Review: 1984 at the Playhouse Theatre

1984 

Playhouse Theatre

Reviewed on Thursday 30th June 2016
★★★★

Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s stage adaptation of 1984 has had a remarkably long life. It was first presented at Nottingham Playhouse way back in September 2013, before touring the UK, playing stints at the Almeida and in the West End, and travelling to both Australia and America. Now it’s back for another run in the West End, and has evidently lost none of its power after three years on the road.

Review: Monster Raving Loony at the Soho Theatre

Monster Raving Loony

Soho Theatre

Reviewed on Thrusday 19th May 2016

★★★

“Yes, it’s a joke. Yes, it’s a political party”, asserts Samuel James’ Screaming Lord Sutch in James Graham’s new play Monster Raving Loony. And with those eight words, he captures the spirit of the Monster Raving Loony Party and the fiercely paradoxical tone of its subversive, satirical, and essential voice in British politics. Graham’s play, which takes a kaleidoscopic look at Sutch’s life through a set of homages to famous British comedy shows, is exuberantly daft throughout, but at its heart lies a serious point about the need for mockery in our political system. It is both seriously funny and, funnily, serious.

Review: Boy at the Almeida Theatre

Boy 

Almeida Theatre

Reviewed on Wednesday 13th April 2016

★★★★

The Almeida has hauled the gnashing, award-winning Robert Icke away from Chekhov, Ibsen and Greek Tragedy for a month or two, and returned to the coal face of new writing. Boy, Leo Butler’s play about growing up in contemporary London, is an impressionistic 70-minute portrait of a lost generation, performed in the round on a constantly shifting conveyer belt of bus-stops, tube stations and drop-in centres.

Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Lyric Hammersmith

A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

Lyric Hammersmith

Reviewed on Tuesday 1st March 2016

★★★★

Filter’s unique approach to producing Shakespeare can be decidedly hit and miss. Their combination of experimental live music, free adaptation of text and dynamic staging was alienating in their 2014 production of Macbeth. Here, they are on much firmer ground – although not quite literally – with this raucous, unsubtle and unapologetically silly A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which first ran back at the Lyric in 2012 and has been revived this year, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

Review: In the Night Time at the Gate Theatre

In the Night Time

Gate Theatre

Reviewed on Monday 8th February 2016

★★★

In the Night Time, Nina Segal's unnerving two-hander currently making its UK premiere at Notting Hill's intimate Gate Theatre, is enough to put anyone off parenthood. Ben Kidd's production, a brisk hour of tired parents, screaming babies and repetitive, absurdist dialogue, is stuffed to bursting point with ideas. Some of the stick and some of them don't, but the snap and crackle of the piece, maintained throughout by two strong performances from Alex Waldmann and Adelle Leonce, is enough to prevent one from disengaging.

Review: Weald at the Finborough Theatre

Weald

Finborough Theatre

Reviewed on Thursday 4th February 2016

★★★★

What does it mean to “be a man” nowadays? That is the question that playwright Daniel Foxsmith claims sits at the heart of Weald, his new two-hander about responsibility, legacy, and horses. Produced by Snuff Box at Chelsea’s Finborough Theatre, it is an earthy, unflashy 75-minute rumination on what we owe to the past, what we ow to the future, and what we owe to each other.

Review: Herons at the Lyric Hammersmith

Herons 

Lyric Hammersmith 

Reviewed on Tuesday 26th January 2016

★★★

In the 15 years since it premiered at the Royal Court, Simon Stephens’ Herons seems to have dated a lot. Its central themes, although undeniably thought-provoking, all seem a little familiar and its taut plot doesn’t grip the stomach as it should do. Sean Holmes’ production at the Lyric Hammersmith gives it a stylish, expressionist twist but is still more intellectually stimulating than emotionally involving.

Review: The Wasp at Trafalgar Studios 2

The Wasp

Trafalgar Studios 2

Reviewed on Friday 11th December 2015

★★★

Hampstead Theatre and Trafalgar Studios seem to have a fairly close relationship at present. James Fritz’s Olivier-nominated Four Minutes Twelve Seconds has just finished its three week run in Studio Two, having premiered at Hampstead in 2014, and earlier this week it was announced that Firebird, Phil Davies debut play about child sexual exploitation, will transfer from Hampstead to the West End in February next year. 

Review: The Winter's Tale Live Cinema Broadcast

The Winter's Tale 

Live Cinema Broadcast

Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company

Reviewed on Thursday 26th November 2015

★★★★

I have seen quite a few live theatrical broadcasts since the tradition began with the inception of NT Live back in 2009 and, although the jury is still out over whether or not they are in essence a ‘good thing’, it must be said that the live broadcast of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is a surprisingly powerful stage to screen translation.

Review: The Divided Laing at the Arcola Theatre

The Divided Laing

Arcola Theatre

Reviewed on Monday 23rd November 2015

★★★

Kingsley Hall in London’s East End must have been an interesting place in the late 1960s. It was there that Dr R D Laing established a commune-like psychiatric facility that rejected contemporary treatments of the mentally ill in favour of a more radical, more humane approach. Instead of electric shocks, insulin comas and lobotomisation, Laing wanted to provide a place where people were “free to explore their psychic being unhindered” or, in layman’s terms, “free to flip out and go crazy”.