Harriet Bignell reviews Code 2021 by Autumn Secret Theatre Project Never before have I exited a theatre uttering the expression, “wow, that was powerfully awful.” However, there seems no more fitting analysis of the 3 hours (yes, 3 hours) I sat through at Secret Studio Lab’s Code 2021. The play […]
The Inevitable Heartbreak of Gavin Plimsole is billed as one of the most unusual productions at this year’s fringe. Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to its reputation. Upon entering the theatre you are given a heart rate monitor, the results of which are constantly updated and projected on […]
A Tale of Two Cities; one of Dickens’ greatest works set during the French Revolution and featuring one of the most ruthless female characters in history, Mme Defarge. It is here adapted by two companies, the Chung Ying Theatre Company and Red Shift Theatre Productions. One can picture […]
What happens when a tomboy who loves mud and football starts to believe she really is a boy? And, more than that, a boy who could rise to the heights of an 80s movie star. Well, confusion and disappointment one would suppose. But Hutson tells us that, ironically, […]
The Collector The Vaults, Waterloo The Vaults can never be anything other than atmospheric. There are different stages and different seating styles, but watching anything underneath Waterloo Station with the occasional muffled thunder of trains overhead is always thrilling. Layer on the period charms of a bar furnished […]
‘Middle-aged man in crisis deals with his issues in an anonymous hotel room’ is becoming an overcrowded genre. The film Lost in Translation (whose movie poster this production deliberately echoes, though with what purpose is unclear), and much more recently the brilliant Anomalisa were of this sort, and […]
This play is diverting and entertaining but entirely unremarkable – most notably let down by the hackneyed phrases and unoriginal dialogue of Gavin Davis’ script which is full of rehashed scenarios and family dynamics. The play begins at an interview in a therapist’s office where dialogue between Chris […]
A play which takes forty minutes before engaging its core plot had better have a good reason for doing so. Among such good reasons might be intriguing staging, fascinating characters, or maybe some point being made about how plot is an empty concept. Sadly, Every One had none […]
The Eulogy of Toby Peach takes us through a day-by-day blow of the actor’s battle with cancer. Hardly a source of entertainment I hear you say. Well, true, but the shows primary aim is to blast the final taboos around the Big C, and Peach- an all-round nice […]
I like comedy. I like it a lot. I like musicals too. Musical comedies, I absolutely love, therefore, so much so that this is the second one I have seen this year based on the well-known hospital-where-the-male-love-interest-is-in-a-coma-for-most-of-the-show formula (see Shock Treatment). But the people around me wouldn’t have […]