Author: The Reviews Hub - London

Artistic Directors: Michael Nunn and William Trevitt Choreographers: Russell Maliphant, Seirian Griffiths, Xie Xin, Ivan Pérez, Liam Scarlett, Maxine Doyle, Christopher Wheelon and Javier de Frutos After 25 years, BalletBoyz’s Still Pointless serves as both a retrospective of their greatest hits and a showcase for a range of choreographic voices, but above all, it celebrates the extraordinary skill and versatility of the company’s dancers. Opening with archival footage of Michael Nunn and William Trevitt on their first day of rehearsals in 2001, the production immediately captures their infectious passion for dance and charisma. We watch them learn Russell Maliphant’s choreography…

Composer and Artistic Director: Masa Ogawa Dynamic shifts of rhythm, a swirling backdrop of projected images, dancing, chanting, screaming, singing, laughing… This energetic show is an immersive sensory encounter and a physical rebuke to the deification of Artificial Intelligence. YAMATO are a group of Taiko drummers, a well-established form of Japanese performing art. Founded 37 years ago, they hail from the Nara area of Japan, and have since pounded their way round many thousands of shows in more than 55 countries. Their characteristic blend of powerful percussion and physical theatre is an enriching and uplifting experience.  YAMATO’s founder, Masa Ogawa,…

Writer: Piers Black Director: Bryony Shanahan I’m Not Being Funny presents an evening in the life of two young parents, 24 hours before they are due to deliver five minutes of stand-up for the very first time. Peter (Jerome Yates) loves puns. Billie (Tia Bannon) wants the set to be gritty. Neither of them knows how to write comedy. Yates and Bannon inhabit the roles completely and create a domestic life that is instantly believable. They are the sort of couple that just makes sense. Constantly navigating their differences, each has a relentless desire to make it work. They have…

Writer: Some Smith and Moore Director: Alfred Taylor-Gaunt In the show blurb, the collaborative creative ensemble Some Smith and Moore describe Derrière on a G String as a “cheeky new comedy dance sensation”. Given that the dance sketch piece first appeared at Sadler’s Wells in 2019, the label ‘new’ is pushing it a bit. Is the show “the cheekiest in 50 years of the King’s Head Theatre”, as the pre-show trigger warning claims? Nudity is threatened on the programme cover, but the performers’ dance belts remain firmly on throughout, suggesting it lacks the full-frontal shock value of at least one…

Writer and Director:  Lieve de Putter ‘My echo, my shadow and me,’ The Ink Spots sang in 1946 (a song later covered by Brenda Lee), a sentiment that echoes in a new one-woman show exploring the recurring repression of women and the silencing of their voices. Performed, written and directed by Lieve de Putter, Echoes blends a modern woman navigating work and various patriarchal relationships with excerpts from Greek Tragedy and the many female characters whose stories have been shaped by men. Running at just 45 minutes, the piece makes impassioned connections between the ancient world and now, echoing the…

Cole Porter’s back. Back at the Barbican, and back in very good hands. Trafalgar Theatre Productions has quietly established itself as the Barbican’s summer resident over recent years, bringing Goodnight, Oscar, Fiddler on the Roof, Kiss Me, Kate and Anything Goes to the venue in successive seasons. Given that list, a Cole Porter revival feels less like a coincidence and more like a mission statement. Their latest is High Society, and on the basis of a press morning that offered three musical numbers, a Q&A with the cast, and a good look at the design concept, it’s shaping up to…

Coming to Jerymn Street Theatre this summer is a new production of Wife to James Whelan, a play by almost-forgotten Irish playwright Teresa Deevy and set in a small town in Ireland in 1937, focusing on the relationship between Nan Bowers and the eponymous James Whelan. It’s being brought to London by Mint Theatre, which specialises in bringing neglected plays back to the stage.  It will be directed by Mint Theater’s Jonathan Bank. Fiach Kunz (Becoming Maggie, Extremities (The New Theatre, Dublin), Romeo and Juliet, Three Days of Rain (Mill Theatre Dundrum), and A Fear and Loathing Actor in Dublin (Edinburgh Festival Fringe – also…

Writer: April Hope Miller Director: Merle Wheldon When looking for a play location that supports multiple people crossing paths, opportunities for conversations between friends and strangers, and conversations from the inane to the intimate, you can’t do much better than the ladies’ toilet in a nightclub. The particular facilities in question in April Hope Miller’s Flush belong to an establishment in Dalston – one imagines not too far from the Arcola itself. Elle Wintour’s artfully designed set, walls between cubicles left to the imagination, and fluorescent graffiti that does the opposite, plays host to teenage girls stressing about their fake…