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REVIEW: That’s Not My Name

Reading Time: 2 minutesSpectacular, borderline, both at the same time. That's Not My Name is a provoking play engaging the audience’s senses from the beginning. The performance quite smartly plays between the edges of energy on stage, flashy colours and simplistic scenography. In fact, the minimalistic scenery plays along very nicely with the flamboyance of the musical performances in the play. A combination of ambivalences that kept captivating the audience’s attention throughout the play.  

REVIEW: Manon Lescaut

Reading Time: 2 minutesI think I can comfortably assume that the English Touring Opera’s production of Manson Lescaut at the Oxford Playhouse is vastly different from its first performances in Turin, 1893. Director and librettist Jude Christian’s fascinating biography of recent work had me on tenterhooks for the main event, and her revival of this Puccini classic did not fail to excite the senses and turn the classical world on its head. 

REVIEW: Alright, Alright, Alright

Reading Time: 2 minutesStrategically placed cardboard boxes set up along with desks, are used to not only  create the outlines of an office but as usable objects within the characters' space. This  flexible set is cleverly worked into character movements and scene changes. Bright  coloured lighting and pop cultured music really work well and bring the play to life. The performers are dressed in modern and at times stereotypical clothing but with the cast playing different characters it works. A packed theatre and a real buzz from the  audience helped to elevate the play’s comedy.  

REVIEW: Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle

Reading Time: 2 minutesMind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle at the Apollo Theatre, is inspired by a character originally seen in the Magic Goes Wrong show, curated by Mischief Comedy, forming from a group of LAMDA students who took their shows to Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their series of performances have taken the West End by storm for just over ten years.

REVIEW: Assembly Hall

Reading Time: 2 minutesCrystal Pite endeavours to ponder upon this query together with her dancing ensemble Kidd Pivot, coming back to UK with her latest Assembly Hall, a story she co-creates with Kidd Pivot's resident playwright Jonathon Young. It elaborates a group of medieval re-enactors who come for their annual meeting in their local community hall, a set ingeniously designed by Jay Gower Taylor, where a shabby basketball racket stands high and lonely, a nostalgic reminder of the old days when people spend plenty of time in communal spaces and being with others. The group faces a pivotal decision: to dissolve or not, decided by their vote.  As the narrative unfolds, the awakening of a knight from the past blurs the lines between the real and the medieval re-enactment, rolling the story into turmoil, chaos, and the knight's eventual demise — foreshadowed in the beginning. 

REVIEW: Metamorphosis

Reading Time: 2 minutesMetamorphosis at Camden People’s Theatre, devised and curated by Nina Rosaline Brostrøm, invites us into the telling of cyclical life on Earth with transformative eye-catching costumes. Exhibited here, we watch three small stories of transformation and literal metamorphosis through physical theatre, ambient music and movement.