Author: The Reviews Hub - London

Writer: Guillaume Doussin Director: Nora Lempriere and Montel Douglas Nobody likes team-bonding exercises or mandatory company socials. At this megacorporation, four colleagues are forced to partake in a variety of trust exercises and hierarchy free games – all unpaid and overseen by those at the top, of course, because what says ‘fun’ more than a shared complimentary bottle of prosecco and a worksheet full of compulsory tasks?! In Eating Jeff, absurdism meets activism in this wickedly dark storyline. Fed up with the rich getting richer while everyone else struggles to pay their bills and muddle through zero-hour contracts, No Table…

Choreographers: Boris Charmatz and SERAFINE1369 … And five, six, seven, eight. Counting is integral to dance; counting in, counting the beat, counting time and Boris Charmatz’s Infini is a homage to the importance of counting both in this art form and in society. As part of Van Cleef and Arples Dance Reflections festival at Sadler’s Wells, Tate Modern and the Royal Opera House, Infini is partnered with SERAFINE1369’s piece when we speak I feel myself, Opening – it proves a diverse evening. Infini transforms the Sadler’s Wells main house, creating a traverse stage with seats on both sides of the…

Writer and director: Edward Einhorn The celebrated writer Gertrude Stein and her lover/wife Alice B Toklas were Americans in Paris long before Gene Kelly went there to dance. According to US writer Edward Einhorn’s play, receiving its European premiere, they were part of an artsy set that populated the French capital in the early part of the 20th Century, flouting society’s conventions and getting away with it the name of “genius”. As the title states, the story centres entirely around the wedding of the two women. This is the sort of play, packed with intellectual pretentiousness, that frequently wows New…

Writer: Lashay Green ‘It’s too much, too soon and you can’t manage it’. This is how Oya Heart Warrior, Fizzy Sherbet’s latest guest, simplifies the meaning of trauma. Lashay Green’s play, Eulogies, is about the way any trauma that affects a mother affects her child. It’s an ancient and universal story, played out in theatres from Greek tragedy onwards. In Green’s version a Black woman in Northwest London deals with the fall-out from many layers of trauma – generational, racial and mental. Since Sophie Williams (author of Millennial Black) appeared in Episode 1 of this series, this is the first…

Book: Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan  Director: Paul Kerryson  It’s a trip to the swinging sixties, and a chance to find your true self, as the heartwarmingly fun Hairspray hits Dartford’s Orchard Theatre as part of its UK tour. The iconic musical follows the trials and tribulations of Tracy Turnblad (Katie Brace) who dreams of stardom on the dance floor. The production follows her story as she seeks acceptance for who she truly is against the volatile backdrop of 60s America, fraught with enrooted intolerance as society struggles to adapt to a modern way of thinking. This musical is as…

Book: Julian Fellowes Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber Lyrics: Glenn Slater Director: Laurence Connor There’s something faintly bizarre about a musical encouraging us to “stick it to the man”, written by two septuagenarian straight white male members of the House of Lords. You certainly wouldn’t expect an anti-establishment message to come from the minds behind Downton Abbey and The Phantom of the Opera. And yet that is exactly what School of Rock Is – a message about the importance of self-expression over rigid societal expectations, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and with a book by Julian Fellowes. It helps, of course, that…

Writer: Tom Wells Director: Caroline Leslie The Kitchen Sink returns to London over a decade after its acclaimed debut at the Bush Theatre and it hasn’t aged a day. Hull playwright, Tom Wells, anchors the intimate drama in Withernsea, yet his down-to-earth depiction of small-town family life feels universal. The play follows struggling parents, Kath and Martin, and their almost-grown children, Billy and Sophie, as they stumble through a year together. What feels particularly wholesome about this family drama is that there is a minimum of in-fighting. The family certainly bicker but it is clear that they ultimately care for…

The middle eight of a song is typically a turning point. It’s a moment of difference to peak the listeners’ interest, keep them on their toes, and draw them a little closer. True to its name, beneath the Middle Eight Hotel is a venue that aims to do just that. With more that 10,000 live music events taking place in the capital every year (according to an Expedia study in 2017), standing out from the crowd is a challenge. To do that the Middle Eight has found virtuoso saxophonist Leo Green who brings together a variety of different artists to…