Simon Ward reviews The Half-Cocked Sketch Show at The Hen and Chickens Half-Cocked Theatre is the brainchild of Elliott Campion and Teddy Robson. After producing a hit show in Edinburgh in 2019 there seems to have been a Covid-related hiatus and now they re-emerged with this new show, […]
Simon Ward reviews £1 Thursdays at the Finborough Theatre A word about the venue. The Peg spends much of its time celebrating the glory that is London’s thriving fringe theatre scene, much of which revolves around tiny stages in rooms above pubs. The symbiotic relationship between drinking and […]
Simon Ward reviews The Boy at Soho Theatre The blackboard outside the theatre, and the theatre staff, warn as one enters that Joakim Daun’s beguiling new play deals with sensitive issues – a warning all the more ominous for being so vague. And, indeed, the themes touched upon […]
Simon Ward reviews String V SPITTA at the Soho Theatre Written and performed by Ed MacArthur (String) and Kiell Smith-Bynoe (SPITTA) and with George Chilcott’s direction keeping the mayhem just this side of chaos, this new musical comedy is an utter delight from start to finish. Normally the […]
Simon Ward reviews Getaway/Runaway at The Lion & Unicorn Theatre There is always a frisson of excitement when the actors are already on stage as the audience enters the auditorium. Sometimes there is some business going on, perhaps even a bit of audience participation. But, when, as here, […]
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 […]
Explore All Our Reviews
THE PEG 