Reviews

‘Powerful play featuring four fine actors’ ★★★★ Kindliness is a powerful play which packs a lot of tension and includes a couple of narrative surprises. Daniel Chaves, playwright who has also produced this show and plays Malcolm, is evidently a man of many talents. We first meet Malcolm and his presumed partner Mimi (Lucy Kean) who is rather irritatingly trying to distract him from his work. He’s an architect designing a bridge on his laptop. Then we see him with his wife, Amara (Fia Houston-Hamilton) and son, Little Thing (Victoria Chen) and realise that he’s two-timing. But this much more than a three way love tussle. We’re in an unnamed – but totally plausible – place where two communities hostile to each other live on either side of a river. Malcolm’s idealistic view is that his bridge will enable the two sides to come together – a symbol of reconciliation. What actually happens is the diametric opposite. And added into the mix is that Mimi, who is pregnant, is one of “them” although she has lived in the opposing community for a long time, while Amara, Malcolm and Little Thing are definitely “us” so, when the going gets rough, Malcolm has to choose. It’s a gripping exploration of exclusion, prejudice, war, peace and what makes a family – among other things. All four actors are outstanding and very well directed by Jenny Eastop in the tiny crucible which is Baron’s Court Theatre. Chaves gives us smooth talking, guilt, anger, panic and a lot more. Houston- Hamilton is terrific as the rational, sensible Amara desperately worried about her child who has asthma. She evinces grown up, steely calm when the other adults are, with good reason, becoming hysterical. Kean does a wonderful job first, of a flirty girl friend, later of a woman screaming in terror and ultimately a tranquil new mother. The Mimi she creates is a nuanced character. And Chen, who is suitably petite, is a completely believable child, charging about in excitement when not lying prone in illness. KINDLINESS by Daniel Chaves Part of VOILA Festival At Barons Court Theatre 17 – 22 November 2024 Box Office https://www.voilafestival.co.uk/events/kindliness/ Directed by: Jenny Eastop (2024 Ovation Award Winner for Best Director and 3 Time Offie Nominee) Written & Produced by: Daniel Chaves Designed by: Jasmine Kint Cast: Amara - FIA HOUSTON-HAMILTON (Hollyoaks, Coronation Street) Malcolm - DANIEL CHAVES (The Night of The Iguana - West End) Little Thing - VICTORIA CHEN (As You Like It - Orange Tree Theatre) Mimmi - LUCY KEAN (Sweeney Tood - Shotgun Theatre Company)

‘a nuanced piece’ ★★★ ½ Two men are part of a stag weekend in Krakow. One, Leo (Michael Schenk) is at the station, clearly distressed and leaving the party early. The other, his old friend Greg (Joe Facer), who is dressed as Kate Bush and has followed him, is trying to get to the bottom of Leo’s reasons. There is a lot of joshing and mood changes in this two hander which eventually gets quite serious when we finally learn what is troubling Leo. He is a decent sort often teased as Saint Leo by Greg. He is running away from the possibility of deeply hurting another friend – enough said. No spoilers. It’s a nuanced piece. Greg has problems of his own but Facer, who also wrote the play, makes him pretty rounded and complex. He was worried that Leo was contemplating suicide or secretly gay and in denial – both wrong. But he is right that Leo is deeply troubled. These two actors work very well together and their dialogue feels completely natural. There is a slight problem with Facer’s diction however. His northern accent is so strong that some of the word endings disappear and from the corner I sat in he was sometimes inaudible when he had his back to me in the Bridge House Theatre’s in-the-round set-up. The other mildly amusing issue is that we get a sound track with trains and it isn’t always possible to distinguish them from the real life trains which rumble regularly past the Bridge House which is almost next to Penge West station. On the whole though, this is strong 60 minutes of quite hard hitting theatre. A CARRY ON IN KRAKOW by Joe Facer Directed by Sam Daltry Bridge House Theatre Penge 12 – 23 November 2024 Box Office https://thebridgehousetheatre.co.uk/shows/a-carry-on-in-krakow/

‘Engelhardt gives a convincing account, and her story is very informative’ ★★☆☆☆ Television as a medium covers topics in a very wide range of forms. We are accustomed to seeing everything from news to sport and documentaries to drama. And with the ever-increasing presence of social media, theatre’s audience can these days be stolen away because they are spoilt for choice. Not surprising then that new innovations have found their way into many modern productions. Okay, so we always had the drama the tragedy the comedy and the musical but imagination and technology have allowed the non-traditional minded proponents amongst us to innovate in new directions and with new mediums. Sport seems a long way off and I dread the day when I am sitting in a theatre and someone onstage thinks it a novel idea to start whacking golf balls into the audience. Documentary though, is much more plausible. And that was very much the feeling I got when witnessing this performance. Don’t jump to conclusions and think this was not entertaining or dramatic. The subject matter, being so emotive was one hook and the twists and turns, as many as in the best who-done-it also kept the audience captivated. Amy Engelhardt gave us a moving story of her personal involvement with the terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Her near obsession with the event, lead her to consider that many of the incidents that happened in her life were in some way connected to it. She gives a convincing account of this and her story is very informative; hence leading to my assessment that the whole thing was very much like a documentary. There was also music, in the form of an unconventional trio of keyboards, cello and percussion. This did however work really well in performing Amy’s compositions. These were original, with the cello adding a eerie, folksy feel to the more modern ‘70’s musical’ keyboards and incredibly moving lyrics. There were also projections onto the back wall of the stage showing scenes and people connected to the events in her story. And lastly, a touch of a quirky kind of humour wherein our attention was brought to the weird consequences within the story by the ‘ding’ of one of a number of bells strategically positioned on the floor of the stage. The story brought out the immense warmth created around the people involved with the tragedy through the transatlantic connections they made. Therapy, charity and empathy were what resulted. Written & performed by Amy Engelhardt Directed by Kira Simring

Photography: Tim Stubbs Hughes @ Grey Swan.  ‘dark truths and raw subject matter laced with whip smart dialogue and the disarming effect of laughter and comedy’ ★★★★ It’s Christmas. There’s turkey swimming in brine in a bin outside, the bubbly has been popped and everyone’s in their glad rags. Despite all the signs of festivity the phrase ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’ has never seemed more apt. This family are used to putting on a brave face but sometimes, even on the toughest of women, the cracks can start to show. Doreen (Alice Selwyn) has wine hidden in the oven, eldest daughter and single mother Riley (Lois Tallulah) does her best to release pent up rage with frantic bursts of dance but one more wise-crack from middle sister Gemma (Nancy Brabin-Platt) and she might boil over. Then there’s the youngest, Jorja (Ella Harding). Everyone’s so busy dealing with their own drama that they don’t always notice her: she’s her own woman and sick of being seen as the baby. She seems to have found someone that loves her for what she is, but is there a price on that? In short, it’s a cramped household but that’s not just because of Covid 19’s sentence of lockdown. Looming over them all, like a bad dream that can’t be shaken, is Pentonville Prison. It’s more than just an eyesore for this household but a constant presence in their lives, whether they like it or not. Georgia’s dad is in there, and Riley’s baby’s dad has just joined him. In direct address to the audience, Riley tells us that they’ve all had to develop their own ‘survival bodies’, their own way of dealing with a trauma and a hurt that none of them want to see repeated. These survival bodies can be angry, quiet, ugly, sad and anything in between. All of these modes of survival are depicted skilfully by a cast of six female performers. Joining this tense family of four are two guests, Doreen’s best friend Trish (Jennifer Joseph) who, as well as bringing moments of joy and light heartedness to a family in desperate need of her lifting spirits, also completes an uncanny resemblance to another iconic double act-- Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders in ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. Finally, there’s Jamila (Nadia Lamin) whose overwhelming baby bump seems determined to push its way into this family’s story. Writer Lois Tallulah and director Isla Jackson-Ritchie have created a play that doesn’t shy away from dark truths and raw subject matter yet does so through whip smart dialogue and the disarming effect of laughter and comedy. Through the complicated lives of these six women, the audience are shown the effects of incarceration on those who, though physically outside a system, become enveloped within its cold grasp. Though these characters’ opinions may diverge on the role of crime and punishment, one truth seems to ring true: There is never just one victim of incarceration. Prison may be for the perpetrator, but families and communities become hidden victims of a system which so often becomes focused on those inside the walls. In The Shadow of Her Majesty’s Prison written Lois Tallualh presented by Gas Money Productions Tuesday 12th – Saturday 16th November

‘a fearless production that says a lot with a little’ ★★★★½ I walk up the stairs to the black box theatre above the Drayton Arms pub and I am met with the infectious energy of a trio in white shirts, black ties and no bottoms. The cast of ‘funeral teeth’ hand out lollipops, condoms, tampons and tissues to audience members in the preset to a brilliantly bawdy play. I am enthusiastic, having unwrapped my lollipop and written what I’d hate to lose most on a slip of paper (to be used later in the show); I am sure from the outset that this is fresh and exciting theatre. We are given multiple trigger warnings and encouraged to look after ourselves as the show deals with adult themes, and we are reminded of the company’s open-door policy. Succulent Theatre’s Rio, Amy and Katja command the stage in a 60-minute celebration of autobiographical storytelling. They mix sex and love and queerness with grief, loss, drugs, suicide, eating disorders, assault, abortion, funerals and teeth, all the while speaking to a universal feminine experience with nuance and care. Profound, confessional monologues are punctuated by physical vignettes: grandparents battling google maps in the car, losing your virginity to a boy (“DID YOU CUM??”), yanking out a Mooncup from between your best friend’s legs and shoving your grandma’s coffin into the ground because the hole is too small. In such a short piece, the company manage, half-naked, to both cover a plethora of social issues and drum up pride for femininity. There is power in sharing stories to educate, particularly when they address mental health. Succulent Theatre are powerful, carving a positive space for the female body to occupy, and ‘funeral teeth’ left me wishing I’d known about their work sooner. Slick lighting and sound design bolster stellar performances from all three actors, who deliver multiple characters, physicality and moments of tenderness with impressive ingenuity. Only at the end of the show do they pull on their trousers, as if saying goodbye to the funeral of their collective losses: eulogies delivered, friends’ traumas re-enacted. The play itself is a kind of united therapy, inviting its audiences to reflect on their own losses and the ‘weird, smudged version of the world’ that takes shape after someone dies. ‘funeral teeth’ is a show about loss, yes, but it’s also a show about joy, the power of female friendships and bouncing back after hardship. Whether you have lost a part of yourself to a relationship, a disorder, a procedure or a death, Succulent Theatre remind us that there is hope in laughter and comfort in confession. This is a fearless production that says a lot with a little and, above all, is a lot of fun. funeral teeth By Succulent Theatre Drayton Arms Theatre 12th – 16th November 2024 @succulenttc Reviewer Bio Imo Redpath is a writer and actor for theatre, radio and TV. She graduated with an MFA in Scriptwriting from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and her plays ‘Foxes & Rabbits’ and ‘Pigs’ are currently in development. She writes a comedy blog on Substack about living with ADHD in London.

 ‘Distant Memories of the Near Future resonates with real heart and ambition.’ ★★★ ½ Prepare for a journey through a thought-provoking future where love is commodified as David Head returns with his 2023 Edinburgh Fringe hit at the Arcola Theatre. In this compelling play, Head explores a society where tech giants have transformed love into a purchasable commodity, urging patrons to find their algorithmically perfect match. Amidst government and corporate-sponsored advertising promoting this utopia, humanity grapples with an ironic craving for genuine connection in a world dominated by AI and intergalactic trade. The narrative weaves together five poignant stories, each told with Head’s characteristic earnestness. From the harrowing plight of an ‘undesirable’—a term popularized by the media—to a tech genius seeking answers to the question of ‘perfect love' after a heartbreak, the stories evoke both humor and sadness. We also encounter a miner-astronaut fighting for survival in a depleting oxygen supply, and an AI delivering a heartfelt TED-style plea for connection. Head’s writing stands out with its sharp wit and intellectual depth, posing profound questions about AI and the nature of love. However, the emotional impact of the performance occasionally falters. At times, Head’s delivery feels too restrained, which undermines the earnestness of his themes and makes it difficult for the audience to connect on a deeper level. Director Laura Killeen masterfully crafts a cold and hollow world, highlighting the bleak commodification of love and art. This emptiness is beautifully contrasted with striking imagery, particularly in the puppetry scene and atmospheric lighting choices. Katya Shipulina’s innovative video design further enhances this absurd future, creating a compelling visual experience. Despite its flaws, Distant Memories of the Near Future resonates with real heart and ambition. It offers a refreshing exploration of contemporary romanticism and the implications of technology, making it a must-see for romantics and reflective optimists alike. Running just over an hour, it’s the perfect theatrical fix for those contemplating the future of human connection. Distant Memories of the Near Future Written & Performed by David Head Directed by Laura Killeen Arcola Theatre 12th November to 30th November From £18 to £26 Box Office https://www.arcolatheatre.com/whats-on/distant-memories-of-the-near-future/

‘A glimpse into the brilliant mess that is young womanhood’ ★★★★ ‘Is This Thing On’ is a two-hander, offering an emotional tennis match of female friendship, feminism, and how our own stories can impact those closest to us. The play follows Mary and Liz: best friends; flatmates; performers who share the same stage. From the start we can tell they are close, with seemingly little boundaries or off-limit topics of conversation between them. But they neither seem opposite nor the same – rather a complex mismatch of different lived experiences as well as habits picked up from each other. To create clear characters such as these – brilliantly performed by Ellie Campbell and Megan Keaveny - who bounce off each other so well, is a real feat that goes beyond believable. I see pieces of myself, my friends, my enemies in them. The space was brilliantly utilised too, opting to make the intimate Hope Theatre into a traverse setting, highlighting the intense tunnel vision of the central friendship, with no hiding spots. The use of lighting and sound emphasised this well, both as gig theatre-esque devices and disruptive transitions – the stakes felt high; the dramatics matched. Aside from capturing the complex, often intense, dynamics of new female friendship, the play goes further: delving into each one’s insecurities of being ‘bad feminists’, bad friends, bad lovers. Cheeky humour coupled with direct address created a garishly uncomfortable atmosphere that you couldn’t help laugh at and lean into. Often though, with the central story being so strong, the more general discussions of these big themes felt a bit on the nose. Primarily, the play offers brilliant nuance, which was sometimes confused or over complicated by the characters’ reflections on their feelings about wider society. When the world of the play lives inside their bubble, it felt disjointed to be hearing about other people’s. Running at just over an hour, ‘Is This Thing On’ gives a glimpse into the brilliant mess that is young womanhood, by presenting characters you feel like you’ve known for years in an unconditional love triangle with themselves, each other, and the wider world. Is This Thing On The Hope Theatre 12-16th November, 7.45PM https://www.thehopetheatre.com/productions/is-this-thing-on/ CAST: Ellie Campbell Megan Keaveny CREATIVES: cast Mary - ELLIE CAMPBELL Liz - MEGAN KEAVENY writers ELLIE CAMPBELL & MEGAN KEAVENY producer PJ CUNNINGHAM set designer MAYA HERITAGE lighting designer DOUGLAS KUHRT sound designer SOFIA ARMELLA Reviewed by Anna Rastelli

‘rooted in powerful contact with the earth, each step serves to connect’ ★★★★ I would say a key characteristic of African dance lies in its ritualism. While Western dance replicates idealised world for the audience to see, African dance serves for their ancestors, nature, and the community. Dance here is a ritual, an offering to larger forces, the invisible. This may explain why the feet are so integral in African dance—rooted in powerful contact with the earth, each step serves to connect, not to soar. Beyond Borders, performed at The Place, opened with powerful percussion, a rhythmic call that felt almost out of place in the proscenium setting of The Place, a theatre oriented towards Western-European ideals. Yet, this conventional setting was transformed as the dancers began to emerge from all corners—from the back of the auditorium, the wings, and the entrances, forming a circle that embraced both the stage and the audience. It was a powerful invitation to experience together, breaking down the boundary between watcher and participant. The performance was a vibrant showcase of African dance forms, each unique and deeply rooted in its cultural heritage. The first piece, ‘Mutuba’, choreographed and performed by Antonio Bukhar Ssebuuma from Uganda, showcased a powerful mastery of the body, deeply grounded and earthy. ‘Resilience’ followed, choreographed by Nahum McLean, featuring young dancers in flowing blue skirts moving with a light, feathery quality. ‘Your Limbs’, a film, honoured the legacy of Kariamu Welsh and her contributions to contemporary African dance, beautifully celebrating the cultural heritage of the African diaspora. The program’s diversity continued with ‘Rush’, a piece that almost feels like a scene from a dance musical, created by second and third-generation diaspora artists, Kurtyswift and Unkle TC, offering a fresh, modern energy. The show also featured ‘Bigger’, choreographed by Nathan Neo Gordon, with its vibrant Caribbean hues, and ‘Mario’ by Chantal Loïal, which incorporated Congolese rumba and dance traditions from the West Indies—pieces that honoured their cultural roots while celebrating transformation and adaptation. The show closed with ‘Resilience of Melody’, a striking piece with complex percussion but ironically, no melody. Here, the dancers themselves became the music, filling the space with movement and breath, as if the sound arose directly from their bodies in sync with the beat. Beyond Borders was more than a performance; it was a celebration of African and diaspora cultures, an evolving and thriving tradition in this land. From traditional forms to Afro-fusion, this weekend event at The Place honoured the dynamic, enduring spirit of African dance. FEEL THE RHYTHEM PRODUCTIONS https://feeltherhythmproductions.com/

 'A lot of contradictory information to digest, and the audience for this production…quickly lost their appetite’ ½★ Putting on a good play is like cooking a delicious meal. Without a recipe. And therefore only to be attempted by the brave. Multiple – carefully selected – ingredients, prepared lovingly to produce something tasty for a lucky someone to savour and enjoy. Similarly, good theatre is an amalgamation of a tight script, a brave and dedicated cast and crew, shaped and guided by a director and placed in front of an audience to consume and – hopefully – to enjoy. There is no existing recipe for an original piece of theatre and therefore it can only be attempted by the brave writer, bold enough to write a new one. Risks either pay off or they don’t. Unfortunately, P.T. Rose’s play My Wife Fell in Love with A Life Size Cardboard Cut-Out of Ronan Keating takes multiple risks and not a single one of them pays off. The recipe is unclear: the premise of a hodgepodge family (four generations of women, an Elvis impersonator, an Islam convert and a clown) that assemble for Ronan Keating’s birthday (whose cardboard copy stands rigidly upstage, smiling through the whole ordeal) is what drew me to see the show. Alas, I can’t help but regret my decision to eat at this table in the first place. This play, directed by Yvonne Patterson, is about delusion. The delusion of a working-class mother, Sally, whose sexist, fascist, transphobic and racist views of the world have so skewed her reality that she has fallen in love with a cardboard cut-out of Ronan Keating. The delusion of her live-in boyfriend who speaks to her in a tone more revolting than if she was a rat he’d found in his sock drawer. “Carry on cutting your chicken for Keating’s curry and shut your mouth,” he commands, dressed – for some reason – as a clown. And Sally moves from kitchen to sofa, sofa to kitchen, kitchen to Ronan Keating, Ronan Keating to sofa again, in a play so static that one of the audience members was woken up by the final applause. Perhaps the most offensive delusion of all, is that the playwright appears to push a transphobic agenda through Sally and her mother Doreen (whose Ziggy Stardust flash tattoo is big and red and questionable), who shout and shout that no daughter / granddaughter of theirs will be a ‘they’ – as if they have any say in the matter at all. And the writer makes no attempt to sugar coat their belief that education leads to delusion: Phil, Sally’s transgender child has discovered the term non-binary at school and now wants top surgery, but this is construed as an attempt to ‘mutilate’ their body in order to ‘defy societal norms,’ and Sally’s boyfriend, the clown, spends the entire play reading the Financial Times despite recently completing a university module and therefore having found Buddhism, a religion which refutes material wealth. This is a lot of contradictory information to digest, and the audience for this production of My Wife Fell In Love…quickly lost their appetite. There’s a fine line between theatre that comments successfully on societal issues – and takes political shape because it chimes with current events – and theatre that is unapologetically political but cannot decide where it stands on anything. Here we are on that line. P.T. Rose’s play made no sense in the first half, and descended into further senseless chaos in the second, when ex-husband Joe turned Islam convert arrives. He lets himself into the apartment through the age-old cliché of the front door being ‘left wide-open,’ and proceeds to explain that his chosen pronoun is the n-word and insists that everyone call him ‘n***** Joe’ from now on. As I squirmed in my seat, I hoped, I prayed that the writer was trying to say something here, trying to shock us for a reason. But there was absolutely no point to throwing this painful word around, and the jokes that ensued as the outlandish characters corrected themselves and repeated the word over and over were base and gratuitous. Perhaps I join the delusion by attempting to make sense of this play, but one thing I can say for certain is that it was not ready for review. Missed lighting cues, sound issues and a stunt-casted actor who forgot almost all of her lines were just a few indicators that this production was overpriced and under rehearsed. Some actors made the best of a bad situation, others stumbled through the script as poorly as it was written. This is a play where every offensive word or thought is thrown into the space without nuance or soft focus, and yet nothing happens at all. There is bravery involved in disaster. And this play is certainly brave. My Wife Fell in Love with A Life Size Cardboard Cut-Out of Ronan Keating By P.T. Rose, adapted by Tegwyn Burges Directed by Yvonne Patterson Produced by Karen Struel-White & Francoise Pascal Drayton Arms Theatre 5th – 9th November 2024 www.rkplay.net Charlotte Reidie as Sally Meryl Anderson as Doreen Francoise Pascal as Pearl Simon Charles as Clown Nathan Nuurah as Elvis Lily Starkey as Phil Shaz Rocket as Joe Benji Ruhle as The ‘Man’ Reviewer Bio Imo Redpath is a writer and actor for theatre, radio and TV. She graduated with an MFA in Scriptwriting from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and her plays ‘Foxes & Rabbits’ and ‘Pigs’ are currently in development. She writes a comedy blog on Substack about living with ADHD in Lon