Tag Archives: Battersea Arts Centre

Creators and Performers:  Josie Dale-Jones, Lydia Higginson, Nobahar Mahdavi, and Olivia Norris Reviewer:  Richard Maguire A few years ago in a foreign country Lydia Higginson was forced to strip at gunpoint. For a long time after, Higginson suffered from PTSD, but after six years she felt stronger and realised that now was the time to get, in a metaphorical sense, ...

Writer: Bryony Kimmings Directors:  Kirsty Housley and Bryony Kimmings Reviewer:  Richard Maguire Bryony Kimming’s one-woman show already comes studded with so many four and five-star recommendations, it seems almost unnecessary to review it. But here goes. I’m a Phoenix, Bitchis a multi-media restaging of the worst years of Kimming’s life. This is therapy on a grand scale. In 2016, after ...

Writer: Miriam Sherwood Reviewer:  Richard Maguire Miriam Sherwood’s grandparents threw the biggest parties in the darkest times. Surviving the Nazis in the Second World War, and then surviving the political purges of the 1970s, Sherwood’s grandparents managed to remain in Slovakia for decades before they were forced to flee to Munich. Rendezvous in Bratislava is Sherwood’s attempt to recreate one of ...

Writers and Performers: BAC Beatbox Academy Directors: Conrad Murray and David Cumming Reviewer:  Richard Maguire The Battersea Arts Centre has created a monster with its beatbox version of Frankenstein. The BAC Beatbox Academy completely updates the classic Mary Shelley horror story to make it relevant for today’s young audiences. The Dr Frankenstein in this pulsing adaptation is contemporary society, which ...

Director: Julian Maynard Smith & Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso Reviewer: Lucy Lambert At Home in Gaza and London is the result of a collaboration between theatre group Station House Opera, led by director Julian Maynard Smith and director Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso. The production uses live-streamed video and projection to overlay footage of performers in both Gaza and London to create a composite image; two ...

Creators and performers: Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas Dramaturg: Louise Stephens Reviewer: Stephen Bates It is good news that Palmyra, one of the big hits of the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is seeking out a wider UK audience. The bad news is that the conflict in Syria to which it relates continues to rage no less fiercely. Palmyra, an ancient ...

Creators and performers: Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas Dramaturgs: Jasmine Woodcock-Stewart and Rina Vergano Reviewer: Stephen Bates In the almost two years since Britain’s European Union referendum, the pro-Brexit case has felt off-message in theatre. Seemingly theatre-makers and theatergoers have joined hands in expressing horror at the outcome and there is initial surprise at finding a fluffy piece of light ...

Writers: Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens Director: Billy Barrett Reviewer: Richard Maguire We often wonder how we would react to an emergency.  Would we still be able to deliver life-saving assistance to someone while bullets rattle above our heads? To truly prepare for such incidents the emergency services practise with the help of elaborate simulations, where people act out the ...