Author: The Reviews Hub

Writer: Cynthia Shaw Director: Peter Michael Marino Founded in 2018, PRO.ACT Fest is a Ukrainian theatre festival. It specialises in theatre performances and workshops. This year, its theme is “Unbreakable”. While the festival cannot take place in Kyiv, the organisers are offering online performances from around the world. [Editors note – this production was reviewed via online stream but the production is also showing at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe] Leaning into the festival’s theme of tenacity and perseverance is one-woman show, Velvet Determination. Written and performed by American pianist Cynthia Shaw, she walks onto a bare stage, just a keyboard…

Book, Music & Lyrics:  Justin Huertas Director:  Brandon Ivie Getting drenched in dragon’s blood cannot be good for you, surely? Think of how hard it must stain for starts. But this is precisely what happened to Trevor, and a few other classmates of his, when he was a young boy. Twenty years later – his skin a vibrant green colour, scaly and touch, Trevor ends up on the one place anyone can find love: Grindr. But that’s where the most dangerous, exciting, and fabled journeys originate…right? Venturing from the land of the free to the cobbles of Edinburgh, Justin Huertas’s…

Why is a company based in Scarborough North Yorkshire bringing a giant puppet to Crawley? Aura’s Odyssey is an ongoing journey. So far she has travelled hundreds of miles on her travels. She is a visitor; an explorer; curious about meeting others and making new discoveries. Animated Objects are committed to bringing large-scale puppetry and artworks to venues that may not have previously had the opportunity to see something of this scale on their doorstep. We specialise in creating pieces that allow space for local artists and community makers to share their work with a wider audience alongside larger-than-life characters,…

This is the story of an awakening: the awakening of something raw, unaware, and unfiltered, that of a Wild Woman. The soil beneath her feet is not the foundations of her journey, however, instead progressing through this new world, and her body through movement to explore her aerial surroundings, in a brief and allegorical adventure through evolution as this Wild Woman, devoid of self-conscious thought begins to meticulously discover her limbs, her muscles, and her being. Per chance, remember to breath, difficult to remember as the entirety of your conscious will be initially captivated by the displays of physical aerial…

What strikes you most when chatting to Martyn Jacques – songwriter, accordion player, pianist, falsetto and frontman of The Tiger Lillies – is just how much he loves his job. While his on-stage personae is a man weary with the world, the real Jacques is full of optimism, bursting with energy and seemingly very happy with his lot. From back rooms in pubs to major international tours, 30 years of Tiger Lillies, he says “has always been fantastic”. My first experience of this extraordinary band was at West Yorkshire Playhouse (as it was then) in 1998 in Shockheaded Peter, the…

I can still remember very clearly the day when I birthed the idea of Raging Mother. I said to my husband (Marzi Nyman) that I was sick and tired of the “ideal of a good mother”, something that I thought I could never fit in to. I was temperamental, impulsive and short-tempered, and I still am. And even though I had lots of friends, I couldn’t talk to anyone about my deepest feelings and darkest moments of motherhood. I was too ashamed. So I decided to say it all out loud, and to do a show about it, of course…

The people I make theatre with are a huge part of my life. I can’t talk about my work without thinking about them. Every performance represents hundreds of hours of collaboration, and I’m lucky to be part of a fluctuating system of women directors, designers, actors, and producers connected through off-Broadway residencies, labs and festivals. We make projects happen and give each other much-needed support in a theatre system that’s been under unprecedented pandemic stress. We watch each other’s work, celebrating its value even when it hasn’t hit home with an audience or the critics. Sometimes, we are the critics;…

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: John Young Picture the scene: a balmy July evening, an ice cold bottle of Prosecco and a night of outdoor entertainment ahead of you watching Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, in the picturesque Grosvenor Park. Are you tempted yet? Set in 1950s Italy, the era when the concept of being a teenager first sprang into being, there is a sense of rebellion in the air. Director John Young and his ten-strong cast have done an admirable job bringing  Shakespeare’s most popular work to life. It feels fresh, dangerous and full of zeal. The decision to cut a…