Truth and Fiction

Not really a proper post - more a gem courtesy of Francis Alexander at The Chelsea Theatre today - but thoroughly worthwhile nonetheless. ...

Review: Crocosmia, Battersea Arts Centre

Another week, another award-sweeping Edinburgh show at the Battersea Arts Centre . Where Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea proves an ...

Love/Hate Relationship

I was recently asked, as part of an application form, to write 80 words on what I hate about theatre. Unexpectedly, I found myself having fa...

The Perfect Filling

For the lone theatre-goer, foyers are menacing halls of hubbub. You stand there, drink in hand, rooted to the spot, surrounded by conversing...

Review: The Snow Queen, New Wimbledon Theatre Studio

Written for The Stage With its sense of expedition and an array of fantastical characters, The Snow Queen makes perfect material for small-s...

Review: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, BAC

Written for Culture Wars Given the garlands and praise heaped upon 1927 ’s debut production, it’s difficult to approach Between the Devil an...

Review: Peter Pan, Richmond Theatre

Written for The Stage It’s panto by numbers down in Richmond, where Family First Entertainment’s Peter Pan ticks all the boxes without much...

Playing with, not by, the rules

In life, I am a stickler for rules. I have always struggled to break curfews, miss deadlines, lie to figures of authority, walk on the grass...

Review: Brilliant, Lyric Hammersmith Studio

Written for Culture Wars Brilliant is to children’s theatre what Picasso and Pollock are to visual art. Dispensing with the usual rules of n...

Review: The Time of Your Life, Finborough Theatre

Written for The Stage Beginning with a burp and proceeding with equal delicacy, Max Lewendel’s tedious production saps the metaphor and mela...

Imagine Form as Content

In her 2007 review of Presumption, currently playing at The Southwark Playhouse, Lyn Gardner picked up on the perfect marriage of its form ...

Review: Daedalus & Icarus, Barbican Centre

Written for Culture Wars If Mungu Theatre Company’s chirpy retelling of Greek mythology is anything to go by, Iranian theatre is in good he...

Review: You, Me, Bum Bum Train, Cordy House

Written for WhatsOnStage.com In the heart of Shoreditch is a theatrical experience sure to leave you Dazed and Confused. For the twenty minu...

Review: Presumption, Southwark Playhouse

Written for Culture Wars Love is in the air at the Southwark Playhouse – only not the sort of love that takes your breath away. Rather the ...

Just Dandy

Like Maxie Szalwinska , I spent Saturday afternoon at The Riverside indulging in a spot of Peachy Coochy, a mischievous event led by the imp...

Exeunt Into Reality

At one o’clock on Monday morning, as I turned onto my road, there was a middle-aged man, wrapped up and tracksuited, running. An unusual sig...

Review: Footsbarn's Midsummer Night's Dream, Victoria Park

Written for Culture Wars So otherworldly is Footsbarn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, that it conjures thoughts of another dimension altogether. ...

One of life's brighter days

I have an interview with Tim Etchells in The Stage this week. Haven't seen it yet, but when I do I'll post it up here - should be ...

Review: The Long Road, Soho Theatre

Written for WhatsOnStage.com Newspapers trot out the facts and figures of knife crime on a seemingly daily basis. What little we see of the ...

Review: Rank, Tricycle Theatre

Written for Culture Wars With the world teetering towards debt-ridden recession, Robert Massey's Rank serves a light-hearted reprimand f...

Review: Othello, Lyric Hammersmith

Written for Culture Wars In relocating Othello to the blood-red dinge of a run-down Northern pub, Frantic Assembly have transformed it from ...

Warning: Smoking can seriously damage your fiction

I have two habits: smoking and theatre-going. Like a persistent framing device, a hasty cigarette will immediately precede and follow any pe...

Let heaven see the pranks...

With the nation moving from barracking to Baracking and the uproar of the Ross/Brand Sachs scandal seemingly forgotten, it seems time to scr...

Review: Red Fortress, Unicorn Theatre

Written for Culture Wars At once admirably and hopelessly idealistic, Carl Miller’s Red Fortress pits three children of different faiths aga...

Review: Follow, Finborough Theatre

Written for Culture Wars Like the newborn lumbered on its teenage protagonist, Follow is ill-conceived. Spurious to the point of being spoof...

Review: To Be Straight With You, National Theatre

Written for Culture Wars Clashing worldviews rarely sit alongside one another in quietly grumbling contrast. Rather, they collide in messy, ...

Review: La Clique, London Hippodrome

Written for Culture Wars Ignore the slightly plastic commercialism and the newly reopened Hippodrome seems an escapist paradise in the midst...

Playground Reactions

To witness an audience united in uproar is a thrilling and daunting experience. Individuals become a vociferous pack, reacting physically an...

Review: A Disappearing Number, Barbican Centre

Written for Culture Wars Watching Complicité at their best is akin to an out of body experience. Theirs is a theatre of ethereal fluidity an...

Review: Spyski, Lyric Hammersmith

Written for Culture Wars With their fast-paced, physical spoofs, Peepolykus have built a reputation for sharpshooting pastiche. Regularly se...

Review: Broken Space Season, Bush Theatre

Written for Culture Wars Snaking its way up the stairs at the Bush is a timeline of decay, detailing the theatre’s journey into darkness as ...

Review: Cradle Me, Finborough Theatre

Written for The Stage After a brief foray into the city with his last play Turf, Simon Vinnicombe has retreated to the suburbs for Cradle Me...

Review: Perô, Unicorn Theatre

Written for Culture Wars Ask a British actor about their first experience of theatre and expect tales of wide-eyed wonder and pantomime dame...

Review: Unfinished Realities, Hannah Barry Gallery

Written for Culture Wars Welsh-German collaborators Awst & Walther are clearly concerned for humanity. Unfinished Realities, their first...