A breath of fresh air and a London debut from a promising young writer and her Coventry based company. Predictable until it’s not, this darkly comedic morality fable draws heavily on Blade Runner and other sci-fi noir franchises. Set in a near future that is both dystopian and frighteningly real, the story is of the android Alice (Leonie Slater) and its exploration of morality and existential angst. Extrapolating a moral base from an empty hard drive, the giant intellect Alice is faced with … [Read more...]
Under the Umbrella by Amy Ng – Review
At the age of 27, and in danger of crashing out of her master’s course at Coventry University, Wei (Mei Mac) has become disillusioned by a lifetime of academic endeavour, fulfilling the ambitions and dreams of her mother and controlling grandmother, in order to turn herself into the perfect wife. She has become westernised, led astray by her hard-partying flatmate Lucy (Laura Tipper). Frequently hungover, and neglectful of her research, she is given an ultimatum by Ph.D. supervisor Dr Zhang … [Read more...]
Review of Little Echoes at Hope Theatre, London
A painful and difficult work from an emerging writer with a growing reputation, given its first outing. Three contemporary Londoners, each touched by evil. Three narratives woven together, slowly building in an escalation of horror that unfolds over 90 minutes. Like most 16-year olds, Danielle (Maisie Preston) knows it all, unlike her frankly embarrassing parents. She finds her way into the VIP area of a pop concert via a borrowed credit card and discovers a hitherto unsuspected gift for … [Read more...]
VIOLET at The Bunker Theatre | Review
Twenty-seven-year-old Bertie is lost, adrift in the chaos that is the modern metropolitan existence. She flees the city and takes refuge in a sleepy seaside resort, house-sitting for her cousin, where she indulges in a depressive spiral, with enough self-awareness to identify the narcissistic indulgence of the privileged millennial, but too little to escape. Until one day, out of the mist, looms the elderly and enigmatic Violet. The play is the story of the unlikely friendship that follows, … [Read more...]
Flotsam by Claire Erasmus at Canal Cafe | Review
This is the story of two women with little in common, and the formation of an unlikely bond, as their tales converge and combine. We first meet the damaged Jo (Jennifer Aries), desperate and alone on a beach, haunted by an ancient evil, shuffling a deck of precisely no cards. Aries gives a performance of agonising emptiness, director Barry wringing out the Pinteresque pauses until they drip despair. Her face and body shapes shout, in a voice of splintered mayhem, of the end of hope, and bear … [Read more...]