By: StrangeWood Productions Reviewer: Lela Tredwell A life drawing session with a focus on erotica and circus skills. This is a drawing session that would best suit the seasoned life drawer. It is untutored and largely unguided as participants are invited to choose from the poses available before them in the arena. Materials are provided, although some of the drawing boards are broken. Having spent lockdown drawing live-streamed animals, this reviewer is used to some wriggling muses. However, this session starts with contortionists and chair-acrobats in constant movement. It’s hard to see how to capture a likeness in the midst…
Author: The Reviews Hub - Brighton
By: Alexandra Shaw Reviewer: Simon Topping Alexandra Shaw, as Fanny Dent, shows her audience that burlesque doesn’t have to be sexy to be creative, fun and good to watch. Bursting onto the stage to traditional striptease music, in a glitzy golden outfit, Dent starts to peel off her long black gloves with her teeth. Suddenly she stops. This isn’t what she wants to be doing. Burlesque was started by the Victorian’s to parody and ridicule the difficult aspects of life and the establishment, Dent reveals, and it has been taken over by “sexy people”. She wants to reclaim the art…
By: Selena Mersey Reviewer: Simon Topping Sigmund Freud’s Maddona-Whore complex is the unlikely topic of Selena Mersey’s hit comedy show which delights a sold out audience at the Rotunda Theatre (Squeak) Freud first coined the term which states that men see women as either the Madonna – wholly virtuous, pure and chaste, or the whore – promiscuous, seductive and degraded. In this funny hour long show Mersey is having none of this and asserts that women can be anything from one end of the spectrum to the other, as they please, or both at once, if it suits them. Mersey…
By: Sweet Productions Writer/Director: JD Henshaw Reviewer: Lela Tredwell An innovative and visceral one woman show based on a timeless classic. With this powerful exciting performance, we are reminded why the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde still fascinates a modern audience. Intellectual, woman of science, Dr Jekyll has been experimenting with methods to unleash her more base instincts. However, we learn very early on in this piece that Jekyll’s more beastly side – Hyde – has been rather relishing in pushing all the boundaries of civility. Hyde has turned murderous and there seems to be no stopping her.…
By: Give or Take Theatre Reviewer: Lela Tredwell An incredible one man show with heart, intelligence and vitality. This is an exceptional piece of theatre, inspiringly designed and performed. The show has been carefully created to envisage a rich future world on the stage. It’s an engaging performance with so much to reflect upon, as well as a central tale with high stakes and heart. Retro-terraforming agent, Dryskoll has got themselves into a spot of bother. There’s been a glitch and all they have for assistance is a sweetly empathetic AI, whose voice eerily comes to us disembodied. As Dryskoll…
By: Unmasked Theatre Writer: Harriet O’Neil Director: Joanna Rosenfeld Reviewer: Simon Topping Winners of the 2020 Brighton Scratch Night bring their witty and thought provoking play to an appreciative audience at the Rialto Theatre. It is England in 1921, a world of post-war liberation. Victoria lives with her Parisian girlfriend Celeste. They are both deeply in love but cannot truly be themselves as neither of their families are aware of their situation or just not willing to accept their sexuality. Making life harder for the couple is the fact that homosexual acts between men are illegal, while female homosexuality…
By: Nicholls & Brown Reviewer: Simon Topping Rosie Nicholls and Sullivan Brown produce some divine chemistry and plenty of laughs in the premier of their latest show Grubby Little Mitts. Decked in red, like the “White Stripes” of comedy, Nicholls and Sullivan start their set with a rollickingly fun dance to an uber-cool soundtrack. A chez lounge forms the centrepiece of their staging and is inventively used to block out scenes in a variety of ways. The performance is billed as unsettling and edgy, which thankfully it isn’t. To the performers credit this is a warm comedy show, with some…
Created by: Real Positive Poles Reviewer: Lela Tredwell Exceptionally brilliant improvised genre performance which perfectly delivers on paying homage to the iconic Twilight Zone. This shows is a beautiful demonstration of everything that improvised performance can be. From the start we are assured we are in capable hands as every detail of this experience from the audience’s point of view has been carefully considered. The performers are all devoted to their aesthetic with well-chosen costumes, a perfect soundscape, and the use of cigarette props to edit scenes and narrate in the iconic style of The Twilight Zone. We are treated…