Tag: reviews

Tracey Yarad, standing, singing passionately, wearing her dyed-black wedding dress.

★★★Healing Powers

Simon Ward reviews All These Pretty Things at the Etcetera Theatre As we enter the small room above the Oxford Arms, Tracey Yarad is already in meditational pose, wrapped in a blanket and with Om Shanti on the screen behind her. We sense that she is gathering her […]

★★★★Climb Every Mountain

Simon Ward reviews in defence of adventurous mothers at The Glitch As we descend into the underground world of the Glitch we find ourselves in a climbing centre – two large pillars with the tell-tale brightly coloured mouldings on which the intrepid can make their ascent. This is […]

Simon Parkes (played by Max Runham) arms spread, wearing a bomber jacket, T-shirt and jeans, looking defiantly towards the viewer.

★★★★Call of the Wild

Simon Ward reviews Brixton Calling at the Southwark Playhouse Borough Just over ten years ago, Simon Parkes wrote his memoir Live At The Brixton Academy describing the incredible true story of how he acquired the lease on the building that would become the Brixton Academy for £1, before […]

On the left, standing, Roni (played by Eileen Duffy) in black shorts and T-shirt; on the right, sitting on a messy bed, Katie (played by Catherine Ashdown), wearing a horizontal stripy blue and white top and jeans.

★★★★Friendship, Interrupted

Simon Ward reviews 1.17am, or Until The Words Run Out at Theatre503 Running as part of the Summer Shorts season currently playing at Theatre503, Zoe Hunter Gordon’s new play is an utterly compelling portrait of a friendship placed under seemingly unbearable strain. Katie (Catherine Ashdown) and Roni (Eileen […]

Helen (played by Vis Eliot Safavi) looking off camera, with dark curly hair and wearing a smart off-pink jacket and a white shirt.

★★★Edge of Reason

Simon Ward reviews Outside Voice at the Soho Poly Theatre Tucked away in the West End side streets, and just around the corner from the BBC, this location has been a hub for arts activities since at least the late 1960s. In recent years it has been restored […]

Ruth Madoff (played by Emily Swain) dressed in a white dress and holding a lit three-pronged candelabra. Behind her are paintings of her husband and two sons.

★★★Save A Prayer

Simon Ward reviews Ruthless – the Survival of Ruth Madoff at the Arches Lane Theatre Roger Steinmann’s play is a semi-biographical but fictionalised account of Ruth Madoff (Emily Swain), wife of the convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff. It is an examination of how a life can unravel, and the […]

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 […]

Molly Tolpuddle (played by Carol Tagg) standing, leaning on a stick, wearing a cream scarf around her head and a white blouse and long brown skirt.

★★Overdone Down Under

Simon Ward reviews Mrs T Foresees at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre Centred around the life story and formidable presence of Irish clairvoyant Mrs Molly Tolpuddle (compellingly played by Carol Tagg), writer and director Gail Matthews’s play encompasses a variety of topics, from a satirical look at the […]