Tag: Comedy

Bathed in a blue light, on the left Gavin (played by Sam Plumbe), in the centre Clint (played by Ewan Bruce) and on the right Brian (played by Henry Calcutt). They are all wearing corporate uniforms and gazing nervously towards an unseen screen.

★★★Return To Sender

Simon Ward reviews Don’t Shoot The Messenger at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre Co-writers Daniel Camou and Sam Plumbe have billed their new Camden Fringe show as ‘an office comedy of Shakespearean proportions’. For me, this works as the former, but the Shakespeare factor is rather limited. As […]

Blake Stratso seated on a bar stool in open-necked white shirt, tan chinos and white trainers. There is an Indian rug on the floor.

★★★★Soft Underbelly

Simon Ward reviews TURTLE: A Story About Christ, Cancer, Kinks, and Christmas at the Aces & Eights Theatre Although the bread-and-butter review circuit consists of rooms above pubs, there are a few venues where things are not quite that simple. Aces & Eights is one such example. It […]

On the left Malcolm (played by Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson); in the middle Harriet (played by Laurel Marks); on the right Regina (played by Gabrielle Nellis-Pain). They are all wearing dark undertaker-style clothes and looking quizzically at something off camera to their right.

★★★Dead Funny

Simon Ward reviews Grave Mistake at the Hope Theatre Matthew Ballantyne and Toby Hampton’s new play is a Joe Orton-esque farce set in a funeral home. Burke and Sons has been a family business for generations and is now in the hands of sisters Regina (Gabrielle Nellis-Pain) and […]

Crouching figure of Eleanor Hill on the left, wearing a grey sweathsirt and barelegged, with her hand over her chin looking at a phone; projected on the back of the stage the phone screenshot of Eleanor Hill's face.

★★★★Laughter On The Edge

Simon Ward reviews Overshare at the Greenwich Theatre At one point during this hectic cavalcade of a show, creator-writer-performer-producer Eleanor Hill pauses for a beat to wonder whether her last remark was a bit of an overshare. The joke is, of course, that the whole thing is one […]

Nick Cassenbaum, seated, wearing a green and blue striped dressing gown, one hand pointing upwards

★★★★Bubbling Over

Simon Ward reviews Bubble Schmeisis at the Soho Theatre Nick Cassenbaum describes his work as ‘simultaneously unforgivingly Jewish and undeniably British’. As if to underline the point, the programme for this show includes a glossary of both Yiddish and East London slang. Admittedly the Yiddish list is significantly […]

Griffin Bellah as Charlie, in blurred foreground with finger gun to his temple; Hannah Harquart as Mom, in focus in the background

★★★★ Gallows Humour

Simon Ward reviews Dead Mom Play at the Union Theatre I have yet to decide how I feel about on the use of trigger warnings. There are the well-worn arguments about the lengthy list pretty much any Shakespeare would require. Furthermore, in my experience, the warnings tend to […]

Sitting on the left Robbie Curran (playing He) in uniform burgundy polo shirt and wearing headphones is staring straight ahead; sitting on the right, in the same uniform, Alice Victoria Winslow (playing She), is also staring straight ahead. Projected onto the screen behind them is a black and white image of an army firing squad.

★★★★Who Watches The Watchers?

Simon Ward reviews Moderation at the Hope Theatre Making its UK premiere at the Hope, Kevin Kautzman’s searingly topical new play, Moderation is the darkest of dark comedies. It is unmistakably an American work, but its themes resonate across the world, just as the actions of the techbro […]