Simon Ward reviews It’s a Motherf**king Pleasure at Soho Theatre Following a brief run as part of The Vaults Festival in February, this show comes to the Soho Theatre as a slick, well-worked production. Flawbored are a disability-led company, made up of the night’s performers, Samuel Brewer, Aarian Mehrabani […]
Simon Ward reviews The Tragedy of Macbeth at Southwark Playhouse. Flabbergast Theatre have spent years working and re-working this noisy, exuberant, muscular and unnerving version of Shakespeare’s infamous Scottish play. Entering the auditorium is like stumbling onto the enactment of an ancient pagan ritual in a woodland clearing. Characters […]
Simon Ward reviews Average Bear at the Soho Theatre Michelle Brasier’s Average Bear is billed as comedy, and it is frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it is also thought-provoking and devastatingly emotional. Delivered as a mixture of stand-up, songs and ‘bear-lesque’, the audience never quite knows where Brasier’s irresistible banter […]
Simon Ward reviews Breathless at the Soho Theatre From the moment that Sophie (Madeleine MacMahon) bursts onto the stage accompanied by an exhalation of breath we are gripped. She is indeed breathless as she tells us her story, and she is rendered breathless and speechless more than once […]
Simon Ward reviews How Not To Drown at Theatre Royal Stratford East This is a powerful and important piece of theatre. It provides a counterblast to the prevailing anti-immigrant rhetoric from the government and commentariat and it offers a personal account of a lived experience which could not […]
Simon Ward reviews Pick n Mix Downstairs at The Pleasance Taking the bare bones of the plot of Kat Rose-Martin’s brilliant debut play, having its London premiere in North London’s Pleasance, could well suggest a dose of kitchen-sink Northern miserabilism. We witness period pains and problems, multiple unplanned […]
Simon Ward reviews Wickies: The Vanishing Men of Eilean Mor at The Park Theatre One chilling aspect of Paul Morrissey’s suspenseful new thriller is that it is based on a true story. On 26th December 1900, a relief ship designated to bring supplies and take one of the […]
Simon Ward reviews IKARIA at the Old Red Lion Theatre This is a compelling, if harrowing, portrait of a young man in torment. But he has become an expert in hiding his torment from everyone around him, refusing the help he is offered and pushing away his one […]
Simon Ward reviews Tomorrow May Be My Last at The Old Red Lion Theatre I first reviewed a version of this show – described as a ‘music-driven play’ – when it was playing at The Union theatre at the end of August last year, as we were taking […]
Simon Ward reviews Jo and Sam Find Themselves In Woking at The Hen and Chickens Theatre A bare stage, save for a couple of chairs and a projector screen. Suddenly the screen lights up, Edmund Jolliffe’s music kicks in and we are taken through a rather good whistle […]