Points of view: theatre, comedy and news
Every so often causes and social problems cycle through the public’s attention, fighting for spotlight in the 24 hours news cycle. Shining a light on an issue that has largely been left on the periphery, Nathan Charles’ When the Fun Stops, Try Again? is an interactive and audience participation-based performance piece on gambling and addiction.
Tarot: Shuffle is a sketch comedy show that uses the mystical power of tarot and fate to pull the hour together.
All that glisters is not gold in Bebe Cave’s The Screen Test, as she peels back the curtain on the mirage created by history and myth surrounding the film industry in the mid-1900s.
Written by Nadia Fortini and directed by Catrin Ody, this particular play is set over the course of an all-nighter, as interns Lola (Natasha Vincent), Penelope (Maya Moravec) and Chad (Anzi DeBennedetto) clean out the physical office space and position that they’re competing for. The relationships between these characters are very quickly and deeply established, and over the course of the show, they constantly shift and develope, to the point where the subtext of interactions between characters pretty much screams at us. There are quite lengthy periods where we are lulled into a kind of rhythm by the repetitive tasks - it suits the show well in creating a kind of realism in terms of establishing setting and context within a limited space and time, but these moments perhaps go on for longer than necessary and quickly move from novel.
The wonderful thing about theater is that we can really build the world that we want with it, to draw and establish connections between topics that in any other format would be tenuous. The exception to this rule seems to be ALL Productions’ My Blood, and its connection to the Oresteia is perhaps as distant as the Percy Jackson films are to the books.
Going into the theater, we're all vaguely familiar with the fundamentals ingrained in British institutions, but our exposure to it is usually quite abstract and at a distance. Tom Greaves’ FUDGEY is a comment on the problem at the heart of British private schools and so brings an immediacy and additional layer of understanding to the flawed system within these institutions.
Xhloe and Natasha have achieved a kind of legendary status; they are remarkable performers and writers who create such curious and dynamic storylines and relationships within their theatre pieces, combining elements of clowning, physical theater in order to explore broader themes, building and improving on the strength of their previous shows. Their latest work A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God (Whoever Reads This First) is no different, as with this show they break their own record of imaginative storytelling yet again.
William Shakespeare’s plays have been staged and re-staged time and time again, in many different forms, settings, genres, each theater company trying to bring something new to an age-old and familiar story. Shadow Road’s Macbeth Sleep No More is the latest attempt at trying to present a new interpretation of a story so old that it has its own superstition attached to it.
The National Health Service has been a significant part of the British national, social and political consciousness when it was first established in 1948. Since then, budget cuts, privatization, staff shortages, long waiting lists, underpayment of staff and the COVID-19 pandemic has knocked it off its footing. Wake The Beast’s In The Sick Of It is a verbatim theatre piece devised from interviews with NHS staff across different departments, about their experiences working for the NHS.
Friendship break-ups are more common than we think and we don’t talk about them. In Nobody’s Talking About Jamie (Taylor’s Version) Jamie Finn blows the lid on this topic and brings it into the light (onstage), and explores the idea how someone can be the most important part of your life to suddenly not having a role in it.
Pepper & Salt 