Author: The Reviews Hub - London

Writer: Howard Coggins and Stu Mcloughlin Director: Craig Edwards London theatre brings you many things; grand dramas performed by living legends, innovative new plays showcasing emerging talent and the chance to ensconce yourself in lives, cultures and experiences you’ll never know first-hand. Sometimes, it also brings you a rock duet involving a recently departed Virgin Queen on electric guitar while her Guns ‘n’ Roses-esque successor James I performs air guitar on his knees, this is Elizabeth I – Virgin on the Ridiculous. Arriving at the King’s Head Theatre for a fortnight, Howard Coggins and Stu Mcloughlin’s new show is a…

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Abigail Graham Opening with a passage where the word “Jew” is turned into a frathouse drinking game, Abigail Graham wants her audience to be in no doubt about her willingness to make people uncomfortable. In fairness, there’s a warning on the website and on the pre-show welcome email. Still, however, it’s jarring to be confronted with it head on. So, Graham admirably achieves her aim. Even pre-warned that this production of a troubling and controversial play seeks to highlight and contemporise its anti-semitism, and includes new elements of anti-black racism, it still at times shocking and…

Book and Lyrics: Bill Augustin Music: Andrew Abrams Director: Tania Azevedo Of musical adaptations, this is by no means the first to draw its source text from a nostalgic cult hit in the hope to replicate its original success and acquire a loyal fan base. Heathers, Legally Blonde, and Mean Girls are but a few screen-to-stage musical adaptations to have tried (and, to varying measures, succeeded) in this endeavour, and But I’m a Cheerleader is but one among many. Likewise, the queer coming-of-age story is a popular trope for the contemporary musical: you need only look to the likes of…

Writer: Eliza Williams Director: Deirdre Daly Karen and Emma are old friends, losing touch over the years since they were younger and both ending up on very different paths in life. Karen is working two jobs, struggling to make ends meet, no kids and a fiancé of 20 years that still won’t commit fully to her. Emma on the other hand is a happily married, prominent figure on the PTA, with two sons and a pug. But as far apart as their lives appear, it’s not only their old school they have in common; their lives are scarily intertwined. Boot…

Director: Matt Powell Writer: Jude Taylor A musical comedy set against the backdrop of interwar glamour, Is He Musical?, tells the story of two friends, Wilfred and Laurence. The pair meet at the Trocadero in London, 1933. Laurence Metcalf (played by Barry O’Reilly) is a newcomer to the bar scene. He has recently moved to the capital and has few friends. This all changes when a regular, Wilfred Thomas (Teddy Hinde), bursts in to greet an adoring crowd. Wilfred – younger, but loud and gregarious – introduces themself as a “powerful force”, beyond male or female identifiers. Wilfred engages Laurence…

Writer: Gemma Barnett Director: Martha Geelan The strained relationship between three generations of women is examined as the youngest, Jo, sits in her mum’s car, preparing herself to enter the clinic where she is due to have an abortion. Writer Gemma Barnett, also playing Jo, has constructed a surreal tale where her character’s recently deceased grandmother (the titular Agatha, played by Olivia Carruthers) is enjoying a new era as a stand-up queen, as an emcee in a heavenly blues bar.  As Jo contemplates the brief reunion with her ex that resulted in her pregnancy, Agatha gets her granddaughter to role-play…

Writer and Director: Cerys Jones It’s very rare that we see us theatre reviewers on stage. Usually they are not sympathetic characters and Cerys Jones’s debut is no different, but joining the cynical reviewer on stage are a couple of actors, an usher, a member of the audience, and, the staple of press nights, an actor’s lover who can’t see the bad acting. Together they discuss the magic that is theatre. Jones’s play may be meta, but it’s never fussy. Indeed, Jones saves all the affectations for her reviewer who speaks up, interrupting an obscure Pinteresque play. At first he…

Writer: Tonderai Munyevu Director: John R. Wilkinson As suggested by its title, Mugabe, My Dad and Me, written and performed by Tonderai Munyevu, is a semi-autobiographical piece which takes a deep dive into the topics of politics, family and identity. Following an ignorant conversation with a white customer at his ‘day job’, Munyevu constructed this self-aware play to confront the lazy assumptions often put to him regarding his origins in Zimbabwe. The piece summarizes his complex thoughts, feelings and experiences surrounding the rise and fall of former Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, British colonialism, and the damaging laws around land ownership…