s Wind/Rush Generation(s) is incredibly ambitious in both its scope and its staging. A confronting narrative tackles racial injustice and colonialism in the UK, framed through a group of university students communicating with a ghost via Ouija board.
REVIEW: Longitude
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.
REVIEW: Amina Khayyam Dance Company: You&Me/Bird
Reading Time: 3 minutesAmina Khayyam Dance Company brings a double-bill to The Place, combining live music and contemporary Kathak to tell current stories. While there are compelling highs, both pieces struggle to land.
REVIEW: ROOTS: (Overseas) & Is Any Body Home?
Reading Time: 2 minutesWency Lam’s ROOTS presented two unusual pieces which pushed the envelope on abstractism. Combining athleticism, artistry, and storytelling, ROOTS explores themes of identity and displacement in stories of migration and colonialism. While both works in this double bill, (Overseas) and Is Any Body Home? are interesting works of physical theater, it is difficult to connect them to their stated subject matter. Overall ROOTS features two fascinating studies of movement and expression that, unfortunately, seem to have lost the plot.
REVIEW: Black Swans
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn Black Swans, Christina Kettering and director Ria Samartzi, bring forth a narrative featuring two female protagonists, a rarity in theatre, tackling the weighty responsibilities of daughters and mothers.
REVIEW: A Rude Awokening
Reading Time: 3 minutesA Rude Awokening, premiering at the White Bear Theatre, is a show that exists in two parts – (two living rooms, to be more precise.) Written and produced by Vaughan Evans and directed by Harry Saks.