Tag Archives: London

Writer: Danusia Samal Director: Tanuja Amarasuriya Reviewer: Richard Maguire Consistently championing new writing, Theatre503 is a springboard for many young playwrights and over the years the theatre has produced a number of brilliant plays. Out of Sorts, its latest offering, is one of the best for some time. Danusia Samal’s play follows two days in the life of Zara, the ...

Reviewer: Miriam Sallon Dance Expanded brings us a selection of finalist performances from its 2016 and 2018 competitions. Anyone can apply to the competition, and there are no limitations on content. The only stipulation is, “You have to have something to champion, something to defend.” It’s no wonder, then, that the performances are varied in the extreme, from slow-motion seaside ...

Writer an performer: Richard Gadd Director: Jon Brittain Reviewer: Stephen Bates As an Edinburgh Comedy Award winner and an accomplished actor, Richard Gadd has been acquiring a degree of celebrity status that could draw unwanted attention from over-enthusiastic fans. However, the terrifying and apparently true story that he has to tell, one of obsession and transgression, has nothing to do ...

Music: Jule Styne Lyrics: Leo Robin Book: Anita Loos and Joseph Fields Director: Sasha Regan Reviewer: Stephen Bates The 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes took us back to the 1920s, an era when predatory young ladies might have crossed the Atlantic by environmentally friendly means in pursuit of wealthy gentlemen. This stage version, originally seen on Broadway in 1949, seems ...

Writer: Vasiliy Shukshin  Director: Alvis Hermanis Reviewer: Gus Mitchell Russia is not a country primarily known for its humour. Even its most famous ‘comic’ playwright (Chekhov) wrote primarily of wasted and frustrated lives, lost, lonely individuals, and the universal pity of our self-delusions. It was with great interest and a slight wariness, then, that I sat down for Shukshin’s Stories, ...

Writer and performer: Tom Ratcliffe Director: Andrew Twyman “Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington” Noël Coward advised famously, but he could well have added “not your son either”. Tom Ratcliffe’s hour-long monologue, first seen at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, maps out some of the pitfalls awaiting young actors who are trying to make it in their ...

Book: Stewart Melton Director: Amy Draper Music and Lyrics: Finn Anderson Reviewer: Karl O'Doherty An exciting burst of sound, folklore and danger tells the story of an island under threat, about to be torn apart for the second time in its history. Blending reality and mythic fantasy, the musical calls back to a time when stories and imagination were the ...

Writer: Eleanor Burgess Director: Matthew Iliffe Reviewer: Stephen Bates Dramatists are often accused of re-writing and falsifying history, but here, in a twist, we have a playwright who is accusing historians of getting it all wrong. Eleanor Burgess’ play, receiving its European premiere after a successful run Off-Broadway, challenges perceived truths about America’s past, going right back to the Revolution. ...