Tag Archives: Anna Reid

Writer: Maud Dromgoole Director: Tatty Hennessy Reviewer: Karl O'Doherty Thank god for the snappy set and lighting design here - with 39 named characters and two actors it had the potential to all go a bit 39 Steps. Keeping each speaker separate, identifiable and interesting as the play goes on is a challenge - but by deploying the simple technique ...

Writer: Joy Wilkinson Director: Kirsty Patrick Ward Reviewer: Stephen Bates It could come as a surprise to many that, 143 years before Nicola Adams picked up her first Olympic Gold Medal, women’s boxing was already underway. Writer Joy Wilkinson delves into this little-known activity for her new play and uses it as the foundation for a startling, visceral account of ...

Writer: Milly Thomas  Director: Sara Joyce  Reviewer: Stephen Bates A report produced in August 2018 by the charity The Children’s Society found that 22% of 14-year-old girls in the United Kingdom admitted to having self-harmed. Alice in Milly Thomas’s play, a 75-minute monologue, was a little older, but her body still shows the scars from self-inflicted wounds as it lies ...

Writer: Joel Drake Johnson Director: Jonathan O’Boyle Reviewer: Richard Maguire After causing some controversy in Chicago, where it is set, and New York, Rasheeda Speaking now receives its UK premiere in the snug upstairs space at the Trafalgar Studios. The play’s frank examination of a relationship between a white woman and a black woman, both working as receptionists in a doctor’s ...

Writer: Abi Morgan Director: David Loumgair Reviewer: Stephen Bates How are we supposed to deal with the randomness of fate in a world where one person can survive being struck by lightning and another can be killed by a flying sandwich? Abi Morgan’s Tiny Dynamite asks this question through two troubled characters. She wrote the play in 2001 and she ...

Writer: Halley Feiffer Director: Jake Smith Reviewer: Stephen Bates It is tricky to review a play that begins with a savage diatribe against theatre critics. Halley Feiffer's forensic study of the darker side of theatre sees successful playwright David convening with his daughter Ella, an actor, to await the first reviews of an off-Broadway production of The Seagull, in which she has ...

Writer: Alex MacKeith Director: Charlie Parham Reviewer: Stephen Bates Hardly a day goes by without news of our failing public services hitting the headlines. The cumulative effects of spending cuts and successive governments playing Ping Pong with methods of operation have led to, for example, the education system being stretched to breaking point and Alex McKeith's topical new play is a ...

Writer: Toms Wells Director: Chris Lawson Reviewer: Ruth Gerrard Tom Wells’ hugely engaging Jumpers for Goalposts blasts its way into the Oldham Coliseum with flair and grace and a story that cannot fail to resonate. The squad of Barely Athletic invite us in to the world of post-match team talks about football, love, loss, relationships, hopes and dreams and most ...