Curiosity on what a Botox party is, the need for a good laugh and a girly evening out has made me return to the Bread & Roses Theatre for The Real Housewives Of Codswallop by Lisa Gaye Wright. The title does not hide what type of TV programs it refers to: Either the viewers’ guilty … Continue reading Bring on the bling – The Real Housewives Of Codswallop
After a long, busy and grey January, comedy is what’s needed, and the Pleasance Theatre has not let me down so far when in need of mid-week laughs. Gladly, the trend to start one-act plays at 7pm continues – London’s theatre-affine commuters living outside the Underground network, desired more of this long before Covid. The … Continue reading Kat Rose-Martin’s Pick N Mix at The Pleasance
After his cabaret success A Jellicle Life (a Power-Point ode to the musical film flop Cats) and a trip to the hairdresser Linus Karp is back: The best and bravest prop for his next car crash of fandom celebration (pun not initially intentional) is his Princess Diana’s hairstyle – the one from the era when most boomers wanted Meg Ryan’s hair gel-supported crops. Dare requesting … Continue reading Untrue Diana by Linus Karp at The Pleasance Theatre
In the week the ongoing heatwave in England has made international headlines and has officially declared a national drought, the Open Bar Theatre Company are visiting Caterham on the Hill’s pub The King And Queen. Not once, but twice. The troupe has split into two groups, one touring Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew, the … Continue reading Ukulele orchestra, assemble – a Shakespeare double bill in England’s pub gardens
As someone who has worked in the UK most of my post-uni life, I am intrigued by Try Harder, Yusuf Niazi’s playwright debut: What are young people willing to do nowadays in order to get a job? At the point the story starts, Lucy, Sam and Grace are all desperate for money, so desperate that … Continue reading Try Harder at the Omnibus Theatre – a genuinely good debut
In early Spring 2020 Fat Rascal’s podcast was the soundtrack to my first lockdown jigsaws, while theatre company founder Robyn Grant busied herself and the team with expanding Unfortunate’s story and the amount of songs to an evening filling production: The potty-mouthed retelling of Disney’s The Little Mermaid from sea witch Ursula’s perspective offers sheer … Continue reading Celebrating Ursula under the waves– Fat Rascal’s Unfortunate at the Underbelly Festival
You have truly made it in show biz if you have been abducted by a mega fan: Tom Reynolds’ radical admirer is the gun-equipped, wide-eyed epidemiologist Astrid Barton (Ciara Murphy) who has obsessively watched every piece of video footage of her favourite actor. In a room decorated with signed film posters and photographs, he is … Continue reading Chop Me Up Or Let Me Go at the Bread And Roses Theatre in Clapham
When one of your favourite living artists stopped live gigs years before you were born, seeing her eventually perform live, feels surreal. Given her rare performances, superfans have turned to impersonators, theme parties, interviews with her stage dancers, fiction with fortifying titles like Waiting For Kate Bush and her biography Under The Ivy (updated in … Continue reading An Evening Without Kate Bush at the Soho Theatre
The euro techno beats of an upbeat version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Memory welcome me at the Phoenix Arts Club once my covid pass has been checked, followed by another non-conical Let’s Get Jellicle anthem. If you know how the blue Belgium comic goblins describe events as smurftastic you get an idea of tonight’s one … Continue reading Ladies and Jellicles – Linus Karp at the Phoenix Arts Club
As the live stream in the US did not suit my Greenwich meantime schedule, I welcome the recording of Suzanne Bachner’s one woman show The Good Adoptee on YouTube. It is the story of her own search for her birth parents after having been matched with her family as the “cutest little baby in the … Continue reading Anna Bridgforth as Suzanne Bachner in the authour’s autobiographic The Good Adoptee
Sadie takes the Stage 