Who could have predicted, a few years ago, that Mischief Theatre - who once performed a fringe show in which the cast outnumbered the audience - would one day have no less than three successful plays running simultaneously in the West End? Following the runaway success of The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong, the company's latest show is a fast, frantic and totally bonkers comedy about a bank robbery. Which, coincidentally, is also the name of the play. Written by Henry Lewis, … [Read more...]
Review of Daughter at The Pleasance Theatre
Daughter, billed somewhat contrarily as "a brand new play about fathers", has been developed from an award-winning short play at this year’s INK Festival, which showcases short scripts for film, radio and stage from writers with an East Anglian connection. Directed by Julia Sowerbutts, Bill Cashmore’s play is a funny and heart-warming portrayal of a father-daughter relationship, but with a twist in the tale… Two men meet on a park bench during their lunch break. One's a new dad of just 11 … [Read more...]
Review of Torn Apart (Dissolution) at TheatreN16
Torn Apart (Dissolution), written and directed by Bj McNeill, is an intense and compelling drama about three couples. Though their stories take place years and miles apart, there's a common theme of love and loss - not only of partners but of family, home and history - as well as an actual connection between the three that's revealed a little at a time, with the final piece falling into place just moments before the end. In 1980s West Germany, young Polish student Alina (Nastazja Somers) … [Read more...]
5-star 1 in 3 presented by Now You Know Productions
We’ve all heard the frightening statistic that 1 in 3 of us will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in our lives. What that means is that pretty much everyone knows someone who's either had or been affected by the disease - and yet, for something so common, we find it incredibly hard to talk about, let alone deal with when it affects us directly. Writer and director Anthony Orme's 1 in 3 aims to tackle that difficulty head on, by sitting us down in a room where we can't avoid the subject. … [Read more...]
Review of Unnatural Selection by OPIA Theatre
It seems innocent enough: four girls wait anxiously to appear on the latest reality TV game show. It's like Take Me Out or Blind Date - but with much higher stakes, because if contestants, who are always female, don’t get picked after three appearances, they get taken away and brutally mutilated in a procedure that they may or may not survive. And if they do win, they have to marry whoever picks them, regardless of their own feelings. It's all part of a compulsory government programme to slow … [Read more...]