Show me yours, I’ll show you mine: relationships as transactions are not a new idea and sex often plays a crucial role when partners negotiate their needs. In According To His Need, hobby socialist Nick joins the party to finally score again. He meets the party loyal Cass who wants to elevate Nick’s interest for Che Guevara above that of an ornamental T-shirt decoration.

Hannah Mamalis as Cass makes debatable enunciation choices and as her speeches drips with frustration over the wannabe leftist: her stream of political jargon becomes almost indistinguishable. Michael-David Mckernan copes better with the socialist babble. Although a needy loner, his confusion is charming as his commitment to Cass (and Marx) blossoms and he realises that instating socialist values might not agree with his libido.

The emotional bartering between them exposes the logical flaws that emerge when real people try to apply abstract political theories to their lives. Unfortunately, the play is not a clever allegory on real live political events. Oliver Eagleton’s script seems oddly unaware of socialist core issues like class and labour. Instead it contents itself with a rambling flow of theoretical jargon. Together with Nora Kelly-Lester’s pragmatic direction the show is more lacklustre than revolutionary.

Originally written for The List as part of their Edinburgh Fringe 2014 coverage.

Symphony is about finding your own story among the advertised illusion of lifestyles, opportunities and pre-written shoulds and woulds. Fluidly slipping in and out of characters or behind the keys, various guitars and the drum kit, the performers are a talented bunch, and especially at the kick-off with Tom Wells’ Jonesy, often manipulating the instruments to comedic effect.

Iddon Jones plays a 15-year old Welsh underdog who gets the PE GCSE blues. It’s all skimpy shorts, adolescent dreams and grinding expectations of lad culture but it also manages to take a witty look at how we measure our own success against expectations we draw from existing narratives. In Jonesy’s case Cool Runnings was his forming narrative, and why not? In Tom Wells: Plays 1 published in 2021 Jonesy will be right next to Jumpers For Goalposts, part of the playwright’s “Young Men and Sports”-Cycle and it will feel like foreplay, an amusing side note to the infinitely superior Jumpers.

A Love Song for the People of London by Ella Hickson makes Symphony slide unashamedly from dick jokes with asthma inhalers to pie-baking Zooey Deschanel admirers on this years’ universal kookiness scale. Bemoaning kindles for ruining chances to flirt and damning fateful brollies for communication mishaps, the players in this menagerie are serenaded by London (in shape of a Brit Pop front man) itself. It’s a great twist, delivering one of the best (musical) moments of the piece – a throbbing soundtrack about chancing your luck. Liam Gerrard plays Alex who bakes pies when he’s anxious and who sniffs his dream girl’s hair on the bus. Alex pathetically rages against the unkind urban spirit who is selective about whose love life he’ll support. Suck it, pie creep! London doesn’t owe you anything.

Striking me as the most genuine in this triad of self-narrating characters are Jack Brown’s mucky pup philanderer, and Katie Elin-Salt, as a woman who knows what she wants. The rise and fall of an urban love story in Nick Payne’s My Thoughts On Leaving You is a funny account of heart break, full of delightful stranger than fiction contrasts – real people meeting in a puddle of wee and trying to create something meaningful out of it.

The show ends on a beautiful chanson note about the City and for a moment the three plays come together under a wicked sound blanket, thickly woven like an urban structure with ideas of fate, predetermination and luck sticking out like passionately moving limbs. Although the unruly punchiness of the piece was highlighted by a crackling soundtrack, surely curtsey of a repeatedly dropped amplifier, the venue hindered the chance to be entirely engrossed in the music festival style art form mix. The raked seating in Assembly’s Bosco Tent is far removed from eyes-closed, swaying in the crowd with an East End microbrewery beer can in hand. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the venue, maybe on that day Symphony was just a love song from the wrong city.

Originally written for Exeunt as part of the Edinburgh Fringe 2014 coverage.

When writer-performer Trevor O’Connell faces the solitary reviewer for his one man show at the upstairs room in The Mash House, he seems completely unfazed. He takes out a bound diary, starts flipping through the pages and tells the story of how in 1946 he, the young, Irish sailor Casey, landed in New York. His story serves to explore expat Irishness throughout the past 60 years and this is captured through symbols, music and loving descriptions of landmark buildings – some gone and forgotten now, some gone but forever etched into the collective cultural memory.

O’Connell captures momentous events in small anecdotes. When he plays Dylan on the guitar, meets the tragic poet Dylan, or reenact his escapades with the lovable crook Fitz, he threads before our eyes the complex geography of a city stitched together over centuries by the hard work of immigrants. The sailor’s relationship to New York is epitomised in his infatuation with a woman as complex as the city itself.

Although the performance is still being developed, O’Connell’s coming-of-age story is certainly accomplished and its rich, descriptive language and quirky characters could be straight out of a Don DeLillo novel. Presented by TMT Productions and directed by Genevieve and Anna Hulme-Beaman, this play is a warm and melancholic piece of storytelling – one of those shows that should not ever struggle with empty auditoriums again. Smash the fringe cliché or miss the next Conor McPherson at your own peril.

Originally written Broadway Baby’s Edinburgh Fringe 2014 coverage.

With swashbuckling noblemen standing in for gunslinging thugs, this piece of new writing revolves around two rival brothers: one scheming, the other adventurous. Both were involved in The Big Coffee Heist of 1799. Fifteen years on, the coffee conspiracy catches up with an aristocratic household. Peruvian rascals collide with highly strung dames; emotions and coffee beans fly high in this pleasantly flimsy farce. The show winds its way through time-mashing references, but when confessions of love are fobbed off with “I don’t care if you’re Milton or P Diddy,” it works surprisingly well.

However, Greg Obi’s chatter as the finger-snapping Caecilius Clay becomes fairly strained after 40 minutes, along with the overall show’s heavy reliance on word play and flowery language. The cast, while perhaps too large, is energetic, committed, and throws everything at the stunts, stage fights and, notably, an South American coffee dance orgy. Sadly, most of this happens at the expense of character nuance.

You don’t see the end coming by a heteronormative mile but, considering it’s an original farce, the show suffers somewhat from insufficient laughter. Unleash The Llama’s genre-mixing experiment has Tarantino’s balls (the show is not suitable for minors) but it does not quite share his storytelling finesse.

Written for Broadway Baby as part of the Edinburgh Fringe 2014 coverage.

 
It’s astonishing how little it takes for the brain to project human features and emotions onto inanimate objects, and Mummenschanz have been working on this premise for the last 42 years. It’s their first stint into London since 2006 and in only 80 minutes the company presents over twenty playful sketches from the vast body of their work. In the little moments, glittery curtains, loo roll faces and even massive construction site tubes come to life and play out universal emotions which are at the core of human existence. Life from broken down into their most basic geometrical forms (a robot turned crab turned wasp out of just a few yellow rectangles) re-enact scenes of love, jealousy or, in the case of glittery fish in a magical underwater world, the survival of the fittest. The players, consisting of Floriana Frassetto, Philipp Egli, Raffaella Mattioli and Pietro Montandon, are skilled performers that make you utterly forget that these shapes and figures are manipulated by humans.

 
It is a children’s show only in as much it doesn’t rely on complex narratives to tell these stories. In fact, the players never utter a single word, which also explains the huge international success of the company. The magic of the show comes from the striking images alone. They create audible wonderment in the audience for simple shapes, movement and light. As is common in clownery, even though words are absent, the show is very much about language and strategies in non-verbal communication. Here, the shapes, often conjured up for mere seconds, stand in for attitudes and emotions. A striking example is the scene in which a bit of fluttery tape creates the shape of two people in conversation and over the course of a few moment builds up to a vicious argument between them.

 
We are so used to sensory overload with information flooding in through all our receptive channels over pads, phones and screens that it’s difficult to enjoy something as pure and simple as dancing flickers of light. Frassetto’s company forgoes the multimedia spectacle on purpose but it comes at a price. At its best the show is quick, quirky and entertaining, just a white line doing a jaunty jig and clever lighting hiding the skilful performers. When it (silently) elaborates, Mummenschanz feels a little out-dated and the disjointed structure while still amusing fails to hold the audience attention for the whole duration of the show.

The Last Days of Limehouse invites audiences to enter the cultural memory of a forgotten past. It aims to reverse the cultural amnesia brought about by the big building cranes swooping over cities, and that sing the songs of redevelopment and community dislocation.

Although concerned with the past, Jeremy Tiang’s The Last Days of Limehouse might be one of the more urgent and relevant pieces out at the moment. Exploring a forgotten time when London’s East End was awash with Chinese immigrants, this production by Yellow Earth is a richly layered exploration of memory and heritage but it also forces us to take a look at how we as a society want to shape our future.

The story is of Asian-American banker’s wife Eileen Cunningham who in 1958 returns to her childhood home in Limehouse only to find that the area is about to be demolished to make room for modern buildings. The locals, a lot of them second or third generation immigrants, face the demise of their small businesses and personal relocation into council estates. The eradication of slums brings along the obliteration of history, and Chinese shops, restaurants and laundries, passed on from generation to generation, will turn into generic high streets.

Fxated on the idea to “Save Limehouse”, Mrs Cunningham looks for support among the locals. “You can’t just tear things to pieces and call it progress,” she cries in one of her meddling interventions. Amanda Maud gives the initially grating character a relatable urgency while ever so often letting slip through the melancholia that comes with not having a place to call home.

A young mother-to-be, Iris, is torn whether to support the brash American or not. Her mother taught Cantonese to the immigrants in Limehouse so they would be able to keep in touch with their roots. Iris is eager to preserve her mother’s memory; however, the redevelopment also promises a rise in living standards for her young family. Gabby Wong plays the conflicted young woman with a lot of warmth which complements Matthew Leonhart’s hotheaded husband. He, like Sarah Houghton’s Mary, questions the point of preserving an area that leaves residents in derelict buildings without access to running water. Here, personal interest clashes with the idea of preserving a community.

By putting the show into a stripped down promenade format in a spacious room in Limehouse Town Hall, Kumiko Mendl’s and Gary Merry’s direction brings out the themes in Tiang’s play effectively. It is true that community involvement, especially in the performing arts, is usually brandished like an almighty sword. The struggle of Mrs Cunningham illustrates how positive change for a community must come from within to make an impact. Yellow Earth have captured this beautifully and they engage with cultural memory in a meaningful way by examining the difference between remembering people or places.

Jonathan Chan deserves a mention for his tender performance as Stanley. In few words he creates a brittle character who despite a tendency for humorous interjections, struggles to adapt to the rash changes in his community. A gifted ensemble that creates atmosphere through dance and background activities completes the cast.

The Heritage Lottery funded piece is accompanied by an exhibition as well as a website and a downloadable audio tour which allows further exploration.

Jack Shepherd’s 1989 play is a fictionalised account of an encounter between Blake, a poet who converses with angels, his wife and Thomas Paine, the political commentator who stirred up the war for independence in America; the conservative meets the republican. Paine is not invited, trails a flock of angry anti-revolution protesters behind him and he also brings some meaty issues to discuss along with him. What good does art do in times of conflict? Is it the moral obligation of the artist to intervene or should he merely observe? Is change of corrupted power always a change for the best? Is it important to carefully ask questions or do you find answers to problems through action?

Tom Mothersdale’s Blake is a bemused and innocent sort of fellow, displaying the odd bout of childlike wonderment and eagerness when playing with his new toy in form of a late 18th century intercontinental revolutionist. Christopher Hunter delivers a forceful foil, playing Paine at first sermonising and later more enraged and provocative. Once warmed up, the belief systems of their characters clash rather beautifully. Paine believes that injustices like child labour and illiteracy need to be fixed in whatever way necessary even if it means overthrowing ruling class. Blake argues that violence must inevitably breed more violence. He argues that there needs to be some sort of revelation before sending people into their deaths for a hazy utopia that has never been created in thought.

Blake and Paine struggle to find a common language to negotiate their seemingly irreconcilable ideas about social change. Their anchor in reality is Blake’s wife, played by Melody Grove who keeps the difficult balance between admiration and bewilderment for these men full of abstract ideas. An unequal woman among men discussing equality. While the men drink and talk themselves into a rage, she is the one who interacts with the people on the streets. She sends the menacing protesters circling the Blake property on their way and protects the Paine from the lynch mob. The naturalistic staging and open performances create a sense of listening in to a dinner table discussion which fails to maintain the same level of engagement throughout.

The immediacy of the revolution around doesn’t quite make it into the garden (Ruth Sutcliffe’s divine design). Even the regular reminder that this is a local story taking place not far from Blake’s residence doesn’t change that. Maybe some of the audio effects are too incongruent to create a sense of danger. Maybe there is not enough externalisation of thought. Either way, Michael Kingsbury’s interpretation of In Lambeth leaves Eden intact. It is not crying bloody murder or even shouting out loud that we desperately need art to examine processes of social change. It remains a tame play of ideas which is a right shame given the explosive power of these ideas today.

Originally written for Exeunt.

Director Felix Mortimer said that he never calls his work “immersive” and it crucially isn’t. Ushered around by two chaperons with varying degrees of improvisational ability the audience experiences the story of the murderous couple in short bursts. Several flats on various floors of the building serve as sets for the banquet, murders, fights and plotting. Michael Adams and Sarah Ratheram were the Macbeths on this particular evening and so close up they were particularly captivating. Still, there is something inherently problematic with the way audience and performers interact and how the narrative is driven between the scenes. Clearly separated from the action I was mostly an onlooker but not always, there was an palpable awkwardness about what my role as an audience member was at any given point. Am I supposed to interrupt when someone is being murdered or would that screw up a perfectly planned time table? Gavin Duff’s Banquo and Roseanne Lynch as Lady MacDuff manage to blur the line as their performance aura is more penetrable and their fate so bloody that compassion and shock eradicates all dramaturgical concern.

Alexander Luttley’s flirtatious Porter gives us rare interaction with a fictional character and there is an utterly creepy devised scene by Gruff theatre which should not be spoiled but it feels like it’s straight out of horror film. However, it’s all too brief and doesn’t entirely slot into the rest of the evening. Exploring and roaming is not encouraged and questions to where certain doors lead are blocked rather unceremoniously. I remain contained in the space and controlled in my actions to the point of frustration. After I was placed in front of a telly blaring out lengthy faux news material in a moment of unchaperoned free will I decided on a visit to the loo. It turns out to be bad timing indeed and I missed the tragic Lady Macbeth scene. Tuts and disapproval from the chaperons greet me and I feel guilty for what is essentially a structural weakness of the piece. On every staircase or behind every corner there are Bordurian stage managers and assistants with clipboards not so secretly directing groups of actors from one place to the next. What a logistical effort from cast and crew, sadly not one that convinces entirely. The borscht served at dinner was terrific though, it was red as blood and therefore matched the plan of our murderous couple perfectly.

A note on details in world building: the passport necessary to enter Borduria and which is never referred back to throughout the performance strictly states potassium – or Banana – consumption is not advisable when traveling through the rift, yet the trifle served at dinner contains bananas. Little details like this show that this mammoth project is ultimately a fractured project and instead of emanating new insight these fractures unveil the crumbling substance of the piece itself. The Bordurian substance then, a mostly consistent design reminiscent of the socialist GDR in the 70s, falters behind the drab facades and curtains.

It all has to do with expectations, really. Having experienced the meticulous location detail and research that went into other promenade shows (think Punchdrunk or Signa) this one disappoints. However, it has to be acknowledged that with its aim to be more than just a variation on a theme and actually follow the plot of the play the production has set itself a difficult task.

The tagline of the performance is “Does murder sleep?” and the answer to that is “Yes, very well, thank you.” Why I was made to stay overnight remains a mystery as the main action is all wrapped up by 1 am, no murderous shouts or midnight wandering. I suppose, there’s nothing like being woken up after five hours of sleep, made to climb up seven flights of stairs to stand on a wet East London roof top to witness the fizzled out after pains of a promenade performance. Astonishing clear view over London with a cup of coffee and Bordurian ramblings around me – odd, but definitely an experience. Clearer than anything else in this show is the potential of what could have been.

Armitage who plays the adulterous farmer John Proctor scowls attractively from the poster outside the theatre and beckons to enter the world of 1692 Salem. Here, a group of young girls on the cusp to womanhood is discovered dancing naked in the woods. It’s an act of secret rebellion against the restrictive values of their Puritan community and it is quickly decided that this kind of liberation must be quenched. In the hands of the South African female director Yaël Farber The Crucible’s inherent misogyny shines through rather clearly but remains uncommented.

Abigail Williams, played by a fierce and nuanced Samantha Colley, is the leader of the group of young woman who starts accusing other community members of being in coalition with Satan. In swoop an examining reverend and a judge and the literal witch hunt is in full force. Personal, moral responsibility over your own actions is put up against unquestioned and perverted Christian values. While this gives an intriguing underlying conflict it is unclear where Farber sees her own emphasis. The overlong production (3h45 on the press night) seems to have been barely cut and as it is, its main focus is the hysterical way public debate is led if conservative values and moral ambiguities clash.

Soutra Gilmour’s design sees the Old Vic turned into an in the round space in which the audience is part spectator of the trials and part thrown into a crucible of heightened emotions itself. The dull colours of set and costumes drape a sorrowful cloak around everyone, giving a real impression of the hardship of 17th century life in the colonies. Prosecutor Govenor Danforth is played by Jack Ellis rather big-gestured as a stubborn and calculating official with little capacity for common sense. He doesn’t quite integrate into the whole lugubrious affair and when Armitage and Ellis have their exchange over Proctor’s confession it is an enduring shouting match that undercuts the poignancy of the “name” speech and lessens the impact of Miller’s beautiful use of language.

One of the plays difficult turns is that it morally redeems a man who betrays his wife with their teenage servant Abigail Williams and makes the girl out to be the aggressor. She is the real cause of all the evil befalling the village. Is it really enough for Proctor to be repentant about his own failings, to come out at the end as a noble man who is, ultimately, wrongly punished? Moreover, Abigail consciously chooses to exert destructive power over those who stand in her way. With Abigail trying to dispose of John’s wife and turning on Mary Warren (exquisite, Natalie Gavin) when she claims that the witchcraft is all made up, there is barely any female solidarity or if there it is entirely destructive.

Anne Madeley portrays Proctor’s wife with the necessary reservation and serves as a catalyst to both, his initial moral failings and his ultimate redemption. It’s important to note that the bubbling suspicions and misgivings fester into a wound the from which the community will never recover and it’s all caused by the hand of a young woman turned away by a man and facilitated by government-orchestrated mass hysteria. It’s like #Everydaysexism never happened and there definitely are enough people out there who would like to pretend it hasn’t. Although it’s visually captivating and has some outstanding performances (Adrian Schiller’s Reverend Hale), this is not going to be my favourite Crucible but then I’m not sure it really wants to be.

An adolescent boy with a camera pans over dead meat and the extreme close-up is projected on the crème walls of a pristine dining room. A middle-aged couple swoops on stage arranging the dinner table, vases and pictures on the walls into perfect angles. It’s a flawless surface but underneath seethes a greed and lust irreconcilable with the immaculate image presented. The boy with the camera knows that the closer you look the more abominable the things you will uncover. What unfolds in the next two hours is a radical dissection of regal power and the futility of financial gain that is playful, shocking but also shockingly good.

Alfred Jarry’s fin-de-siècle piece Ubu Roi follows père Ubu and his wife (Camille Cayol as a Lady Macbeth-clone and Christophe Grégoire as the fool king) who plot to kill the current ruler Wenceslas of Poland (Romain Cottard). Together with his entourage Ubu takes over and then wrecks the kingdom with his arbitrary ruling and killings. The text at the first glance might not appear as transgressive as it did when it was originally performed in 1896 with audiences rioting when faced with the manic king and his depravity. Director Declan Donnellan found a way to make it relevant and startling again by paralleling the seemingly amorality-affirming, carnevalesque piece with the setting of a bourgeois French dinner party.

Switching back and forth to much comedic effect the two worlds are woven together expertly. The boy’s initial camera exploration for example exposes faecal stains on an off-stage bathroom rug the usurper king will wear later at his coronation. And there are other inventive uses of everyday household goods that serve as props. A loo brush serves the king as a sceptre and a cleaning spray bottle becomes a deadly weapon to defend from attacks. It becomes clear that only the young heir Bougrelas can stop the manic traitor Ubu. In a oedipal twist Sylvain Levitt, giving a forceful performance, doubles up as the young heir and the adolescent observing the party.

These depicted characters are of course only monarchs and dukes in cipher. With all its crassly comedic antics the pieces comes uncomfortably close to exposing the mechanism behind the kind of moral short-circuiting that happens on the striking surface where political and financial power kindle their destructive flames. There is a lovely, simple line the king utters which translates from the original French the piece is performed into “I’m going to kill everyone and then… and then… I’ll go away.” Nick Ormerod’s white-washed, open design provides the literal canvas under which nothing remains hidden and which, after the performance, is left in a state of utter anarchy. Ketchup on the walls, food on the floor, furniture upturned – a perfect representation of the destructive effects of Ubu’s power hunger driven by an eternal “just because”.

Under the pressure and violence of this absurd figure language becomes more and more precarious and consonants start to slip and move about. “Merde” becomes “merdre”,  “finance” turns into “phynance” – a kind of absurd spluttering and tottering reflective of the corrupted political structure the play concerns itself with. In the alternate world dinner party world distinguishable language is completely absent altogether.

This piece celebrates the absurd and pulls out all the stops, it’s visceral, provoking and a joy to watch.