Reviews

“A show with stellar potential, which will make you laugh even if you’re not sure why.” ★★★★ The Hen and Chickens is fast becoming the go to theatre for comedy. Its position on Highbury corner in Islington is no doubt a best seller in itself, but the pub, and the people who run it just have that theatrical vibe. It might also be on the money for Islington types (politically traditionally left wing but shall we say that these days this might be more accurately expressed as ‘articulate’). It’s exciting, and this offering from Ready Steady Crooks, (cleverly also the name of their show), is quite enthralling. It’s wacky but if this doesn’t thrill, then it’s worth noting that it has moments of sheer brilliance. The trio of crooks, Head Chef, Sous Chef and Pot Washer, have an adventure which produces plenty of laugh out loud moments. What is the best place for crooks? What does every establishment have? Why a kitchen of course. So, the trio are ideally placed to steal – but they only steal what they can cook. Naturally there are other important characters, Bendy Wendy, the mother of Pot Wash, who dies. That is when Sous steps in to adopt him and becomes the dad. The plot is as thin as a wafer and is merely a vehicle for the comedy. There’s potential here for the culinarian threesome to go on other adventures, probably at Christmas for there is something of the pantomime here. A huge dollop of adult humour but not totally without pathos (potentially), cross dressing, dad dancing and ridiculous costumes. It’s rather more refined and verging on Monty Python brilliance. With an episodic style, the scenes reflect contemporary culture without flinching at the more embarrassing side (to an English person anyhow). The scene in the club, which Pot Wash announces has ‘sticky floors’ and ‘sticky walls’ and ‘there’s an upstairs’, seems to make this an ideal venue from his adolescent point of view. It is where he meets a girl he likes, (who turns out to be dad in drag), leading to a prolonged, but shoddily achieved, masturbation scene, but the semen had a pretty good role in the show following that. With meta-theatre jokes, references to film heists, and occasionally using the audience as stooges (without them ever leaving their seats), the humour is multi-layered. Whilst it’s not really polite to have favourites, it’s okay to admit to being super impressed with Luke Clarence Johnson purely for the ingenious comedy that resulted from his contribution. A method actor can always play any role. The largest of the three personalities, and physically taking up more space, as Sous he sports a moustache, gesturing toward the camp and at the same time, the masculine. He wonderfully plays against type, leaning into the heterosexual, confounding expectations and resulting in quite few laughs. Added to this, is his character from the Caribbean, also beautifully realised (and over the top). Why is it so funny? Could it be the hyper-perfection of his jump from British public school voice to another world, or maybe a meta-theatre joke about actors of colour, all too often only being cast in racial roles. Whatever, it was certainly taking the piss. Confounding our prejudices is a great trope in the show, but so too is the over sensitivity towards racism excellently highlighted in this comedy. The show doesn’t shy away from offence, it’s sacrilegious content (Genesis, and New Testament), is again verging on Monty Pythonesque absurdity. As if this isn’t enough, it also has visual gags, musical gags and a doorbell. As this isn’t a sketch show, it might benefit from a better and clearer plot which would add a satisfying story to the cannon of comedy. If this isn’t what the performers want, then would it be possible to give more depth of definition to Pot Wash and Head Chef (Sous already comes across as a powerful presence). It just needs that smidge of extra clarity, to add polish to an already greatly entertaining show. Ready Steady Crooks! Edinburgh Fringe: Venue: Greenside @ riddles Court – Thistle Theatre (Riddles Court 322, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, EH1 2PG) Dates 18th till 23rd of August 2025 Time: 7:35pm Ticket Prices: £12/£11 concessions Venues Box Office: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/ready-steady-crooks Suitable for ages 14+ Written and performed by: Benjamin McMahon (The Play That Goes Wrong WEST END), Luke Clarence Johnson (Sion Hill’s music video “Could Have Had It All”) and Sam Stafford (The Mousetrap WEST END).

‘Beautiful singing with a fractured narrative thread’ ★★★ Testament offers three operas, with singers shifting between roles as they move from one piece to another. Splicing together Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Janáček’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared, and Libby Larsen’s Try Me, Good King, the production’s aim was to explore “humanity’s evolving relationship with nature”. While this was clear in the final piece Janáček’s opera The Diary of One Who Disappeared, the link was tenuous with the other two pieces. That we shifted from one opera to another also meant that we never achieved an emotional investment in the characters or each of the stories. It was a shame as the singers were skilled vocally and many of them were great actors too. I’m a lover of Monteverdi, but musically, the shift from Tancredi to Larsen’s piece was jarring and I wonder if they would have been better to choose a later piece to open the show. Shafali Jalota, who sang Clorinda in the Monteverdi was sublime. The myriad colours and rich tone of her voice meant she shone as one of the vocal stars of the show. The only man in the cast, Brenton Spiteri whose tenor voice was beautifully rounded, was also a great actor. The women’s trios were exquisite. The “Nightingale” trio was a particular delight and really lifted the show. Libby Larsen’s Try Me, Good King was also intriguing. I feel Tobias Millard’s direction could have done more to connect the pieces together. He did this at a couple of points, but it needed more. If there was an overarching narrative which bound the three operas together, I missed it, and it felt like Millard missed opportunities to make this clearer. Also, at times it felt like the singers were being arranged in tableaux rather than creating connections and relationships with each other, though the performers did what they could to compensate for that. It looked nice but I craved more emotional connection. The set was simple but effective. Overall, while the singers were gifted, the shunting together of three operas did not really work as I think the company intended. Shame, as I think the company has great potential. TESTAMENT at Arcola Theatre 16 – 19 July 2025 Company: Green Opera Dates: 16 – 19 July 2025 https://www.arcolatheatre.com/whats-on/testament/ Performers: Natalka Pasicznyk, Emily Hodkinson, Shafali Jalota, Katherine McIndoe, Brenton Spiteri, Director: Tobias Millard Musical Director/Pianist: Alex Raineri Producer: Eleanor Burke, Brenton Spiteri Music by: Claudio Monteverdi, Leoš Janáček, Libby Larsen, Stage Manager: Juliet Hague Assistant Director: Stanley Lawson Set and Costume Designer: Kit Hinchcliffe Assistant Set and Costume Designer: Olivia Gough Production Manager: Sean Laing Lighting Designer: Cheng Keng Movement Director: Emilia Cadenasso Violin: Pietro Genova Gaia, Naomi Burrell Cello: Carolina Lopez del Nero Reviewer: Srabani Sen Srabani is a theatre actress and playwright. As an actress she has performed at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (The Globe), the Arcola, Southwark Playhouse, The Pleasance and numerous fringe theatres, in a range of roles from Shakespeare to plays by new and emerging writers. She has written several short and full length plays. Her play Tawaif was longlisted for the ETPEP Finborough award, and her play Vijaya was shortlisted for the Sultan Padamsee Playwrights Award in Mumbai.

‘three playlets that try to re-awaken Absurdist tropes’ ★★ ½ The quite-a-long-time-ago trend for Absurdist Dramas was powered by the idea that a significant philosophical position could be effectively illustrated by a striking dramatic metaphor. Oftentimes, the Absurdist playwrights tried to make the metaphor amusing, so their audience went “Oh my word, my life has been a bit like turning up every day so someone can tell me why I’m turning up every day.” Or “If you look at them rightly, fascists are a bit like rhinoceroses.” It is maybe debatable how effective those metaphors were, but that’s what the writers were trying to do. David Henry Wilson has put together three playlets that try to re-awaken Absurdist tropes, People in Cages, in which the setting is a cage, there are actors inside the cage, there are actors outside the cage, and the script explains why they are where they are. Sometimes the actors inside come out, and the actors outside go in. That’s the metaphor. Playlet one, by a very great margin the best of the three, features a man (John Kay Steel) in a cage labelled “killer ”, and a young, naïve couple come to gawp at him. The experience is arranged by a gatekeeper, played by Finlay McLean. The gatekeeper is a recurring character. Is the man really a killer? What does a killer look like? Is ‘killer’ merely a cruel labelling by an unfeeling society? Why would anyone want to come and gawp at a killer in a cage? All these and many other questions are raised in the half-hour run-time. None of them are actually answered, but that’s not the point. The point is that the play makes the audience consider them. And really, the problem is that they are not questions I’ve been pondering, I don’t much care about them. Why am I here? Yes. What actually is a Killer? No. Wilson is exercising a problematic technique to illustrate nebulous, not very significant, problems. And the punchlines, the moment where the plot twists to reveal a big idea, they are a bit feeble and don’t reveal anything of much interest. The cast does their best, and John Kay Steel has some good moments in the first play, but they are labouring with really unpromising material. I am not convinced Ionesco has a huge relevance in 2025, but David Henry Wilson is flogging, metaphorically, a long-dead horse. Ionesco was very of the moment in the 1950s, and maybe the Theatre of the Absurd had its moment then. In 2025 it feels awfully old. Box Office https://www.thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/people-in-cages Images; James A Bloomfield for credit purposes (@JamesABloomfield on IG)

‘Accomplished, imaginative, funny and sinister’ ★★★★  An accomplished piece of original and imaginative theatre, this production showcases the considerable talents of two women. Sophia Hail, who also directs, as Zona and Jennifer Kehl as Katherine have agreed to undertake a 60 day trial in which they train themselves to make coffee for their unseen bosses, at the end of which one or other of them will get the job but, of course, there is actually something much more serious going on. The clue is in the play’s title. These women are actually in a “doomsday bunker” a mile underground in Hawaii because this is a dystopian two hander. It’s a witty, fast paced study of the relationship between them because they don’t initially know each other and their personalities are very different. Gradually their hang ups and vulnerabilities emerge and very slowly and, against the odds, a friendship begins to develop. There’s a lot of humour here but there’s poignancy too when, for example, Katherine explains why she applied for this trial. And towards the end there’s real terror as the situation hots up and, at last, we hear a voice (Austin Yang) from the outside world. Hail is very funny as the excitable, untidy, all-American Zona (her full, flamboyant name is Arizona Turquoise) who has come by sea because, of course, she has environmental objections to flying. Kehl’s contrasting character is a control freak from Dallas who just about manages to hold herself together by being ruthlessly efficient. The dialogue is finely honed and the two actors play very pleasingly off each other. The passage of days is indicated by rapid physical theatre like a speeded up film and it’s a device which is both amusing and effective. A word of praise too for the set which neatly provides a convincing coffee bar in a room which also has camp beds and a table and chairs – everything these people need for 60 days during which food is delivered in an elevator whose ping becomes almost sinister. Well done Little Coup Theatre Company. This is impressively thoughtful work. It’s Not All About Coffee Written and performed by Sophia Hail and Jennifer Kehl Directed by Sophia Hail Little Coup Theatre Company Brockley Jack Studio Theatre 15 – 19 July 2025 BOX OFFICE

'a wrenching story of alcohol addiction' ★★★★ ½ ‘Truth is stranger than fiction’ is a commonly bandied adage. In “The White Chip”, you realize pretty quickly that this is someone’s personal story as the details are so specific, even ludicrous. It is a wrenching story of alcohol addiction shared dramatically and without holding back the dark and dirty, as the characters sometimes struggle with the concept of truth. Steven (Ed Coleman) starts as a youth who has his first drink as a teenager and learns how to hide his love for drink (or so he thinks) over the years from family, friends, and lovers. Coleman speaks quickly and charms all members of the thrust stage as he takes us through a tour of his life and middle America to show how a Mormon boy ends up at the number one party school in the US (Florida State, if you must know) and finally on his knees. The two other actors (Mara Allen, Ashlee Irish) are a swirl of action: quickly shifting set pieces, beautifully multi-roling, and providing the banter Coleman needs to pull off what would otherwise be a very long monologue. They come to represent the many people who come into and out of his life because though Steven is the teller of the tale, there is a swarm of people both impacted by and influencing his story. Allen’s turn as his mother is particularly poignant in her own shift from the careless mother to the co-recovering alcoholic. What is interesting in this whirlwind of a story of addiction is Steven’s awe for the American playwrights who juggled alcoholism with writing some of the most lauded plays in the canon, such as Edward Albee, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams. A successful dramatist in the US, finding professional success, he is constantly pulled away by his greater love for drink. As the story returns to the concept of ‘the white chip’, representing a chance to start afresh, Steven has to confront the strength of his own desire to truly become sober and overcome himself. At times, the play reminded me of a country music song: parents hate him, wife leaves him, dog dies . He is living out Groundhog Day (the film gets a mention). Similarities exist to Duncan McMillan’s People, Places, and Things (recently reprised by Denise Gough from a decade ago) playing a main character caught in a cycle of addiction and the ending of The White Chip has a moment of intersection with this play’s fervency. I also recalled B lackout Songs by Joe White about a codependent couple who fall in love after an AA meeting. They “oscillate at a higher frequency” (direction notes) without ever ‘playing drunk’. Coleman operates at a similar frequency very effectively in his take on Steven. The set is simple, easily changeable, at times perplexing. Huge columns of chairs in the back (perhaps symbolic?) behind the sound person’s table loom and are at times pulled out. Most notable is the use of coloured lighting with the sound of a heartbeat effectively brings us back to the singularity of Steven’s choices and consequences. The blackness of the stage and the props correspond well with the darkness of Steven’s experience. Throughout this take on the orthodoxy of addiction, from the initial Mormon summer camp reboot to AA Meetings to the Jewish pair (Lenny and Stuart) who ultimately help Steven find the higher power he could trust (science), something beyond himself that could pull him out of that constant internal struggle. Once he sees that truth for himself, Steven can also remember what it is to be human, and what a beautiful thing that is. Photography: Danny Kaan BOX OFFICE Written by Sean Daniels Performed by Ed Coleman, Mara Allen, Ashlee Irish Directed by Matt Ryan Set & Costume Designer: Lee Newby Lighting Designer: Jamie Platt Sound Designer: Max Pappenheim Reviewed by Mariam Mathew

‘We’ve got no other option but to protest.’ ★★★ On the news, without a doubt, we have seen climate protestors making their mark across the world in increasingly inventive ways, and have also witnessed what the push-back and hesitance against their cause can look like. Luke Ofield uses the revival of his short play to ask what good activism is supposed to look like, in a world where activists are running out of ways to make themselves heard. Ofield manages to capture both ideas – for and against - within the play. His protestors are often disorganised and misguided, and their counterweight, the Captain, is ignorant to their cause, unable to understand why they are protesting the right to be heard over anything specific. Within a small control room, on an isolated oil rig with no means of escape, Ofield pushes these ideas together and demands their conflict to be resolved. Kit and the Captain are well-cast, and acted, but Christine Kempell as Dawn performs particularly well, standing out as a character who is unsure where to place such strong feelings, and who’s kind-hearted nature works as a striking contrast to the situation they are in. The effect of feeling unheard – a central idea to this play - is particularly noticeable with Dawn, who comes across as a character who is simply out of place, and has turned to this kind of extreme activism out of desperation. As a result, the difficult scenario they have gotten themselves into is constantly contrasted by her friendly dialogue, which is well-suited to her character. The use of the walkie-talkie and repeated references to the authority of Nicola work well to open up the theatre and encourage the audience to remember the confined space they are in. The Baron’s Court in particular is a great space for this production; the intimacy of the theatre is a reminder that the world is watching, and there’s nowhere to hide. Following a brief climax of action, the chance is taken to develop the personal nature of the characters, especially the Captain. The dialogue can be a little slow at times, with each of the characters weighing in on the serious themes of politics and economics, often taking a while to reach a meaningful conclusion. The ending, however, is able to resolve some conflicts and make a statement on the nature of the protest. The revival of Luke Ofield’s Kill Drill is an exciting and dramatic take on the nature of the protest – a short yet effective play that forces three different personalities to find common ground, asking the question ‘why is no-one listening?’ Kill Drill by Luke Ofield 15 th - 19 th July 2025, Baron’s Court Theatre, London https://www.baronscourttheatre.com/killdrill Reviewer Seb Gardiner Seb is a playwright currently based in Reading.

“The dialogue stings and quips” ★★★★ In his debut play BIG SHOES, Rowan Williams has created two male characters that understand how to talk about their feelings. And talk about their feelings they do: sadly, lovingly, hot-headedly. Two brothers lose their father – who was a clown (“both metaphorically and literally”) – and struggle in the wake of his death to realise their careers as comedians amongst the pressures of family, poverty and self-esteem. Their double act, the K-Hole Surgery, keeps them close as brothers, but when Jay (Rowan Williams) announces he’s leaving comedy to look after his new family, Tom (Luke Sumner) falls apart. The brothers fluctuate between love and resentment for one another, and Williams cleverly constructs a co-dependent relationship that survives alcoholism, grief and suicidal ideation. I’m making the play sound macabre. It’s not – it’s hilarious, and Luke Sumner is electric as the wild, self-important young comedian who can make a joke out of anything but will never fill his father’s big (clown) shoes. Longlisted for the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award, Williams’ play excels in its nuanced portrayal of a fraternal relationship that – despite being knocked about from all corners – always returns to a shared centre. The dialogue stings and quips as one brother leans on the other and we fully understand that they are – in life as in their double act – the “full half of the other person’s world”. Williams’ script is expertly composed, offering a unique ‘palette cleanser’ before the final, explosive scene. Sumner breaks character and riffs with the audience, as if performing his own stand-up gig, and manages to lead an orchestra of noise in canon without causing too much embarrassment among the audience, which, in London, is no small feat. Amid absurd portrayals of comedy characters such as the ‘Ham Paedophile,’ Williams carves a symbol of the brothers’ father into the play: his red clown nose. At times, Jay can’t bring himself to touch it; at others, he tries to snatch it off of Tom. The red nose seems to act as a kind of permission from their father: a license to fully embrace comedy and all that comes with it. Whether that’s a wise idea is questioned throughout the play, as it explores alcoholism, depression and the feeling of always being the underdog: “In comedy, as in life, you are still an amateur.” While the production perhaps could have pushed further, both Summer and Williams match the script’s brilliance in a play that is equal parts honest, vulnerable and funny. BIG SHOES by Rowan Williams Autonymic Theatre co-production with Isabelle Kirk The Hope Theatre 8 th – 12 th July 2025 Box office: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/207-upper-street/the-hope-theatre/big-shoes/e-mobkaj CREATIVE Director – Tom Greaves Stage Manager – Bea Hart CAST Younger – Luke Sumner Older – Rowan Williams Social media: @autonymictheatre; @rowantwilliams; @flukesummer; @tdrgreaves

‘thoroughly charming if not quite Noel Coward ’ ★★★ The thing about hugely popular authors is you never quite know who’s going to make it beyond their own time and into posterity. After all, in their time Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Benjamin Disraeli sometimes sold quite as many books as Charles Dickens did, but he still fills long slabs of bookshelves, while one of them’s remembered as an unusual Prime Minister and the other, if at all, largely for giving Charlie Brown’s beagle Snoopy the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night”. And so to E.M. Delafield, author of numerous books and plays including the charming and lastingly famous (and still in print) Diary of a Provincial Lady, whose 1930s play earns a welcome revival at the White Bear, its first in London since the 1940s. We’re in the country home of paper mill owner Freddie (Jonathan Henwood) and his very bored wife Caroline (Becky Lumb) for a three-day stay by her sister and the man she may or may not be about to be engaged to. Life is hum and life is drum as Freddie reads his paper and smokes his pipe while Caroline dreams of romance and nights at Alhambra. Until the disruptive machinations of Jill (Rebecca Pickering) bring Owen (Jonathan Davenport) a little closer to Caroline than might be entirely seemly, causing chaos in the home until order is restored as Freddie’s unseeing eyes begin to widen. This is light comedy of the charmingly frivolous kind with a stronger psychological undertow than that sometimes suggests. It’s nicely staged, lit and sound-effected on a simple set with well-designed period costumes and touches including newspaper, pipe and telephone. And it’s funny and touching, exploring the tiresome absence of choices that faced women in the inter-war years, an age when marriage and children was pretty much the defining life choice. Becky Lumb in the lead is the heart and soul of the production, capturing both the boredom of her stultifying life in the country and the hope of her dreams of something better. Her performance swoops and rises with her emotions and she manages even to suggest a lingering love for a stolidly unimaginative husband who really does try her sorely without ever being anything other than faithfully tedious. There’s strong support from Pickering as her sister, though some unevenness in the variety of acting styles is on show, and perhaps a mild absence of pace in picking up cues for lines that deserve more laughs than they sometimes get. What the play isn’t is what the programme optimistically hopes – proof that Delafield didn’t deserve to be overwhelmed by her contemporary Noel Coward in the long-lasting fame and production stakes. But it’s witty and straightforward story-telling, psychologically sharp without being surprising or biting in the way that the best of Coward is. And while some individual lines are in the Coward class, the mechanics of the plot (slightly obvious contrivances to get people on and off the stage when they need or don’t need to hear things – a whisky to fetch here, a visitor book to search for there) sometimes show a little too clearly. And so, it’s a thoroughly charming show even if not quite Noel Coward, but given that very few things are Noel Coward, a very warm and pleasant way to pass an evening. TO SEE OURSELVES by EM Delafield Directed by Luke Dixon White Bear, Kennington 1 to 12 July 2025 Box Office: https://www.whitebeartheatre.co.uk/whatson/to-see-ourselves Reviewer David Weir’s plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow) and Better Together (Jack Studio, Brockley, London). Those and others performed across Scotland, Wales and England, and in Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium. Awards include Write Now Festival prize, Constance Cox award, SCDA best depiction of Scottish life, and twice Bruntwood longlisted.

‘all three actors, two of whom do a lot of witty doubling, are strong’ ★★★ Based on a true story. this unlikely romp takes us to the Bronx during prohibition and the Depression. A group of very hard up people decide to kill a larger-than-life Irish drunk upon whom they have taken out insurance policies. The trouble is he won’t die. They try alcohol poisoning through excess whisky, methanol, contaminated oysters, exposure and hit and run – among other things but he goes on bouncing back. Of course eventually they get caught and the piece is framed by two of them writing their confession in a prison cell in the hope that honesty might get them clemency. It’s a three hander and all three actors, two of whom do a lot of witty doubling, are strong. There is particularly pleasing work from Stefani Ariza who plays the boss of the speakeasy where most of the action happens – and many other roles. She is impressively versatile. Bryan Pilkington gives a colourful performance as Malloy – mostly drunk and singing Irish folk songs – and morphs into other characters convincingly. Will Croft as Francis Pasqua is the anchor man who speaks direct to the audience and is a satisfactory foil to the other two. Dan Bottomley’s sound design creates atmosphere and the basic set device – a sort of counter which becomes a bench and car, among other things, is neatly contrived. It’s a lighthearted piece which Adamson has clearly had fun writing. And it’s a commendably quirky idea for a play. The trouble is that it’s meant to be a comedy and, although it’s mildly entertaining, it really isn’t very funny. Moreover at 90 minutes straight through it’s too long for its subject matter. Photography: Cam Harle THE UNKILLABLE MIKE MALLOY Written and directed by Luke Adamson Bridge House Theatre, Penge 8 – 26 July 2025 BOX OFFICE Cast Will Croft Stefani Ariza Bryan Pilkington Artistic Team Director Luke Adamson Writer Luke Adamson Producer The Bridge House Theatre. Executive Producers: Simon Jeal, John Handscombe, Ju Owens, David Owens, Ellie Ward, Graham Telford, Tim Connery Lighting Designer Luke Adamson Sound Designer Dan Bottomley