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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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  • 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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