Nope - that’s not a spelling mistake. Mulan Rouge is a mash-up of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge and Disney’s Mulan. Expect plenty of outrageous dancing, big music numbers, cross-dressing and gender exploration. All the good stuff. When Mulan’s father receives a call-up to the International Forces Union, to defend against the approaching Hun, Mulan decides to go in his place, disguising herself as a man, and finds herself posted to Paris, in the Moulin Rouge nightclub. No, I don’t know why, … [Read more...]

High school fencing as a setting for a play: I’ll be honest, I was sceptical. I was wrong. Athena is exhilarating theatre at its very best. Athena (Millicent Wong) - her ‘fencing name’; it adds to her mystique - has just beaten Mary Wallace (Grace Saif), acquiring her number fifty-four seeding, presumably in the New York Junior Women’s Épée League, and Mary Wallace isn’t taking it well. But brash, speak-her-mind Athena sees the opportunity, and invites her well-matched opponent to become her … [Read more...]

Great acting and some zinging one-liners have me laughing out loud, but in the end, can’t save a script that doesn’t feel built on solid foundations. How to Survive an Apocalypse begins with editor Jen (Kristin Atherton) struggling with her lifestyle magazine about to fail. The board parachutes in alpha male consultant, Bruce (Ben Lamb) to save it. Instead, his presence reveals Jen’s doubts about her marriage to steady-but-feeble Tim (Noel Sullivan). Jen’s high school best friend, Abby … [Read more...]

While Jackson’s Lane Theatre’s huge rebuilding project rumbles on (due to complete at the end of October), they have reopened with Luminosa by Lost In Translation. We enter the auditorium through a tarpaulin-and-bunting temporary side corridor, and while it’s great to be back in the (original) auditorium of London’s circus-centric theatre, I can’t help but feel that this show seems unfinished too. We’re welcomed in by Peter Reynolds, an edge-of-the-stage MC, musician and vocalist whose … [Read more...]