Category: review

★★ Not The Happiest Day

Simon Ward reviews The Wedding Speech at The Hope Theatre The Wedding Speech is a one-woman play written by Cheryl May Coward-Walker and performed with passionate intensity by Princess Donnough as Rosemary. She is the grown-up daughter who has volunteered to make a speech at her mother’s wedding, […]

★★★★ Desperately Fabulous

Simon Ward reviews Fame Whore at the King’s Head Theatre The Urban Dictionary defines a fame whore as ‘[a]n individual who is willing to do anything, regardless of how humiliating or demeaning, to achieve notoriety. More often than not, this involves appearing on multiple reality television shows.’ Writer Tom Ratcliffe and […]

★★★A Perplexing Persephone

Simon Ward reviews Persephone at The Courtyard Theatre The premise of this new musical retelling of the Persephone story (written by Emma Hawkins with music by Carrie Penn) is to take the various versions of the myth and reimagine it for our time. As such, the costumes and […]

★★★A Fascinating Voyage

Simon Ward reviews The Hamlet Voyage at The Bridewell Theatre The inspiration for this play is utterly intriguing. In 1607, sailors on the first English voyage to reach India stopped off in Sierra Leone for supplies and to recover from scurvy. It was recorded in the ship’s log that during this stop the sailors performed Hamlet for the local West […]

★★★ Therapist, heal thyself

Simon Ward reviews Let’s Pause There at The King’s Head Theatre This debut play by comedy writers Russell Obeney and Andre Guindisson crams a lot, perhaps a little too much, into its running time of about an hour. In keeping with its therapy-based theme, we are required to […]

★★★★ Foot-stomping fun

Simon Ward reviews QT Presents Ray Gelato at The Green Room Sometimes you find yourself in a world that you never knew existed. Or perhaps you suspected that it did, but didn’t think you could ever be part of it. Those movies where Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby […]