Tag Archives: Theatre

Book and Director: Robyn Grant Lyrics:  Robyn Grant and Daniel Elliot Music: James Ringer-Beck Reviewer:  Richard Maguire As we come to the final week of this year’s VAULT Festival, it may seem that V stands for Vault, but actually V stands for Vulvarine, the new superhero created by Fat Rascal Theatre. She’s sassy, kooky and brave. She will save womankind. ...

Director: Scottee Choreography: Lea Anderson Reviewer: Dominic Corr There’s something about being fat isn’t there? Puts a target on you we just accept. So many ugly words leap to mind describing this 'epidemic'. All redundant here, chances are one of the Fat Blokes onstage has heard it (or worse). Described as a ‘sort of dance’ what you are about to ...

Writer: Joshua Harmon Director:  Daniel Aukin Reviewer:  Richard Maguire This smart and talky new play by Joshua Harmon, who gave us Bad Jews, tackles racism within the high school and university admissions systems in America. Although the action takes places in leafy New Hampshire we have similar problems in the UK with Oxbridge accepting fewer black students than other less prestigious ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Brice Stratford Reviewer:  Richard Maguire Midsummer’s Night Drollbegins with great promise as lead actor and director Brice Stratford presents a short lecture on the interregnum when the theatre was banned. Despite the law, acting persisted with some actors going to Europe to continue their craft while others stayed in England and became involved in drolls, illegal ...

Creators: Dank Parish Reviewer:  Richard Maguire On paper, this immersive show sounds very good; A play which will challenge our well-established mourning rituals, and which will endeavour to create new ones for the 21stCentury. And as we join the funeral procession along the graffitied tunnel under Waterloo station, we are full of trepidation of what will follow.  But despite this ...

Writer: Tom Ratcliffe Director:  Andy Twyman Reviewer:  Richard Maguire There’s a school of thought that thinks that there should be a limit on LGBTQ+ plays and films that depict their characters as lonely and suicidal. Such narratives as these can only perpetuate the beliefs that gay lives are sad and self-destructive. LGBTQ+ people, this argument suggests, will mirror the narratives ...

Writer:  Dan Gordon Director: Jonathan O Boyle Reviewer: Matt Forrest Back in 1988 Barry Levinson directed the hugely commercial and critically successful film Rain Man. The film was a vehicle for Hollywood heavyweights Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. It was the highest grossing film of 1988 and bagged four Academy awards. However, more importantly, it managed to bring autism to ...

Writer and Director: Penelope Skinner Reviewer:  Richard Maguire The title and the publicity shots for this show suggest that this will be an angry play with lots of shouting. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, Angry Alan is rather a quiet take on toxic masculinity, and features a confident performance by Donald Sage Mackay. In this one-man show written ...