Simon Ward reviews Cold, Dark Matters at the Hope Theatre Writer-performer Jack Brownridge Kelly’s one man show is endearingly low tech. Aside from an exploded shed (due acknowledgment paid to artist Cornelia Parker on the blackboard outside) and a chair, there is no set. More than once I […]
Simon Ward reviews BLUE at the Seven Dials Playhouse This is the London premiere of June Carryl’s important, powerful and devastating play, BLUE. It is set in an interrogation room familiar from a thousand police procedurals with its dirty grey walls, two-way mirrors and an ancient cassette recorder […]
Simon Ward reviews Flashbang at The Lion and Unicorn Theatre The digital programme for writer James Lewis’s new show helpfully defines ‘flashbang’ as follows: ‘a grenade that produces a bright flash and a loud noise so as to stun or disorient people without causing serious injury; a stun […]
Simon Ward reviews Love’s A Beach at the Soho Theatre The term ‘reality television’ has always been an oxymoron – by definition what we see on television is a construction, designed to fit on screen and edited to attract viewers. This is even more pertinent when it comes […]
Simon Ward reviews Just Stop Extinction Rebellion at the White Bear Theatre Theatre-going has changed significantly since I first started attending plays on a regular basis many years ago. One aspect, in particular, is the inexorable rise of the sixty-to-ninety minute play with no interval. They were notably […]
Simon Ward reviews Cockfosters at The Turbine Theatre The Turbine Theatre is built into the railway arches next to the new Battersea Power Station development. With the noise of trains rumbling past at intervals and a definite subterranean feel in the architecture, there could hardly be a more […]
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 Dead Dad Dog at the Finborough Theatre This is the first major revival of a play that first ran in 1988, to much critical acclaim, first in the Traverse in Edinburgh followed by the Royal Court in London. It is therefore something of a period […]
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