Now in its sixth year, the Wilma Awards celebrate the best that West End musicals (and other plays) have to offer - both in terms of productions and performances. All the winners are voted on by the theatre-going public, and what is particularly gratifying to see is a focus not just on the biggest Theatreland hits but also, for example, Off-West End Performers (Luke … [Read more...]
The Great Gatsby – Immersive London – Review
To me, it seems the core theme of The Great Gatsby is complicity. It asks, relentlessly, how far you would go to get something you want or need, and what you would turn a blind eye to. It’s this subject that makes the story so potent for an immersive experience: Alexander Wright’s production invites theatregoers / Gatsby-party-attendees to become complicit in the … [Read more...]
CULT at the Pleasance Theatre | Review
It is a cheap trick for a stand-up comic to tell the audience that they are great, but of course it works every time. Cheaper still for an audience member to declare this. But at CULT at the Pleasance Theatre we were a great audience. The secret, of course, to a successful immersive, interactive show like this one is that it's down to the clever work of the cast to … [Read more...]
Interview with Leo Kesner – Unstuck Presents
Unstuck Presents is putting together immersive club nights, where a dance music party includes an interactive walkthrough immersive element. The Heist is their first show, opening its doors for the first time on 4th October, into the early hours of Saturday morning. Visitors enter the King of Thieves club, where they’re invited to take part in a high stakes plot to … [Read more...]
House of Kittens – Amatory Asylum – Immersive Theatre Erotica
It’s not often as a critic that you find yourself wondering if you’re at the theatre or in a strip club. That’s the game that House of Kittens’ Amatory Asylum plays with you. For one thing, we are after all in an underground club - albeit a swanky private members’ club in Mayfair. For another thing, there are quite a lot of women taking their clothes off. It’s a … [Read more...]
Interview with Shelli Epstein from Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia
British-Israeli performer Shelli Epstein plays the Running Woman in Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia. The show, dubbed ‘A Waking Dream of Mexico’ is the company’s latest to tour to the UK, opening at the Royal Albert Hall in January 2020. It also marks the thirty year anniversary of Cirque du Soleil in the UK. Shelli has played this role for over three years, from when the … [Read more...]
SPY CITY written by Bertie Watkins | Colab Theatre
Spy City is immersive theatre meets escape room: but does it deliver a bigger punch than each of these alone? Escape rooms are already taking the sense of agency, so important in immersive theatre, one step further. They place participants right in the centre of the action. This production aims to blend the two: full agency with a strong story carrying it through. … [Read more...]
The Knight of the Burning Pestle at The Barbican
Some ‘classic’ plays deserve to collect dust on the bookshelves of libraries. But Cheek By Jowl’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle makes a bold argument for the work’s contemporary relevance, with a production that is both hilarious and biting. Declan Donnellan’s careful directorial hand left my jaw well-exercised with laughter and my brain whirring about the state of … [Read more...]