Author: The Reviews Hub - London

Writer: Ivantiy Novak The shameful story of the British massacre of peaceful Indian protesters at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar in 1919 is one that deserves to be retold. Fearing a mutiny as a result of growing civil unrest, Anglo-Indian Brigadier-General Dyer instigated marshal law. When an estimated 20,000 protesters gathered in the garden of Jallianwala Bagh, Dyer’s troops followed his orders to block the only exit of the garden and, without warning, open fire on them. Samaadhi, a piece created and performed by Ivantiy Novak and Mohit Mathur, is a work in progress. The pair have ambitious ideas, aiming to use…

Director: Tommo Fowler Writers: Einat Weizman and Issa Amro An unflinching look at hidden injustice, documentary play How to Make a Revolution is part of the Finborough Theatre’s new digital initiative, Finborough Frontier. The play examines a year in the life of Palestinian political activist, Issa Amro. Filmed at Finborough and on location, Amro introduces us to contemporary Palestine, where protests against Israeli occupation are met with arrest and a day in Military Court. The average trial lasts 10 minutes. Starting with a bare stage, Amro appears as himself, alongside a fictionalised version played by Ramzi DeHani. He stage directs,…

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Sean Holmes Can you improve on the greatest play ever written? Sean Holmes thinks we must as his new production of Hamlet opens at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre, the first time the play has been performed in this space. Forget all that existential musing on life and death, the inability to avenge, and the nature of grief, what Hamlet really needs is to lighten up and in George Fouracres’ central performance every great speech is played for laughs, even his death. Prince Hamlet is in mourning for his father but when his spirit comes to visit…

Producers: Interactive Theatre International Normally when you go out for dinner the last thing you want is bad service and a pet rat running around the kitchen, but at Faulty Towers The Dining Experience it’s all part of giving you a hilariously fun evening with Basil, Sybil and Manuel – unofficially paying homage to the 1970s classic British comedy, Fawlty Towers. Guests begin their night in the hotel bar waiting to be seated in the restaurant by grumpy hotel owner Basil (Rob Langston) using his wife Sybil’s (Karina Garnett) carefully curated seating plan. Keeping everyone entertained is waiter, Manuel (Ben…

Creator and Director: Jen Hayes For a modern reworking of Hedda Gabler, your mind might immediately leap to Ivo van Hove’s most recent effort at the National Theatre, but Jen Hayes’ 60-minute reworking of Ibsen’s text is quite an intense affair, mixing recreated scenes from the original play with personal insights delivered by the title character directly to camera. Set in a Cabaret-like no man’s land, Hayes’ version, available via Soho on Demand, may be short on psychological drama but its vicious central character has plenty of gossipy allure. Having married a man she didn’t love just because he bought…

Writer: Paul Aitchison Director: Owen Lewis We should get it out of the way first: magic shows are cool and that is essentially a fact. However, for some unfathomable reason, there are those who (while having good judgement in other areas) refuse to see the light and unfairly put the whole artistic genre in the shade because of poor memories of their uncle failing to complete a card trick. In all fairness to those who criticise this art form, there is a powerful level of naffness to most magic shows. The earnestness with which the performers approach their jobs can…

Writer: Kieran Dee Director:  Grace Millie Among the multitude of mostly pink faces surging through London on World Cup Day this summer, there may well be more than a few characters like Kerry Matthews. As a crowd they might seem boisterous, even threatening; as individuals they may be lonely, damaged and vulnerable. Kieran Dee performs his own work, with spirited direction by Grace Millie. He creates a likeable Everyman character who gets into familiar messes – his phone goes off at a funeral, he puts a precious business card in the washing machine – and doesn’t intervene in a racist…

Writer and Director: Ross McGregor In a pair of plays (currently running in rep until 19th February at the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre,) playwright Ross McGregor explores the lives and achievements of, first, Gustav Holst, composer of The Planets, and second, in Payne: the Stars Are Fire, the pioneering work of Cecelia Payne. Cecelia Payne was a student at Cambridge in 1919, but Cambridge didn’t give degrees to women until 1948, so she was forced to take a position at the Harvard College Observatory. Obviously, women couldn’t be trusted to actually use the Observatory’s telescope, so she was employed as…