Rev Stan's Theatre Blog
London theatre reviews and interviews
Category: New plays
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Plays with multimedia can feel a bit gimmicky and therefore disappointing, but this isn’t the case with This is Not About Me at the Soho Theatre. Written by Hannah Caplan, it’s a two-hander about friends who have tipped over into ‘with benefits’ on three occasions, which threatens their friendship. They are opposites who somehow fit…
-
Two friends to enemies meet in a hotel bar in the early hours. The years have passed since something happened to shatter their relationship, but emotions haven’t necessarily mellowed. Mark Bastin’s play The Dawn of Reckoning is a two-hander which unravels the broken friendship between Ruth (Jilly Bond), a children’s book illustrator, and Helena (Bryonie…
-
Mother Dad at the Omnibus Theatre tells two stories of different imperfect parents trying to do the best they can. Toyin Ayedun-Alase is a 16-year-old mum who wants to be independent but quickly realises that independence can feel lonely. As she and her daughter grow up, she is resolute in her desire to make sure…
-
Video transcript: Guess How Much I Love You at the Royal Court Theatre is a new play by Luke Norris. It starts off with a couple having a 20-week scan. The wife is pregnant. And I don’t want to say anything else particularly about the plot, because this was a play that surprised me. It…
-
Video review transcript: I confess that I found End at the National Theatre quite an emotional watch, purely because there was a lot that resonated. There’s a lot that was quite close to home. But there’s a lot of humour there as well, and I really appreciated that, particularly as it’s balanced very nicely. It…
-
Olly Hawes’ play Old Fat F**k Up at the Riverside Studios is described as part autobiographical, but which parts are true? It’s something the writer/performer plays on throughout the piece, telling us that bits are true when there are question marks. There are also the parts that he wants to be true and others that…
-
Fatherland at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs is the story of an enthusiastic, fun-seeking dad Winston (Jason Thorpe) and a reluctant daughter Joy (Nancy Farino), on a road trip to Ireland to discover family roots. Winston has converted an old school bus for the journey and is seemingly motivated by a desire to take Joy out of…