“A captivating performance that showcased The Psychedelic Furs at their best.”
The Psychedelic Furs at the Royal Albert Hall put on a genuinely strong show that felt both nostalgic and current at the same time. There was a real sense of anticipation before they came on, and the intimacy of Albert Hall couldn’t have suited them better. I had a view wherever I went and the sound carried beautifully, with that mix of clarity and atmosphere that makes you remember why it’s such an iconic place for live music.
Shout out to Anja Huwe for putting on a great opening act. Her voice has that distinctive dark tone that works well with the post-punk sound she’s known for, and it was interesting to hear how her solo work blends with her older material. By the time she finished, the crowd was clearly ready for the main event.
When The Psychedelic Furs finally came on, they went straight into one of their slower, moodier songs, and from that moment the atmosphere completely shifted. Richard Butler walked on with total confidence, dressed sharp as ever, and instantly commanded attention. There’s something about the way he moves and delivers each lyric that keeps you completely focused on him.
They played all the hits that people were hoping for, including “Love My Way,” “Heaven,” and “Pretty In Pink,” and you could feel the energy of the crowd when each came on. The setlist had a good balance between the familiar favourites and a few deeper cuts from their back catalogue. The band sounded tight and polished, with every instrument sitting perfectly in the mix. You could tell they’ve been playing together for a long time.
The only slight disappointment was that they came on later than expected, which made the set feel shorter once things got going. They didn’t do an encore either, and a few people around me were waiting for one, but it never happened. Even so, the show didn’t feel lacking. It was concise, confident, and full of energy from start to finish.
If you go to watch The Psychedelic Furs you’ll understand just like me, how they’ve stayed a big act for many years. Solid performances from musicians who clearly know their craft. The Albert Hall was the perfect backdrop for it, and while I would have loved a slightly longer set, it still felt like an evening well spent watching a band that continues to deliver decades on.
The Psychedelic Furs tour continues across Europe this winter. Tickets are available here.
“A charming show about grief, menopause, and new friends.”
Kindling, written by Sarah Rickman (who also stars) and directed by Emma Gersch, is a warm and frequently charming production that brings together five perimenopausal women on a mandatory camping trip. They are embarking on this adventure to fulfill a late friend’s final wish, and in doing so, they are thrust into an unfamiliar environment where shared grief and clashing personalities ultimately forge unexpected bonds.
The core appeal of Kindling lies in its genuine depiction of people connecting, sharing memories, and ultimately becoming friends. It’s a joy to watch this realistic ragtag bunch warm up to each other. The notes of shared grief are handled with a refreshing authenticity and the emotional and pensive moments are where the show truly shines, feeling very real and never overdone. The comedic elements, while occasionally broad and predictable, generally land well and contribute to the play’s light touch. Bonus points are due for some particularly believable drunk acting that adds to the jovial atmosphere.
While the eventual connection feels true, the initial stages of the women’s relationship occasionally strain credibility. Some of the characters are really quite mean to each other from the off, a level of overt antagonism between near-strangers that feels bizarre and not true to life.
Furthermore, while all the characters are somewhat heightened, the character of Rose, played by writer Sarah Rickman, stands out as being almost a toddler in an adult’s body. For me, this characterisation crossed the line from being merely heightened into feeling unreal, almost belonging in a different show entirely.
A standout element is the excellent set design by Abi Groves. A painted backdrop of a forest scene cleverly melds into real branches, with leaves, twigs, and dirt scattered on the floor. This attention to detail succeeds in grounding the play, helping to bring the whole show to life.
In conclusion, Kindling is a charming if imperfect show. It tackles themes of grief, menopause, and new friendships with a winning spirit and real emotional depth. Though the cast is exclusively middle-aged women, the show’s appeal extends far wider. Its fundamental story of human connection is universal, managing to charm audiences of all ages and genders.
Kindling is playing at the Park Theatre until November 15th. Tickets are available here.
Electrifying, sensational and satisfyingly exhausted
Decipher means to figure out or make sense of something that is difficult to comprehend.
To decipher something may require not only epistemological knowledge but also embodied knowledge. You cannot decipher the smell of jasmine without actually smelling it.
Co-created by Jean Abreu and Naishi Wang, with dramaturgy by Guy Cools, Deciphers is a multidisciplinary dance performance that explores cross-cultural negotiation and connection. Both as multi-cultural immigrant artists, the pair expresses their emotions and concerns about the globally urgent issue of immigration throughout the world in today’s political and cultural climate.
The London stage never lacks shows and plays about immigration, diaspora and cross-cultural identity. What distinguishes Abreu and Wang is that, instead of interweaving those disputes into a spoken drama, they choose to illustrate their mutual journeys as immigrants through their bodies both as a site and a tool. The physicality of Deciphers is at once extremely intense yet extremely subtle, where emotions and confusions, and frustrations are not only embodied in their movements but also delicately transmitted in-between their movements. This is a realm where spoken language usually become inadequate to carry.
However, the piece also contains an entire dialectical, even philosophical sequence where Abreu and Wang discuss the notion of “completeness” (wanzheng完整) in Portuguese and Chinese. It could be an extra bonus if you understand either of the language, but it would be equally fine if you do not. Through their crawling, swirling, hugging and entangling, the emotional and physical intensity becomes undeniably weighty that you can barely breath, as if you are viscerally empathetic to their fierce struggle and oppression as immigrants. Especially if you are one yourself, it is beyond overwhelming.
Ivy Wang’s visual design and Luccie Bazzo’s lighting create a minimalist yet intimate world within the Coronet Theatre. At one moment, Bazzo’s neon-textured light projects their silhouettes in a Warholian style; in another, a warm orange hue cuts the stage into uneven halves that evoke a sense of the existential undertone of French contemporary dance. Olesia Onykiienko’s composition is restrainedly precise, surfacing at crucial moments to underscore the performers’ inner turmoil.
Lie Dormant. Men in dark times. At the beginning, Abreu and Wang draw on a vast plastic scroll that later crumples into a tangled mass, pierced by two light tubes. However terrible our world might seem for now temporarily, there is, and will always be, light.
An absolutely terrifying show that’ll get your heart rate up
stories that were told tonight were ones not for the faint hearted. An unraveling of fear in real time kept us as the audience very occupied, trying to figure out piece by piece what was going to happen next.
Even More Ghost Stories By Candlelight co-produced by Pentabus and Hightide, written by Florence Espeut-Nickless, Simon Longman, Anne Odeke and Rosa Torr and directed by Elle While brought modernised Victorian ghost stories to life. Completing three productions of this well made show, we see four stories, gruesome, horrific and paranormal.
The elements glued well together in this production, nothing left detached. An old urban dank space decaying was the space. Mushrooms growing on the rocks and walls, mold seeping in the building, the stage was efficient and managed to cover and compensate for each story.
Throughout the performance the lighting made me jump madly, red eyes appearing, biblical shining white lights. Bleeding sound coming into the space frightened the whole audience each and every time it was used. The dialogues developed well, going from attempting to convince us about something paranormal, to then diving deep into what was happening, feeling, sensations, physically too.
The pace was fast yet easy to follow. After each short story ended, there was perhaps a fifteen second gap to breath after holding my breath for each and every story. But apart from that, there was nowhere to escape these tales.
Both actors gave a convincing performance throughout. Having the ability to swap between voices and roles, without overwhelming or over complicating matters. Keaton Guimarães-Tolley gave a specific and hilarious showing of multiple characters, all characters portrayed by Guimarães-Tolley had a clownish side to them, making me feel bad for when something bad happened. Sarita Gabony was brilliantly quick switching thoughts and feelings from one character to another.
The dramaturgical choices were well executed. The forms of storytelling between each story changed every so slightly, keeping me on the edge of my seat, excited for the next one.
Something that I am still thinking about now is the motif of the white horse, a prompt that continuously popped up in each story, changing purpose and scale but always keeping some sort of resemblance. By the end of the performance, a tiny white horse figure had made its way to the stage, faintly projecting white light. Now this small figurine had so much thought behind it, I felt convinced by what I had seen. I believe what was witnessed was genuinely disturbing.
Overall, this show was fantastically frightening, bold and captivating, I believe it to be a must see and fitting for this time of year.
This show runs at the Bristol Old Vic theatre from the 21st of October until the 25th of October. It then continues touring until the 8th of November 2025.
A provoking examination of the erotic and voyeuristic
Martha Graham, at the advent of opening her company to men, was plagued by an issue among her new hires: vagina envy. Graham had, for years, coached her dancers ewith uterine terminology, causing discontent for the men. If anyone is to carry on that fine tradition of “dance from the vagina” as Martha put it, it just might be Elena Antoniou. The Cypriot dancer brings her solo work Landscape to close the international festival Dance Umbrella with a takeover of the Shoreditch Town Hall. Using a vernacular that’s highly sexual, it promises to be a solo that ‘dares us to watch’, playing with our ideas of observation and objectification.
We enter to Antoniou raised high above the ground on a platform in the centre of the space. Audience members are free to roam, stand, and sit anywhere in the space to get a look. Antoniou takes us all in, her arms floating as if full of air. She begins to lock eyes with her audience — she has a very authoritative stare. We get the impression that Antoniou is some sort of untouchable queen bee, or a glittering, free sexual being, proudly flaunting her stuff to the gawking onlookers as she humps the floor and spreads her legs.
The act of observation isn’t just between the viewer and Antoniou, but between the audience members too. Though there’s some haze and low lighting, a lot of the other audience members are still within clear view. You really notice the movement of the herd — when one person changes position it almost always triggers a ripple effect of repositioning among the audience. When Antoniou hits a new position many viewers, including myself, take out their phone to record her next act of exertion — Antonio’s allows her performance to be filmed and photographed. Sometimes our attention is drawn too to individuals that Antoniou singles out. (There was also a child there for some reason).
This absolute obliteration of the fourth wall makes Antoniou all the more compelling. At first it is as if she is trying to lure us in intentionally, later it feels as if she is some sort of caged animal that poses for our entertainment, further still and she begins to look at us like one would curiously admire a fish tank. Antoniou’s expression glides between sultry and quizzical, angry and apathetic. The piece continues. Antoniou paces her small domain with an increasing impatience. She slams her fist into the ground, wallops her pleasers against the hard surface. Cracks begin to show little by little. With her pelvis jutted out and legs splayed she very slowly recoils, her expression drops as if a little embarrassed.
The element of vulnerability is what really makes this work magnetic. There is certainly a level of novelty in the format, and the hazy lighting and sparse, bassy score create an icy vibe. But Antoniou, as an object on display, strikes a nerve in whoever watches her. You want desperately for her to be able to speak. Instead she continues to slink about her stage and perform. She stares defiantly in my direction, it feels as if we lock eyes. Standing tall, but weighed by melancholy, she stamps her left foot into the ground again and again, barking some sort of command or insult, perhaps crying out for help. She stamps and stamps. The house lights come up and people begin to slowly file out, a few of us stay. She continues to stamp as her face becomes weighted with a sort of grief, as if she can no longer bear us to see her like this.
Though initially neutral and distant in its style, Landscape is a work that casts you under a spell. It may even have you not wanting to leave at all. A highly compelling solo work that is a marked standout in Dance Umbrella’s programme.
Chanel McKenzie’s script is impressive, bolstered by Ann-Isabel Olujohungbe’s performance
Chanel McKenzie’s The Institution of Failed Artists follows struggling rapper, Rubes, who enters a militant institution designed to give failing artists one final chance to succeed.
The premise of Artists is very interesting, and the team’s execution of it does not disappoint.
McKenzie, a Soho Writers lab alumni, interweaves rap and scripted dialogue to give us a view of Rubes’ inner world and potential as an onstage performer. Both aspects of this are delivered with grandeur and finesse by Ann-Isabel Olujohungbe, who brings every corner of Rubes’ world to life. Whilst there may have been some nerves at the start, once Olujohungbe established the space as one she domineered, her performance immersed us fully in the world of the play. There was an investment in character that wasn’t afraid to be both playful and painful. Olujohungbe is clearly a seasoned actor with the ability to hold a room.
McKenzie’s script is impressively expansive. The characterisation of Rubes is incredibly detailed and humane, with our experience of her story feeling very intimate. Alongside this, the supporting characters are also given a fullness very rarely seen in such a short script. Notably, Rubes’ love interest and the guard she befriends are both very fleshed out characters. Even one liners from some of the fellow artists towards the end give us a fully realised idea of their personal stakes which have brought them to join the institution. The world building as a whole is strong, and it’s a testament to McKenzie’s skill that the play is able to do this all within an hour long slot. With a little more time, perhaps we could spend longer with the beginning and the end of the play, to further fully establish the institution, and to allow the resolution to build some more.
Props must also be given to the lighting, designed by Aran Baskar. This was by far a highlight of the show’s overall design. Similarly to McKenzie’s script, the lighting was diverse in tone, switching from concert style flashlights, to eerie washes which assisted the darker undertones of the play.
With a specialised set designer, the show could be visually immaculate. Sometimes the set felt a little sparse and unfocused, and with some more specific choices, we would get an ever better sense of the space Rubes is confined to. Tightening the space, making it more restrictive, would compliment the limiting impression we get of the institution in the story.
McKenzie’s The Institution of Failed Artists is a brilliant study of the artist’s struggle, that avoids being indulgent or pitying. There’s a real understanding and exploration of the sacrifices that have to be made not even to succeed, but simply to have a chance of doing so. Risk plays an enormous factor in the life of an artist. With a play so dynamic, invested, and thoroughly entertaining, that risk has certainly paid off.
The U.K. premiere of Mimi’s Shebeen has exploded onto the new Sadler’s Wells East stage in Stratford, and is certainly another success for the venue. Created and directed by Associate Artist of the theatre Alesandra Seutin, who has a historic artistic interest in deep, movement-focused social commentary, the 90 minute piece is a resoundingly profound lamentation on Pan-African Black struggle.
Alesandra has collaborated with KVS (Royal Flemish Theatre, Brussels) to produce a striking multidisciplinary movement piece, incorporating poetry, spoken word and music to explore the legacy of Miriam Makeba. Often referred to as ‘Mama Africa’, Miriam was an anti-apartheid activist and musician known for her relentless and widespread impact. Against the backdrop of a desecrated Shebeen, an underground space where Black South Africans would come together to escape the regime and discuss their grievances, Seutin introduces a powerful setting to explore Miriam’s life and her travels. In doing so, we are taken on a transformative journey through the impacts of colonialism across Africa.
The piece is ambitious, and executes its exploration with grace and powerful urgency. Through Mimi’s lens, a fictionalised character inspired by Miriam Makeba, we explore her journey in exile from South Africa, and are invited into the splendour and strife of her travels. As a “Shebeen Queen”, Mimi is embodied by Tutu Puoane, whose haunting, astounding vocals take us from place to place.
What is especially remarkable in the piece is its commitment to an embodied expression of complex emotions. The journey is not linear, nor is it autobiographical in the traditional sense. Through Mimi’s eyes, the audience are invited to experience a unified struggle, with striking poetic pieces, breathwork and a company of dancers who are completely in tune with the musicians. The company themselves demonstrated a disciplined, yet seemingly spontaneous symbiosis between the movement and music; the controlled unity of the ensemble, often precise and structured, is also filled with emotional abandon and a sense of complete freedom. The performers completely give themselves to the audience. The accompanying musical duo, Angelo Moustapha and Zouratié Koné, are spellbinding in their honed ability to switch between musical styles to denote each place.
The Pan-African ideas that centre Mimi’s Shebeen provide an important reminder of shared experience and humanity. The embodied approach means that we are invited into indigenous perspectives and experiences of colonialism, where moments of cultural specificity are shared without taking away from the central theme. The piece powerfully centres movement and music as rebellion, protest, community and commemoration.
The set and sound design are impressive additions to the experience, at first beginning as a site of violence and mourning, and evolving from place to place, sometimes triumphant, sometimes reflective.
The immersive sound design is well crafted, at times giving us direct clips from Makeba herself, and ending with an affecting auditory experience.
Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, is a story of racial inequality and injustice in 1930’s Alabama, seen through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch. Centered around a trial where their father Atticus (meticulously played by John J. O’Hagan in tonight’s performance) defends Tom Robinson (an exquisite Aaron Shosanya) against false accusations of assault and rape, the children are faced with shifting perspectives and judgements of them and those around them, as well as a reclusive neighbour.
In this adaptation by Aaron Sorkin, the structure of the show differs from a novel via an intriguing chronology. The climax of the novel is focused on the trial and the aftermath, whereas here we’re given slices of the trial from the start of the production, interspersed with flashbacks and contextual scenes, driven by the perspective of Scout and Jem, and their friend Dill Harris.
Miriam Buether’s uniquely constructed set design, with stage elements pulled and pushed together by cast members to form each environment in seconds, facilitates this frequent change in perspective, and helped create a sense of movement on stage, breaking up the static elements of dialogue. However, given the softness of the Southern drawl, there were occasions on this night where the set movements overpowered the final words of dialogue.
The cast performances really excel in this production. Atticus and Tom Robinson aside, Scout (played by a superb Anna Munden, all restless energy and youthful curiosity) and Jem (Gabriel Scott, perfectly wrestling with the threshold of adulthood and righteous indignation), in combination with Dill (a delightful Dylan Malyn) are excellent counterpoints to the rest of the story, providing comic relief as well as knowing asides with added context to the audience. Oscar Pearce is fantastically odious as Bob Ewell, and Evie Hargraves as Mayella Ewell, wonderfully portrayed her fear before slipping into repeating her father’s poisonous rhetoric, in a chilling outburst.
Understandably given the subject nature, this is a heavy-going play, especially with the oft-repeated racist speech, combined with a run time of nearly 3 hrs including interval. The comic relief, coming from the three youngsters, particularly Dill, comes as a welcome relief.
In the programme notes, Sorkin notes that the character of Calpurnia (played here by Andrea Davy) has been given more of a voice (and rightly so) but aside from some conversations with Atticus, this still feels rather half-hearted, relying on zingy one-liners to end conversations, rather than rounding out the character. This is especially apparent when there’s an incredibly brief but tender exchange between her and Scout that begged to be explored more deeply.
All in all, this is an excellent production that will enthrall lovers of the book and those new to the story, and throws into sharp relief the importance and the relevance of the message in today’s society. The audience reaction of a standing ovation was the only fitting response to a play that will stay with viewers for years to come.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” runs from 21 – 25 October 2025, at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, before touring across UK & Ireland. Further information and show dates are available from: https://www.mockingbirdplay.com/tour
Watkins writes with comedic flair and a healthy edge of nihilism in an emotive and passionate exploration into the messiness of human beings.
‘It’s actually a beautiful thing to be able to not have to search far and wide for meaning.’
It was a privilege to attend the Camden People’s Theatre to review Linsey Watkin’s Spirit guidesand Shit Eaters, a beautifully written two-hander that captivated its audience with witty dialogue, philosophical musings, and emotionally stirring performances given by Lucy Buncombe and Kieran Robson.
The play (directed by Lucy Campbell) follows Jude and Ash, as they become an influential presence in each other’s lives following a meet-cute in a very unlikely place – a graveyard.
Jude and Ash are initially portrayed as each other’s opposite; Jude lives a life filled with excess and feels overwhelmed by choice, while Ash feels a debilitating lack of self-assurance and direction. Within these contradictions, they live and breathe as intricately developed characters who connect, oscillate, and unravel one another’s sense of self, leaving the other stripped back and vulnerable. We learn as the play progresses that what truly binds them together is fear; unequivocal, all-consuming fear.
The play often oscillates between sharp realism, whimsical musings, and raw, truthful meditations on mortality. Its non-linear form worked well, and the use of space and lighting to show connection and detachment was effective. Buncombe and Robson gave powerful performances, skillfully delivering lengthy monologues with a rhythmic elegance while allowing space for human hesitation, both capturing the woefulness and indulgence of the characters as well as their vulnerability and sincerity.
The plot then swerves, taking a direction that is unexpected and heightens the drama and intrigue, as Jude and Ash begin to live vicariously through the deceased subjects pulled from Jude’s research. They begin to memorialise the people who lived their lives before them, building mosaics of people made up of romanticised ideas and fragmented pieces of their former lives. Mortality thus stands out as a key theme at the forefront of this play, as through death, the characters find ways to live – and to feel alive.
Spirit Guides presents a litany of creative, clever and bold ideas; perhaps it could be even stronger if some of them were further fleshed out. I felt that the concept of the protagonist living a day in the life of a different deceased person per week was an incredibly interesting one, and one that would have been nice to explore further. However, it sometimes felt like a subheading of sorts, serving as a means to bring the characters together, but not a completely developed and explored idea.
Thus, the relationships of the character forms the play’s core, which sometimes felt a little unsatisfying due to their relationship never truly feeling completely authentic. Their connection felt intense, but built upon unreliable and easily demolishable foundations. Perhaps this could be an encapsulation of the irrefutable passion young people navigate the world with; with vigour as well as a fickleness, occasionally flimsy in their convictions as they build upon their sense of self.
Thus, I felt that the dramaturgical shape of the play could be reworked to centre the plot point aforementioned, which would allow for more space for their journey as individuals. As Jude poses to Ash,
‘Choose someone – who do you want to be?’
I felt invited to wonder who I would be, if I could live as someone else. What kind of life I would choose for myself, and what that choice would say about me.
I was therefore somewhat perplexed when the female character becomes a stereotype of what she seemingly didn’t want to become – but perhaps we as the audience are witness to the circumstances that teaches her what she does want – something that is sure, and a fulfillment in looking after others and being loved.
Ultimately, I felt that Spirit Guides was insightful, entertaining and very relatable. It captures the feeling of helpless desperation upon seeing a bookshelf full of books, knowing you want to devour them all but that you somehow won’t get round to it. It captures the pain of not feeling enough, and too much, all at once. It paints with the colours of loneliness and the confusion of being young, the anxiety of not feeling like you have many, (-if not any-) of the answers of who to be and how to be. It touches on what it means to need someone else’s clarification that you exist, and not just that, but that your existence is meaningful. That one’s existence only matters if it means something, to someone.
Watkins also meditates on this within the ideology of making and of creating art; touching on the impact of art when profiting off of someone else’s accomplishments, and the ethics of artistic collaboration and ownership. Watkins writes with comedic flair and a healthy edge of nihilism in an emotive and passionate exploration into the messiness of human beings.
“A warm, witty Austen adaptation that even won over this Emma novice.”
Walking into the Oxford Playhouse for Emma, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Never having read the book or seen a previous version I lacked previous knowledge of the story and was bracing for a lot of characters in bonnets and a plot I might struggle to follow. What I got instead was a warm, funny, thoughtfully staged production that had the audience (including me) fully charmed.
The set was simple but effective: clean, minimal, and clever with lighting to help us shift between indoor drawing rooms and outdoor garden strolls. Nothing flashy, but it didn’t need to be, it let the characters and dialogue take centre stage. Scene changes were slick, using ensemble characters as members of the household, which kept the pace flowing nicely in the first half, and the whole thing had a polished feel without ever becoming stuffy.
India Shaw-Smith was a clear standout as Emma: charismatic, confident, and completely watchable. She held the whole piece together with ease, moving between comedy and sincerity as Emma’s emotional arc unfolded. William Chubb also deserves a special mention as the hypochondriac Mr Woodhouse, his comic timing was spot on and clearly a hit with the audience.
The rest of the cast were strong across the board, and you could feel how well they worked together as an ensemble. While the plot got a little bogged down in the second half (especially if, like me, you’re new to the story and can see the ending from a mile off), the performances still carried it through. A slightly tighter final act wouldn’t have hurt, but it never lost its charm.
What surprised me most was just how funny the show was. The humour landed again and again, gentle in tone but genuinely laugh-out-loud in places. It felt faithful to Austen’s wit but didn’t rely on the audience knowing the book inside out. The room was full of audible enjoyment from start to finish, whether people were longtime fans or not.In short: this Emma was a thoughtful, well-performed adaptation with a lightness of touch and a real sense of joy. It’s unlikely to convert Austen-sceptics, but if you’re open to a period drama that knows exactly what it’s doing — and does it well — it’s absolutely worth seeing.
Emma plays at the Oxford Playhouse until 25th October. Tickets are available here.
