A Serious Play About World War II isn’t very serious. It isn’t really about World War II. If we’re being honest, it’s barely a play.
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Bad Roads by Natal’ya Vorozhbit
CW: Sexual Assault A lengthy, humorous monologue opens Bad Roads: a Ukrainian journalist talks of the civil war that has ravaged the country for three years and the soldier she fell in love with whilst reporting. She is a conflicted character: “how crass it is to talk about love in war!” she jokes, the guilt…
Read More Hommo by Thom Froy
“This is the narrative: men fuck women.”
Read More After the Rehearsal/Persona – Toneelgroep Amsterdam
The third, and final, part of Ivan van Hove/Toneelgroop Amsterdam’s Barbican residency is a double bill of short film adaptations: both from popular Swedish writer Ingmar Bergman; both with the same cast; and both somewhat cryptic pieces covering themes of personal identity and truth in the theatre.
Read More Arm – Mireille and Mathieu
Mireille and Mathieu bill themselves as puppeteers – but what they do is closer to two large, enthusiastic kids playing with action figures than it is to any puppetry you may have seen before. No traditional puppets are used in Arm – the duo instead favour a plethora of kids’ toys and flea-market objects. It seems as…
Read More Whalebone
Whalebone begins with a simple visual metaphor: a bright red folding umbrella is tightly secured round its middle by a Velcro strip. It pushes against the fastening, but ultimately is constrained. It’s a simple yet striking motif that will underpin the rest of the play – a play about bodies, and the space that they…
Read More Boris and Sergey’s One Man Extravaganza
Boris and Sergey are one of the top comedy double acts of the festival. They’re a classic combination: Sergey the older, smarter, scheming brother; Boris the younger, hot-headed, and eager one.
Read More 1 Woman, a High Flyer, and a Flat Bottom: Samantha Baines
It’s a rare sight at the fringe: a stand-up set with a genuine and serious slant. Baines wants to shine a light on three lost women of science. Or at least two lost women of science and Sally Ride, whose portrait I recognised even with the word LOST hung over her entire face; she is…
Read More The Starship Osiris
Captain Harrison is the universe’s greatest pilot and its bravest, most handsome captain. He’s on a mission to confront his nemesis, drink space-champagne, and sing ballads about his dead wife – and nothing’s going to stop him.
Read More Colin Hoult / Anna Mann in How We Stop the Fascists
If there’s been a theme to this year’s festival fringe, it’s probably been ‘topical’ political satires. And, by and large, it’s of a low quality: cheap gimmicks to capture the attention of a largely left-wing audience. However, buried beneath the predictably awful Brexit: The Musical (and literally dozens of shows about Trump) lies the riotously…
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