Rev Stan's Theatre Blog

London theatre reviews and interviews

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  • How to promote your play or musical with no budget

    A guide for small theatre production companies and fringe theatres doing their own marketing

    I’ve been writing about theatre in London for 15 years* and I’m lucky enough to get sent press releases, invites and pitches of all shapes and sizes, but I wanted to share some tips for the small productions and venues doing their marketing with a low or no budget.

    You’ll likely have a list of journalists and bloggers you want to target with promotional material and to invite to review.

    Bloggers will receive a lot of press releases and invites. I count myself as small-scale in the reviewing world and still receive 20-30 emails and DMs a week.

    Added to this, only a very few online reviewers do it as paid work. Most, like me, have full-time jobs and blog about theatre as a hobby and are therefore time poor.

    Keep information clear and concise

    This means clear communication with easy-to-find key information in emails is a huge help.

    • Where is your play/musical/show?
    • When is it?
    • How long is it?
    • What is it?

    WHERE London has so many fringe theatres, so include an address for where your production is in your email so reviewers have the information to hand.

    Side note: if you are a theatre, is the address easy to find on your website?

    There are an alarming number of small theatre websites with this vital bit of info buried somewhere in a drop-down menu or page. Make it clear and obvious, eg, ‘Find us’ in the main menu.

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  • Review: Tender, Bush Theatre

    l-r Francesca Amewudah-Rivers and Nadi Kemp-Sayfi in ‘Tender’ at Bush Theatre. Photo by Harry Elletson

    Tender is getting a second outing this time in the Bush Theatre’s larger space and is a play about a chance encounter that develops into something more.

    The encounter is between two women who are living with not wholly comfortable relationships. Ivy (Nadi Kemp-Sayfi) is living with her pushy boyfriend and has an equally pushy brother.

    Ash (Francesca Amewudah-Rivers) has returned from living in Spain, having left her fiancé at the altar only to find that he is stalking her. She has just moved into her own flat.

    They are very different to each other. Ivy is defiant but in small ways, while Ash is cool and confident. Mostly.

    Both are hiding parts of themselves; there is a yearning for something that connects them, but that connection is… complicated.

    The staging is simple, with the back wall of the performance space made of silky material with a door to one side.

    When Ash is at home, the silky material pulsates along with a soundscape, pressing in as if alive. It adds tension and foreboding.

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  • Review: Live From the Warehouse, White Bear Theatre

    Live From The Warehouse, White Bear Theatre. Photo: Deepan Singh

    Live From the Warehouse is a multimedia play set, as the title suggests, in a warehouse.

    Tanmay (Aryaman Krishna Aggarwal) and Riyan (Vrishab Wig) are hiding out after a school prank involving a gun goes wrong.

    With the police in pursuit, they contemplate their options and find ways to pass the time, flirting recklessly with the idea of becoming social media famous and having all eyes on them.

    Aryaman Krishna Aggarwal and Vrishab Wig burst onto the stage with synchronised, simulated running, which sets the scene for the energy and tone of this play.

    They are versatile performers. Mock stand-up is used to contemplate their backgrounds and ambitions; there is also a dance sequence and an action-movie-style pretend fight with a drug dealer.

    Youthful exuberance and naivety distort their take on their situation. Views and likes on social media have agency among their peers, and their predicament becomes a means of creating online visibility, which sets them on an ever more precarious path.

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  • Video review: Glengarry Glen Ross, Old Vic

    Video transcript: Glengarry Glen Ross at the Old Vic Theatre sees the cast swap genders, so rather than it being an all-male cast, it becomes an all-female cast, and this is an interesting take on it.

    It somehow accentuates the aggressive masculinity of the play. They don’t swap any of the names; they use all the male names. It is literally just a change in actors.

    And I really liked how it just emphasises this, that aggressiveness in a way far greater than productions I’ve seen with an all-male cast.

    Now this is a very fast-paced play. It hits the ground running, and it doesn’t let up.

    There are no quieter moments. It is literally bang, bang, bang, and it can get a bit much in places.

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  • Review: Lulla, Omnibus Theatre

    Two young woman sitting close to each other with their heads touching
    Meg Walls (left) and Anna Marks Pryce (right) in Lulla at the Omnibus Theatre. Photo: Lidia Crisafulli

    Lulla, presumably short for lullabies, which weave through this play, centres on 16-year-old Marin (Anna Marks Pryce), a queer 16-year-old who has bunked off school to get to know Dolores (Meg Wallis) more intimately

    The two are having a lovely time when her mum (Madeleine MacMahon) comes home early and catches them in a compromising position.

    Her mum doesn’t take the idea of her daughter being queer well, to put it lightly, and her dad (Robin Berry) doesn’t offer much comfort either.

    We then drop into a dream/nightmare world where Lady Nightshade inhabits.

    Played in rotation by Wallis, Macmahon and Berry, they are bedecked with a crown of twigs and a sparkling pink-and-purple cape, creating a presence that is a strange mix of intimidating and comforting.

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  • Review: Relics, Lyric Hammersmith

    A man in a green check shirt and jeans sitting in low chair. A woman sits on the carpet opposite him wearing a white shirt with floral detail. Between them standing in black jeans and black denim jacket is a woman who is pretending to sing into a microphone.
    Relics, Lyric Hammersmith with (l-r) Sam Swainsbury, Charly Clive, and Sally Phillips. Photo: Marc Brenner

    Ben Ockrent’s play Relics reminded me of Nachtland at the Young Vic from a couple of years ago.

    • Siblings reunite to divvy up their dead parents’ belongings. Tick.

    • A painting is found with a suspected dodgy history. Tick.

    • Said painting divides the siblings, causing arguments. Tick.

    Relics has a different comic tone, though. Where Nachtland had dark humour, this is lighter, it has witty repartee with some amusing physical comedy thrown in.

    The four siblings meet at the family home to decide who will take what of their late mother’s possessions.

    Olivia (Sally Phillips) is the responsible and organised one. She gave up her job to care for their mother and is concerned about the tree in the garden around which their Granddad’s ashes were scattered.

    Michelle (Charly Clive) is a teacher and the aloof, grumpy one.

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  • Review: Camdenwalla, Camden People’s Theatre

    A still photo from the play Camdenwalla at Camden People's theatre. Two brown actors in a dishevelled 1990s office. A woman sits at a desk facing across to another desk where a man stands and is on the phone. They are looking at each other.
    Nusrath Tapadar and Bhasker Patel in Camdenwalla, Camden People’s Theatre. Photo: Harry Elletson

    REVIEW: It’s 1994, and Muhammad (Bhasker Patel) runs the Camden Monitoring Project, an organisation that supports victims of racist attacks.

    If someone from the local Bangladeshi community is feeling threatened or under attack, they can call the service, and a man in a van will come and collect them and take them home or somewhere safe.

    Muhammad carefully documents every incident in the hope that the police will do something.

    When 16-year-old niece Alima (Nusrath Tapadar) turns up with some food for him, on what is turning out to be a busy Saturday night, he persuades her to stay until he can safely get her home.

    Seeing what her uncle does, Alima has a different idea for what Muhammad could do to help those in frightening situations.

    Camdenwalla is based on true stories from real people and performed in the actual building where the Camden Monitoring Project was based.

    The play might be set more than 30 years ago, but it feels pertinent now with rising racial tension.

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  • Review: F**king Swans, Omnibus Theatre

    F**king Swans at the Omnibus Theatre is part of the 96 Festival of queer theatre and is a play centred on two same sex couples.

    Their gender is a refreshingly incidental detail because, aside from mentions of when gay marriage became legal, the focus is on their relationships.

    Ronnie and Harper are the cutesy couple and are expecting a baby. Carol is loud and has a relationship with Lindsay built on bickering and making up.

    They are all friends and seem to tolerate each other’s behaviour until, seemingly out of nowhere, Harper announces she wants a divorce.

    The announcement comes as Ronnie, who is on deployment in the army, returns home for a brief visit.

    She is naturally shocked. Friend Carol is angry at the split, and Lindsay tries to persuade Harper not to rush the divorce.

    F**king Swans takes its time getting to the ‘why’ for the break-up, but it doesn’t fully explore the ‘why’ behind their behaviour and their feelings towards each other along the way.

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  • Review: Slaughterhouse-Five, Southwark Playhouse

    Patrick McAndrew in Slaughterhouse-Five, Southwark Playhouse. Photo: Henry Hu.

    Is it possible to adapt a complex, time-hopping novel with aliens for the stage?

    This production of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1968 anti-war novel Slaughterhouse-Five started life at Brockley Jack Studio and has now transferred to the Southwark Playhouse, and there is plenty that is inventive and slick in how it is staged.

    It’s the life story of Billy Pilgrim (Patrick McAndrew), who became a prisoner of war in the Second World War and survived the Dresden bombing.

    The action jumps back and forth between life before, during and after the war, including the time he claims to have spent on Tralfamadore, having been abducted by aliens.

    With a cast of just four, the story is populated (and told) with the help of multimedia. There is a screen at the back of that stage and second, thin gauzy one a few metres forward with various projections appearing on both.

    On a thin, gauzy screen, information such as dates, quotes and animations appear.

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  • Review: Before I’m Dead, The Glitch

    Myla Carmen as Zara in Before I’m Dead, The Glitch, Photo: Phoebe Dyer

    There is a veil of death hanging over the theatres around The Cut in London.

    Care at the Young Vic is set in a nursing home and about the end of life, and a few minutes’ walk away at The Glitch is Before I’m Dead, a play about a terminally ill teen.

    But the two couldn’t be more different productions.

    Zara (Myla Carmen) is 17 and likely won’t make 18 because of a brain tumour. She is assigned a therapist, Stuart (Pete Ashmore), through a Make-A-Wish-style charity.

    Her wish is to broadcast her own eulogy on the radio, but it is not as easy as it sounds. There are broadcast rules and parental permissions to gain, which Stuart, reluctantly at first, helps her navigate.

    While Care has the slow pace of its care home residents, Before I’m Dead, while still considered, has an energy that is part youthful verve, part desperation.

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  • Review: Albatross, Omnibus Theatre

    Caroline Rippin and Agnes Lillis in Albatross, Omnibus Theatre. Photo: Ashley Day

    Albatross at the Omnibus Theatre is a play about the fractious relationship between a mother and daughter, the sacrifices they make and climate change.

    Eve (Agnes Lillis) has been caring for her young granddaughter, Alba, while her daughter, Alice (Caroline Rippin), is working on a climate research project in Antarctica.

    With Alice’s imminent return, she is looking forward to getting her life back and going on a cruise with her new boyfriend, Martin (Patrick Morris).

    When she does return unexpectedly, it isn’t the greeting that either mother or daughter would have planned, and the atmosphere quickly becomes tetchy.

    As both lay out their future plans, the sacrifices they have made are laid bare. Eve gave up the dancing job she loved when she became a mum, while Alice is sacrificing motherhood for her work.

    Are the sacrifices equal if Alice is doing important work? Does it feel like a sacrifice when Alice’s obsession with her work overshadows the desire to see her daughter after months away?

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