Author: The Reviews Hub - London

Director and Choreographer: Ben Duke Updating and adapting The Tale of Two Cities into a 90-minute dance piece was always going to be a big ask, and choreographer Ben Duke admits as much in the programme notes. Dickens’s 1859 novel about the French Revolution is a sprawling text and the addition of live video, guns and songs only confuses the story further. This is not the best of times. It starts well, however, with Nina-Morgane Madelaine who plays Luicie Manette, announcing that she is making a documentary about her family and its secrets. It may well be the end of…

Writer and Director: Tahys Rodriguez Re-entering the dating scene again after being in a 20-year marriage is always going to be tough, but when the reason your marriage broke down is because your husband left you for a pornstar, it makes the leap onto Tinder just that little bit harder. This hilarious feminist forage into dating, sex and dildos is a refreshing take on divorce and relationships. Avoiding all clichés, Queening instead brings a new insight into a common narrative by giving it a sexed-up spin. This performer takes the audience through the journey from finding out her husband is…

Writer: Tyrell Williams Director: Daniel Bailey In a desolate area of Inner London, located somewhat non-specifically between Peckham and Shepherd’s Bush, three teenage black boys meet up on a municipal football pitch, the Red Pitch. They banter and spar, share dreams and chocolate, sharpen their football skills in readiness for the day when a scout for a professional team spots them and carries them off to glory. At the same time, they dread change and growing up, and never, ever, want their Ends to change. The lack of a precise location is a bit of a problem here, since the…

Book: Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice Music and Lyrics: Andrew Lippa Director: Matthew White In what has been a long time coming, the delightfully ghoulish and hilarious production of The Addams Family arrives at Dartford’s Orchard Theatre as part of its UK Tour. Joanna Clifton leads as the iconic Morticia as her family struggles with the devastating consequences that her daughter, Wednesday, is besotted with a young man from a family the antithesis of the Addams’. The production, which centres around this relationship and the eventual meeting of two very different families, is a delightfully funny piece bringing to the…

Theatre and theatre writing has changed a great deal since 1995 when Charles Duff’s biography of Frith Banbury and his work in the 1950s and 1960s was first published under the title of The Lost Summer. It seems strange then, that publishers Zuleika have chosen to reissue the book in paperback under a new titled The Best of the West End: The Life and Work of Frith Banbury with some minor factual edits and a five-page author’s addendum written in 2021 in which Duff himself acknowledges some of the things that are now wrong with the book you’ve just read.…

Writers: Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong and Simone Ibbett-Brown Director: Lakesha Arie-Angelo Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong and Simone Ibbett-Brown’s 2019 play Shuck ‘n’ Jive is the latest addition to Soho Theatre’s On Demand series. This new version, created especially for its digital platform, takes advantage of film editing techniques to manage the episodic narrative, move back in time, insert fantasy sequences and draw heavily on popular culture in its exploration of endemic racism, female friendship and the value of theatre. Sick of failed auditions and stereotyped casting, friends Cassi and Simone decide to write their own play based on the everyday conversations they have with…

Writer and Director: Olivia Gibbs-Fairley When Skins came out in 2007, it was just so edgy and funny and, like, really spoke to a generation of 16-year-olds in the twenty-first century. But try watching a single episode now, and you will eye-roll so hard you probably won’t be able to get through it. That’s not to say it wasn’t as good as you remembered it, it’s just that it’s for 16-year-olds who haven’t really done anything yet and who are obsessed with their private parts, not 32-year-olds who are genuinely excited about their new toilet cleaner, and love being in…

Writer: Crystal Skillman Director: Hersh Ellis All signs point to this play carrying a positive message about the value of environmental protest. It even shows hints of interesting discussion about the tough impact a protesting lifestyle can have on those who pursue it, as well as a genuinely touching exploration of a young man’s coming to terms with his estranged father’s death. Those signs are hidden well, however, in a play populated with irritating characters, unbelievable events, inadvertent silliness and a seeming lack of serious engagement with the subject. Energetic, earnest, idealistic and obliviously privileged rebel Zoe manipulates the worried…