Kayode (Fode Simbo) can’t get a job, his wife thinks he’s depressed, his mum thinks it’s a curse. An Unfinished Man tracks the different cultural approaches to life hardships and the stresses it puts on relationships. Unemployment is tough and Kayode can't get a job. He is standing on stage in a paddling pool, a tall woman slinks around the stage watching him, speaking only to him. She appears to be the manifestation of whatever is troubling Kayode. Early on, we meet Pastor Matanmi (Mark … [Read more...]

Sinead is in a tent with her father, she’s asking him about what he did when she was a child, we don’t hear the answer. O’Brien is a charismatic and charming storyteller who walks us through fairy tales and childhood trauma alike, all while holding the audience with affection and warmth. We start by hearing about Sinead’s mother being arrested under the 2001 mental health act. We learn that she ran away from home at 17 and is estranged from her mother. At first, we are given no … [Read more...]

Two long time friends sign up for a misguidingly advertised grad scheme in a prison. The two protagonists’ relationships tell of their journey in the criminal justice system and the troubling changes they go through. I am sure we have all got into something and realised it wasn't quite what we thought we signed up for. For most of us, this is not a grad scheme advertised as a rehabilitation program in prison that turned out to be a problematic prison officer position. Once the two friends, … [Read more...]

Remember that film you heard all the hype for back in 2012, saw and thought it was beautiful and haven’t thought about it since, well this is a slightly less beautiful version of that, on stage. This new production has some surface-level beauty but lacks the thoughtfulness that would have hung in my mind. Going in, I was admittedly apprehensive. I could not help but wonder if there is a reason we don't see many films to stage adaptations. Now, the pedants will tell me that this is … [Read more...]

After a hundred and ten minutes of heavy-handed dialogue and about seven acts of this play, I am oddly none-the-wiser as to what this play is about. Polly Creed's new play covers a lot of important subject matter but fails to settle on any and, in doing so, loses the weight and gravity it aspires to. Humane opens with a monologue describing the death of a man with no other context. From there, we meet a mother struggling with the burden of living alone with two kids, she meets a friend, and … [Read more...]

Playful, dark, murkily unsettling, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge is a subversive re-exploration of the classic Red Riding Hood tale. Joel Pommerat’s first of three fairy tale adaptations is a bleak expressionistic yet charmingly witty 45 minutes. Pommerat is one of the many who descend from the Peter Brook tree of theatre, and it shows. This is, of course, an enormous compliment, and the liveness of Brook's style shines through; it is playful, physical and perhaps more physical than his … [Read more...]