Tag Archives: PUSH Festival

Writer: Debs Gatenby Director: Ashley Knowles Reviewer: Andrea Allen Debs Gatenby’s one woman show tracks her quest to answer the ultimate human question, ‘how to be happy’. Her journey starts on her coffee (or is it red wine?) stained sofa, before bounding to the far-flung Hebridean Island of Eigg, before flying to a seemingly paradisiacal town on the East Coast ...

Creator: Natalie Lebouleux Reviewer: Katherine Kirwin  Mina is a theatrical piece exploring and exposing the use of conversion therapy to ‘cure’ same-sex attraction. It is a theatrical retelling of Natalie Leboulex’s award-nominated short film Paper Thin and blends live performance with stop-motion animation film projected around the stage. Paper lanterns guide the audience, one at a time, down the corridor and ...

Creator: Louise-Clare Henry Director: Martha Simon Reviewer: Katherine Kirwin This one-woman show from Fly in Your Soup Theatre explores the fractured memories and life of Betty, the creator’s great-grandmother, through puppetry, mime, gesture and mask work. Louise-Clare Henry makes clear transitions between each stage of Betty’s life using the recurring prop of Betty’s glasses to move smoothly from the mask ...

Reviewer: Katherine Kirwin Pen:Chant is a neo-variety night, an alt-cabaret, an indefinable shambolic mix of artforms in one evening. Pen:Chant occurs throughout the year in fringe venues across Manchester as a platform for known and unknown artists in various artforms; spoken word, poetry, live music, comedy and anything else that has slipped between the cracks. In a special PUSH 2017 ...

Director: Tom Hodson Reviewer: Katherine Kirwin Having been plucked from the Manchester Fringe of 2016 and picked for the PUSH festival at Home. I’m Standing Next to You is highly topical, challenging why are we more disconnected from each other at a time when we are all constantly available via the internet/messaging/laptop/phones. The show is a promenade piece although actually, ...

Writer: Josh Coates, Emma Geraghty, Ross McCaffrey, Hannah Mook and Jake Walton Director: Powder Keg Reviewer: Lizz Clark The title is a contradiction, appropriately – after all, this is the nonsensical era of Brexit and Trump. But what will the future bring? In the post-industrial surroundings of the International Anthony Burgess Institute, Powder Keg want to talk about what happens ...

Director: Esther Dix Reviewer: Holly Sharp What’s the Matter With You? A fizzy two-hander that guarantees high drama, razzle-dazzle and a cheeky cuppa with David Cameron, not to mention the disclaimer that “every night will be different” and will end “who knows where”; if you’re not even the tiniest bit intrigued at having a look in at Mighty Heart Theatre’s ...

Writer/Director: Joeseph Lynch Reviewer: Charlie Senate Before the show lights dim, the small stage of the studio theatre is already doubly-filled: a man and a woman, sitting at opposite corners, each reading silently from a dog-eared novel. Their very separateness dominates, set the mood. But, when a third player, a girl in a red dress, joins them, that dynamic is ...