Reviews

'Sex always sells – we’re just the newest trade in the world’s oldest profession’ ★★ Once the audience takes their seats in the intimate, wonderfully cavernous Baron’s Court Theatre, a scrolling script plays on the back of the stage, Starwars-style. We get the marketing copy for the play’s subject and namesake: TABU is “the startup of everyone’s nightmares”. The opening script moves gracefully from gentle to funny to then increasingly disturbing as its true purpose becomes clear – to artificially generate porn which allows users to explore their “deepest, sickest fantasies”. We meet TABU’s founder, the dressing gown clad Alister, shuffling around a “4 million Kensington” Townhouse who seems to be living off supermarket meal deals, and the firm’s junior lawyer Morgyn, much more buttoned up, there to discuss the firm’s response to a recent string of scandals.  The creative team have set themselves a considerable challenge. They’re telling a story about something so contemporary and talked about that it’s difficult to find something new to serve up to an audience. The characters don’t confront the consequences of what the company has unleashed on the world so much as plan a legal response to protect its cash. There’s an intelligence in choosing to portray that unfeeling side of Big Tech. But with neither character seeming to have much emotion about the whole thing, much of the play is like sitting in on someone else’s work meeting. The violence, when it happens, feels gratuitously excessive. Women hardly need reminding of the threat of male violence, and seeing a woman repeatedly having her head smashed against a table adds little to our understanding of it, or to the story. Morgyn’s character, too, moves between the stereotype of the ice-cold professional woman and that of the quivering victim. In a play about technology which reduces women to objects of male fantasy, it’s dispiriting to meet a female character with such little complexity. TABU will play at Baron’s Court Theatre from the 24 - 27th of October 2026 BOX OFFICE: https://www.baronscourttheatre.com/grimfest2026 Cast Dolly Ananya Sahay as Morgyn Louis Cavalier as Alister Creatives: Written and Directed by Zach Lonberg Stage Managed by Lindsay Duet Produced by Lauren Herd Director/Dramturg Jaimee Doyle Fight Choreographer Shreyas Ranjan Reviewer: Naomi Elster is an award-winning Irish author and playwright living in London. Her plays have been staged in London, Dublin and New York, whilst her fiction and nonfiction have been published worldwide, including in Crannóg, Meniscus. Her work has appeared in both the Guardian and the BBC. Her pieces retell history from a women’s point of view, shining a light on Invisible disability and exploring contemporary themes such as online dating and the relationship between loneliness and misogyny.

“a witty, wickedly entertaining comedy about communicating with the dearly departed.”★★★★ There’s life in the afterlife in DATING THE DEAD, a witty, wickedly entertaining comedy about communicating with the dearly departed. Sybil (Jan Goodman) is a medium who helps the living reconnect with their loved ones on the other side. From telling a young woman that her late uncle is concerned she’s becoming a pisshead to reassuring a widower that his dead wife approves of his decision to remarry, Sybil delivers practical advice from beyond the grave, whether welcome or not. But when the murderous ghost of Mary Ann Cotton offers Sybil the chance to spend 24 hours in the afterlife with her deceased husband, she faces a potentially fatal dilemma. Mary Ann presents her with three potions: one will kill Sybil outright, one will allow her to visit the afterlife and return, and one will do absolutely nothing. As ghosts, including her recently expired neighbour, Three Doors Down Ivy (Claire Vousden), offer advice and warnings, Sybil must decide whether the risk is worth taking. Written and produced by Julie Balloo, with Tug J Wilson as co-writer and director, this is a fun romp with a sharp script, cracking one-liners and well-drawn, recognisable characters. Jan Goodman brings warmth and a matter-of-fact delivery to Sybil, who takes the supernatural mayhem in her stride and keeps us invested in her fate. Claire Vousden is a delight as Ivy, whose quirky energy and infectious enthusiasm suggest that death has improved her outlook on life. Meanwhile, Carol Been gleefully embodies notorious Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton, revelling in her thoroughly malevolent determination to kill as many people as possible in the afterlife. The ghosts span different eras, from actress Peg Entwistle, a 1930s starlet who jumped from the H of the Hollywood sign, to a modern-day unfortunate. Historically accurate costumes help distinguish the characters, while the atmospheric lighting from Melody Mengyun Li and sound design by Yuyang Li and Zhuoer Zhou enhance the transitions between the everyday and the supernatural. The middle section loses momentum as successive ghostly interventions revisit Sybil’s dilemma without significantly developing it, so a little trimming would sharpen the comedy. Otherwise, DATING THE DEAD is a clever, characterful comedy with a terrific cast whose enjoyment is infectious. Box office: https://weareoldred.co.uk/whats-on/grimfest/dating-the-dead/

‘Ambitious exploration of identity ’ ★★★★ A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for, asked Robert Browning. Long After The Labyrinth matches theatrical ambition with a long reach into history, myth, identity and imagination in a story spanning decades and millennia. A young girl on the island of Crete hides in a tree as her family are taken away to their doom. This is 1944, and the Nazis more or less eradicated the entire Jewish population of the island. A clever child, Rena (Genevieve Dunne, affecting throughout a journey from childhood to motherhood to old age) escapes the shipwreck that will kill her family and most of her community to make her way in the world. She takes with her a hidden Jewish identify and also her identity as a Greek, exemplified in the necklace her father (Noah Young, one of many of his roles) has bequeathed her and the myths of her ancient civilisation, particularly that of the half-man, half-beast Minotaur. The play is constructed with specific political intent – to promote the importance of studying and valuing peace as greatly as we have always done war, conflict and disruption. It also uses dance, music and shadowplay to carry us through the decades of Rena’s life, through schooling to a career in archaeology and marriage and motherhood and a frustrating return to Crete as she considers who she was, who she might have been, and whom she has become. Identity is one of the many themes of the play – Rena is Jewish. She is female. She is Greek. She is, of course, as all people are, constructed and informed by those cultural influences, but she is not unchangeably defined by them – we contradict ourselves, we contain multitudes. She is informed, too, by her past and by those she has lost, and by myth and legend – in one of the play’s most telling scenes while her classmates see in Antigone the usual virtues of honour and truth and the like, Rena finds rage at the incomprehensibility of arbitrary power and inhumanity. To achieve all this in a gripping way in a series of short, sharply written scenes and with a cast of just four (Leonie Hill and Harry Lukakis, like Noah Young, play many roles) is a substantial achievement, an ambitious exploration of identity.  Does the show achieve its full ambition? Nearly – but the link with the Mintoaur, for example, isn’t wholly clear even if it allows for excellent visuals in the shadowplay, and the pacing is a little stately and unvaried. But, back to Browning, ambition unachieved is far more worthwhile than a show that does nothing in particular but does it very well. NMT Automatics, Chromolume and the Ancient Peace Studies Network present: Long After The Labyrinth by Jonathan Young at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, 21 October to 8 November 2026 Box Office: https://www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com Cast Genevieve Dunne | Rena Leonie Hill | Multi-role Harry Lukakis | Multi-role Noah Young | Multi-role Creative Team Jonathan D’Young | Writer Ramon Ayres | Director Mairin O’Hagan | Dramaturg Alice König | Co-producer Josephine Tremelling | Lighting Designer David Hermann Fox | Composition and Sound Designer Mel Fritz-Liu | Stage Manager Simon Jackson | Assistant Lighting Designer Peixuan Gu | Production Assistant Kady Finnegan | Production Intern Inigo Woodham-Smith | Photography David Weir writes The Westminster Mysteries novel series, including The Honourable Member for Murder and Motion for Murder. Plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow), Murdering the Truth (Greenwich Theatre, London) and Better Together (Jack Studio, Brockley, London).

'Twisted love and gothic verse in the plague pits' ★★ Plague. Pestilence. Disease. Death. We are in the 1600s, the black death rages and bodies pile high. It’s the job of the body collector to deliver the dead to the plague pits and there are plenty of those to keep him busy. Our narrator is Affliction AKA The Grim Maker (Catherine Luff) a deity and story teller who wafts around in black lipstick and a muslin gown imparting truths and stories from a book. When the Flesh Taker (Glaswegian and autistic performer, Ross Barbour) requests a story, she tells him about Mortalia (Iona Cabal-Sutherland), the beautiful daughter of a holy man and a body collector - much like himself. Corvin (a grounded performance from Miroe Fuches) falls in love with Mortalia and their stolen kisses lead her to contract the Black Death. But when did a small thing like death ever get in the way of true love and erotic attraction? With ‘necrophilia’ in the trigger warning, this is not your typical love story; it’s Romeo & Juliette as a staged snuff movie. Hats off to Cunning Moss Productions and writer Anayis N.Der Hakopian, who’s come up with such a brave and dark setting for this gothic romance. The evocative set lit by candles and atmospheric costumes by Hannah Danson work well. Although our dirt-smeared body collector doesn’t have the mask and beak we associate with body collectors, he has raven feathers attached to his dark attire. The entire 55-minute piece is told in Shakespearean-style verse. This is the stand out feature of the ambitious piece. It has a certain lyricism but is also challenging. Meanings are sometimes obtuse and unclear or spoken too quickly, Visible blocks of highlighter pen in the ‘book of stories’ break the spell of the audience being in another world and the words coming from an arcane source. While there are four performers on stage throughout the piece, the first half is dominated by Pestilence and Affliction in a wordy duologue. Mortalia finally speaks after 25 minutes and this character is obedient and passive before her own demise and subsequent abuse. One can imagine this piece might work well as written prose but despite its shocking subject, theatrically, it struggles to ignite or make the most of the medium. There is something visually strong and socially relevant about an inert, powerless woman being used by a man. It makes us think of Gisèle Pelicot, date rape and the exploitation of women by men as a source of status and popularity online. Kiss In After-Plague also has echoes of our own pandemic experience, social distancing and the forbidding of touch. There is certainly much to develop in this original gothic verse play about love in the plague pits. Kiss in After-Plague Written and directed by Anayis N.Der Hakopian  part of Grimfest 2026 Drayton Arms Theatre

‘A captivating, well-written, urgently relevant piece of work.’ ★★★★ ½ Dolly, waitress at a Tex-Mex by day and stand-up comedian by night, sees her life change overnight when raped by a stranger. Deciding to seek out the man responsible for the attack, Dolly is now faced with the criminal justice system… or rather, its absence. Ashton’s work is clearly meticulously researched and complete. All aspects of Dolly’s life are covered; the picture of her toxic work environment where she is already experiencing sexual harassment, even from people she trusts, to her personal life at home with her boyfriend Paul and the consequence of her trauma on their relationship and sex life. As the play unfolds, we follow Dolly through multiple therapy sessions, as she wonders why she is the one being diagnosed and medicated while no one seems to be actually looking for the man who attacked her. ‘Will they un-rape me?’ she ironically thinks when her male doctor prescribes her heavy antidepressants. DOLLY, whilst being a unique and personal story, manages to relate an accurate portrayal of what it sometimes feels to be a woman and try to fight a deeply rooted societal misogyny. When Dolly is told that her case is dropped, actual statistics appear on stage: around 3% of rape cases actually make it to trial. This is a heartbreaking moment that reminds us that this is not just a fictional story: this is the reality for so many women in the UK. Jessica Clark’s performance is nothing less than exceptional. It is so truthful and believable that an audience would believe it’s the true story of her life. Her ability to move effortlessly between the different character she portrays – Paul, her boyfriend; Dina, her caseworker; and The Doctor, amongst others – is remarkable. It brings the perfect balance of comedic relief and dramatic tension as we follow each of the character’s journey and care for them as if they weren’t just coming out of Dolly’s mind. Anthony Biggs directing feels slick and precise, and the play never feels like it’s giving the audience a lesson. The play really starts when Dolly finishes her ‘stand up’ set and starts relating her story directly to us. The beginning feels slightly confusing as it isn’t clear what the stand-up was a part of, but it quickly falls into place. In regards to the end, it is slightly abrupt and can feel like a gratuitous event, purely there to shock the audience. Or is it a stance? Is Dolly giving back the violence she’s been put through for all those years? Or is it for the male audience, to let them know that whatever they’re doing to fight misogyny isn’t enough? It definitely leaves the audience with questions to think about. This remarkable piece is a must-see, smartly written and perfectly relevant. It is gripping, devastating, full of anger, passion, comedy and wit. PlayGC Theatre Company presents DOLLY, written by Charlotte Ashton OMNIBUS THEATRE / 20th October – 7th November BOX OFFICE Featuring Jessica Clark as Dolly Directed by Anthony Biggs Produced by PlayGC Theatre Company Designer – Ash Özüak Sound designer – Roly Botha Lighting designer – Skylar Turnbulll Hurd Stage Manager – Fiona Cradock Line Producer – Sarah Jane Schostack Photographer credit: Carla Joy Evans

'taut and timeless psychological drama' ★★★★ White plywood frames of model houses, all with towers, are suspended against brickwork, there are drawing desks and a drinks cabinet with a decanter of scotch. Outside, silver birch trees glisten and all is calm and still while inside this architect's office, in a small town somewhere in Norway, is a hotbed of fear, loathing, illicit liaisons and unresolved conflict. We can only be in the Ibsen-sphere of The Master Builder . Originally written in 1892, after A Doll’s House (1879) and Hedda Gabler (1890) this adaptation by David Edgar is directed by Arcola's Artistic Director, Mehmet Ergen. Spare, stripped back and contemporary, it brings together a wealth of acting talent and centers on Greg Hicks as Halvard Solness, the troubled architect. Furrow-browed and middle-aged, Halvard Solness fears becoming irrelevant. His loveless marriage brings little joy and Aline, his chic, officious wife played by Sally George, turns a blind eye to her husband’s infidelities with his spellbound book-keeper, Kaja Fosli, the fiancé of Ragnar Brovik, Solness's thrusting young assistant. This is a manipulative, strategic coupling from Solness who hopes to keep Ragnar close and prevent him from leaving to set up his own rival practice. For most of the 2 hours and 20 minutes (with an interval) Hicks as Halvard Solness is like a coiled spring. He strides, struts, grits his teeth and his voice rises and falls, sometimes mid-sentence. He evokes exasperation, frustration and paranoia and this performance belies his Shakespearean pedigree when contrasted with the more naturalistic cast. Aline confides to the family doctor and confidante, Doctor Herdal—a whiskery, stoic presence from Peter Guinness—that her husband may be experiencing mental health issues, or “going crazy.” Maybe, he is. But when Hilde Wangel, a beautiful young woman, arrives at their door, everything changes. Aline met Hilde once at a spa and although Halvard has no recollection, he met her once too, ten years previously, when she was only 13 and he built a new steeple for her community church. She recalls he covered her with kisses, called her ‘his princess,’ and promised in ten years' time to build her “a whole kingdom.” So, here she is. Louisa Binder's vibrant performance as Hilde is luminescent. She looks a little like Brooke Shields or Margaux Hemingway, and her free, coquettish energy represents everything the master builder feels is lacking in his life. She draws him to her like a moth to a flame, and her arrival draws out buried secrets and sadnesses. She encourages Halvard to be bold, move forward, and take what's rightfully his. It leads to the kind of tragic conclusion we can always rely on from Ibsen, which is played out in painfully spaced beats in a dramatically lit tableau vivant. As a psychological drama exploring suppressed guilt and sublimated anger, Master Builder was way ahead of its time and reads like something from Freud's’s casebook - although it preceded Freud work by several decades. Beautifully layered, this text, awash with phallic and psycho-sexual symbolism - how many steeples can you squeeze into one play?— remains a fascinating exploration of human frailty, repressed guilt and buried trauma from modern drama’s very own master builder. The Master Builder By Henrik Ibsen A version by David Edgar directed by Mehmet Ergen Arcola Theatre 16 Oct - 21 Nov 2026 BOX OFFICE The Master Builder - Arcola Theatre

‘high-energy, funny, absurd, and soberingly existential all at once’ ★★★★ An online search of the show’s title (‘complicité definition french’) yields a revealing duplicity. The translation we are perhaps more familiar with, ‘complicity’ with all its negative connotations, seems a fitting title for a show premised upon the meeting of a climate activist and an oil drilling engineer. But a ‘rapport’, cleverly emerges as both men confront their mortality, loves, and the (literal) end of the world. The show opens with Simon alone and handcuffed to a tree in central London, 24 hours into a protest and midway through a desperate attempt at phone sex. Suit-wearing Benoit, complete with open wine bottle in hand, swaggers in (ostensibly) to heckle him. But the image of Simon’s attempts to drown out dialogue with Benoit to concentrate, not on the cause he’s attached himself to a tree for, but on a seemingly base endeavour, allows the question to arise: what exactly is it all for? ‘Complicité’ is high-energy, funny, absurd, and soberingly existential all at once. Importantly, it is a dialogue between two camps that seem ever more separate today. Finn Lanchester’s writing and direction treats the oil drilling engineer, Benoit, with empathy and avoids making a caricature of him. This, I believe, is worthy of praise. The satire takes aim at both characters with equal ferocity as it points out the common undercurrent of fear that drives us all. Soon though, we begin to wonder why Simon and Benoit are still talking to each other at all. Both characters make multiple exits only to reappear to continue the conversation with each other. Perhaps they are both achingly lonely, but the conversation begins to feel slightly unmotivated by the midpoint of the show. It is a plot device, (as one of the protesters’ abandoned signs screams) the end of the world is nigh, that provides us with the most plausible and compelling motivation for the two men’s rapport. Simon, running around central London looking for a Lime bike at the end of the world, is scarily relatable. But it is Benoit’s quiet acceptance of the end that surprises and gives us a satisfying understanding of his character’s motivations. And when the end comes, there’s not much space for a breath before it does, but that’s perhaps what makes it so effective as a piece of theatre.  ‘Complicité’ is a timely and promising piece of new writing that takes its starting image of a man chained to a tree and brings it somewhere exciting. Photo credit: Phoebe Dowling Complicité by scorcher theatre company at the Jack Studio Theatre, 20 to 31 October 2026 Produced by scorcher theatre company Company: Creative Team Written and Directed by Finn Lanchester Lead Set and Lighting Designer: Klára Rychtarčiková Tree Designer and Set Builder: Lorenzo Rangoni Design Assistant: Alice Gray Sound Designer: Elias Dani Graphic Designer: Hermine Pouzoulet Producer: Adam Mir Cast Benoit: Victor Ciri Simon: Alex Westbrook Run time: Sixty-five minutes with no interval Please note: this production contains sexual references, explicit language, violence, flashing lights, loud noises, haze. 15+ Tickets and other information: https://brockleyjack.co.uk/jackstudio-entry/complicite/ 20-31 Oct 2026 Shows at 7.30pm No performances: Sundays and Mondays Tickets: £17, £15 conc; suitable for 15+. There is no charge for online bookings. Phone: 0333 666 3366 Telephone reservations have a £1.80 booking fee. Our concessionary price tickets are for: full-time students, over 65s, registered unwaged, under 18s and Equity Members. Please bring proof of status.

‘innovative and striking, it’s one hell of a piece of theatre’ ★★★★ It’s been the year for plays about health, healthcare and now carers. We’ve had larger-than-life dreamscapes about the NHS with the National Theatre’s Nye, Lifeline, the musical that taps the story of penicillin out to a tune, and now Sarah Rickman’s The Other Room, a harrowing, frank but thoughtful account of the person who holds death’s hand – as a full-time job. Grace, played by none other than Rickman herself, has been coping just ‘fine’ whilst caring for her husband, Chris, who is dying of something sinister that we aren’t allowed to make head nor tail of medically. That is, until Themba (Tolu Kingba) strides through the door with a backpack, résumé and a calm, resolute certainty that he will help care for Chris – a confidence one wishes one could have in a first interview. Rejected, then recalled, Grace and Themba will dance a double step through this woman’s grief, anger, drunken stupors after nights out and post-morning runs, until the inevitable death of Chris. In its most innovative, striking and downright cunning move, Chris never appears on stage. We hear him gagging, spluttering and wheezing through multiple recorded effects or conversations in which the audience is only privy to half the party. It’s pure genius. Fatal sickness is shown not just acting upon the patient but also as a malign dread in the family, in the carer, in all who are cast under its wicked spell. Rickman and Kingba have an impressive chemistry. Everything flows naturally, and scene changes are sharp, inventive and clearly painfully thought through: clothes are used to show Kingba stretching the symbolically emaciated body of Chris; installed lighting flashes ambulance blue whilst horrific spluttering sound effects boom out of the speakers. Chris exists within the EJ Walker tech desk, and it is here that he can wreak pain upon the audience. The play overpromises its comedy. Sure, there is humour, and the pair we see on stage have a great ability for innuendo, surely aided by director Bellaray Betrand-Web. But the play’s comedy is drowned out by the constant, near-insistent physical and emotional toll of Chris’s terminal illness. The ending is also rather abrupt, off-key and unexpected. The audience hears Chris flatline, and that’s it. Full stop.  Whilst not the “bittersweet comic drama” promised, it’s one hell of a piece of theatre. Playing at the 2026 HERE I at the Lion & Unicorn this October, it is an honest portrayal of the people we need most and the ones we so often forget. The Other Room at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, Kentish Town 20 - 24th of October 2026 BOX OFFICE https://www.thelionandunicorntheatre.com/whats-on Written and Performed by Sarah Rickman Directed by Bellaray Betrand-Web Performed by Tolu Kingba Produced by Ciara Pouncett Photography: Holly Darville

‘A wonderfully creative exploration of the ghost story, deconstructing the mechanics of memory’ ★★★★ ½ What do ghosts represent, and what do they say about us? Wuthering Heights portrays life as extending its passion and vengeance far into death, connecting our spirits actions to our own secretive behaviour. The father of Hamlet, as a ghost, commands his son to ‘revenge his foul and most unnatural murder’, and Quint and Jessel in James’ The Turn of the Screw can be viewed either as genuine ghosts, or hallucinations born from the repression of the Governess. Ghosts are commonly catalysts for madness and psychological tools used to torment the living. Readers of ghost stories must therefore ask; is this ghost real, or just a projection of a broken mind? In a wonderfully creative exploration of this idea, Billy Bones (Billy Morton) shatters expectations by exploring folklore and spookiness in a presentation-style piece. It is fantastically intimate and almost conversational with the audience, as though they are sitting around a table together. Morton creates a natural atmosphere for organic participation, where members of the audience become an integral part of the narrative. Morton at one point tells a story that rejects some classic rules for creating a ghost story; while this is funny, it also serves to dissolve our expectations of how we receive stories of any kind, including this play itself. The contents of the stories are hilarious and informative; Morton goes beyond simply telling his audience these stories and uses the space to perform every section in a wonderfully dramatic and professional way. History, literature, comedy, folklore – these are all aspects of us that we use to map the boundaries of our minds and use to make sense of what we know – or in this case, what we don’t know. What puts this performance above others of the same kind is the presentation of cultural history as an interconnected web of all of these things; it mirrors the techniques of W.B Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, using visual artefacts and a highly associative narrative style to take the reader/audience on a digressing journey. It also resembles the style of Paul Stanbridge’s To Me My Mind a Kingdom Is, where the mechanics of memory and storytelling are completely deconstructed with similar digressions.  Any technical mistakes or omissions in the performance did not affect the movement of the play; Morton steers the show forward regardless of what answers the audience gives, and what props don’t work. Every Ghost Story Ever plays until 28 October at Baron’s Court Theatre, Hammersmith. Written and Performed by Billy Morton. BOX OFFICE https://app.lineupnow.com/event/every-ghost-story-ever