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: 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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  • Review: I’m Not Being Funny, Bush Theatre

    Jerome Yates and Tia Bannon in I’m Not Being Funny, Bush Theatre. Photo: Richard Lakos

    I’m Not Being Funny at the Bush Theatre is a play which at one point has you laughing at Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On and then later crying during the same song.

    It is a bittersweet story of a young couple with a 3-year-old child, forced to face a future no one wants to think about.

    Billie (Tia Bannon) has signed up her and her husband, Peter (Jerome Yates), for an open mic night. With daughter Ruby tucked up in bed, they retreat to their living room to work out a ‘tight five’ of stand-up.

    They recreate the stand-up setting with karaoke mics and a lamp acting as a spotlight. Peter’s approach is jokes of the dad variety, Billie’s is stories, but soon they start drawing on the past for inspiration.

    As they reminisce, we flash back through their shared history as a couple, revealing first meetings and kisses to starting a family. It slowly builds to a revelation and the reason for the stand-up.

    Jerome Yates and Tia Bannon have a great rapport as Peter and Billie. They expertly balance humour and silliness with more emotional moments. The living room set is well used and, with different lighting, smartly doubles as places from their past.

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  • Review: Brief Play About Rage, Omnibus Theatre

    L-R: Samantha Begeman, Clare Stenning and Jad Sayegh in Brief Play About Rage, Omnibus Theatre

    Brief Play About Rage at the Omnibus Theatre is a funny one. You’ll either get it or you won’t. You’ll either find it hilarious and daring or OTT and irritating.

    It’s set in the flat of Val (Samantha Begeman) and Hugh (Jad Sayegh), and tensions are running high as they await the arrival of Val’s old ‘friend’ Nell (Clare Stenning).

    They only have two chairs, but neither seems concerned about where their guest will sit.

    Instead, Val frantically cleans an already clean flat while giving Hugh a list of instructions for dealing with Nell. It’s partly about protection, partly about how not to provoke.

    How bad can a supposed friend actually be?

    Quickly it becomes clear she is bad. She is right up in personal space bad. She is ‘has-no-filter’ bad. She is ‘speak the truth’ but ‘only joking’ bad.

    Nell doesn’t take much to be provoked into wilder and wilder behaviour, and things go from bad to worse. Pissing in a bowl, then drinking it worse.

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  • Video review: Mass, Donmar Warehouse

    Video transcript: You know, when you’re watching a play, and the auditorium is silent.

    Nobody’s shuffling around, there’s no noise whatsoever, and you can just tell that everybody is utterly gripped.

    Well, that was what it was like watching Mass at the Donmar Warehouse for the entire hour and 45 minutes.

    This is an extraordinary play, a very powerful play, a gripping play.

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  • Review: Heart Wall, Bush Theatre

    A scene from Heart Wall the play. The set is a pub and woman in a red track suit top sits deep in thought at one of the tables. Another woman in a silver puffa jacket stands in the background.
    l-r Rowan Robinson (Franky) and Olivia Forrest (Charlene) in Heart Wall at Bush Theatre. Photo: Harry Elletson.

    Heart Wall at the Bush Theatre starts as the audience arrives with a karaoke. Pub manager Valentine (Aaron Anthony) encourages people to come onto the stage to sing.

    The auditorium is lively, some singing along to the popular anthems, waving arms, and I’m sure tapping toes.

    As the popular pop songs fade, we meet Franky (Rowan Robinson), who has made a surprise return to her northern home from London. It’s her first visit in a year.

    It quickly becomes evident that she and her parents have become skilled in deflection and avoiding certain topics.

    There has been some sort of loss, and not just Franky’s pet rabbit, which has mysteriously disappeared.

    Franky’s dad, Dez (Deka Walmsley), has a strange rash and takes scorching hot baths in the middle of the night. Is it a distraction or a punishment for some deep-rooted guilt?

    Her mum, Linda (an excellent Sophie Stanton), avoids Dez by staying away from home, but Dez doesn’t seem overly alarmed.

    And Franky seems to have swapped avoiding her parents for avoiding her new life in London.

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  • Video review: A Doll’s House, Almeida Theatre

    Video transcript: A Doll’s House at the Almeida Theatre is a modern adaptation of Ibsen’s play.

    First thing to say about that is, this is the second modern adaptation I’ve seen in a few weeks, the first one being Summerfolk at the National Theatre, and both playwrights have chosen to liberally sprinkle swear words.

    Now I’m a swearer, I like a good swear, but I think in theatre, in plays, there has to be a reason for it.

    Having characters randomly using the C word, I’m not sure how relevant that is. It doesn’t make it a modern adaptation.

    I like the fact that the modern spin on the financial trouble that Nora is in is that she has basically moved some money around, got it done electronically, in order to help her husband out.

    But there’s also an issue; she’s helping him out because he’s going into rehab for drug and alcohol [addiction], and yet she is buying alcohol and taking drugs in the house.

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  • Review: Copenhagen, Hampstead Theatre

    Richard Schiff, Damien Molony and Alex Kingston in Copenhagen, Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

    Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen is a philosophical, moral mystery set around a meeting between Danish physicist Niels Bohr (Richard Schiff), his wife, Margrethe (Alex Kingston) and German physicist Werner Heisenberg (Damien Molony) in 1941.

    The two men had once worked closely together, but the war saw Germany invade and occupy Denmark, leaving the half-Jewish Bohr in a precarious position.

    Heisenberg, who was involved in developing nuclear energy for the Nazis, made a surprise visit to Bohr in Copenhagen, but what was discussed remains a mystery. What is known is that the meeting was short and didn’t end on good terms.

    Frahn’s play imagines versions of the conversation from different angles, with Margrethe sometimes acting as commentator.

    Was the meeting about Heisenberg assuaging his conscience because of the work he was doing for the Nazis? Was he warning Bohr and, in doing so, undertaking a covert act of sabotage?

    Knowing that Bohr had connections with the Allies, was he trying to find out about their nuclear weapon programme?

    The play doesn’t shy away from acknowledging that no one actually knows what was said at this meeting, drawing a parallel to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

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  • Video review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses, National Theatre

    Video review transcript (lightly edited for grammar): Les Liaisons Dangereuses – I never know how you pronounce that.

    Dangerous Liaisons at the National Theatre, starring Aidan Turner and Lesley Manville, is superb. I’m just going to come straight out and say it.

    The chemistry between the two leads is fantastic. There’s a delightful mixture of competitiveness and playfulness, but also respect and admiration between the two of them, which is just a delight to watch.

    They use a lot of movement and a lot of dance, and this is really effective.

    Who people are partnering with the style and tone of the movement, the absences from certain movement pieces and dance pieces all have their own story to tell, and really enhance the storytelling. And I really enjoy that.

    The costumes are incredible, beautiful, beautiful costumes.

    And the set, the Lyttelton stage is vast, and they use the space really well. They don’t have a lot of sets.

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