Farm Fatale @ Southbank Centre

A post-apocalyptic world where clown scarecrows run a pirate radio station, playing their own compositions, and fighting against industrial farms who ruin the environment. Sounds like a normal night at the theatre right?

Philippe Quesne, one of France’s most renowned experimental theatremakers brought his Farm Fatale to the Southbank Centre to a crowd of mainly enthusiastic fans ready to take on something strange. Somewhere between the teletubbies and a deranged clown, the scarecrows aren’t meant to be cute or even really funny, although they are wildly endearing. Those looking for logic or even drama may find themselves wanting more — this is about creating a world and exploring the limits of this container with these characters, rather than driving dramatic moment. It is intentionally still, even when it moves. It takes time.

This isn’t for everyone. It is at the edge of failure in performance, testing the audience’s patience and attention, our willingess to suspend meaning making yet also have it thrust upon us. It was intensely weird. And I adored it.

Down To Chance @ Pleasance Theatre

Down To Chance is a quirky two hander that structurally is like a radio play, telling the story of an earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska, shortly after the US purchase of the territory. The two actors portray an entire town’s worth of characters, leveraging props and incredible physicality and vocal work to give distinct, funny, charming characters life, at times for mere seconds.

What is truly inventive here is the use of sound. For a play about radio, it really leans into this mechanism, leveraging audio treatment to amplified sound to create different textures to the various radios we’re meant to hear from. What’s more, the core action of the play is to ask people to stay home and listen to the radio for information — and radios were placed on the tables around the cabaret style audience setup, with a mic pack plugged in so that they actually played this audio to your table, creating a delightful immersion, and bringing the audience closer to the action.

Charlie & Striptease @ Golden Goose Thatre

This production formed part of doctoral research on Central European Absurdist Theatre, and was made up of two short plays by Polish playwright, Mroczek, whose work was written and first staged during communism. Performed by the same 3 actors, the two plays center on similar themes.

Charlie (Karol in the original Polish) centres around what happens when the rules of civility and logic are abandoned. Structurally, it is rather similar to Ionesco’s The Lesson, but with the politics of his Rhinoceros. The promotional material indicated that it was prescient in the face of what’s happening in the US today, and in the post-show Q&A the team spoke about how this linked with the ICE shootings in Minnesota. I am not sure that the parallels felt particularly deeply thought; indeed, branches of American authority have been shooting people nonsensically in the street for decades. Additionally, there was no clear link to Americans — although I appreciate the sentiment of the link.

Striptease is slightly different in tone; two men who appear identical are thrust into a space without knowing how they got there, where a disembodied hand dictates their actions and behaviours. Their collective fear of one another, and of the hand, along with their disagreement on how to handle the situation and who to trust, was palpable.

Of the two, Striptease was the stronger piece, as it played more in nuance of the performance. For my taste, Charlie chose loud over heightened, with a bit more shouting than needed to demonstrate fear rather than create it.

I believe the experiment is around tools to bring absurdist theatre to the stage, to support actors….I’m curious to know the results.

Broken Glass @ Young Vic Theatre

I can’t say I went into this knowing Miller’s 1994 play set in 1938 New York; and yet, I don’t feel as though this production showed me anything new to justify the remount. While timely in its interrogation of what it means to be Jewish, and its consideration of how far away events affect us, it nonetheless felt none of the urgency I would have expected from this play in today’s climate. The set design tried to tie it to today — a modern water cooler and contemporary newspapers mixed in with old ones and 1930’s style clothing and hair styles. The anachronism of the design was an interesting approach, however the performances were clearly set in the period, so missed the opportunity to link this way, too. In a way, it felt like the play still lived in 1990s misogyny representing 1930s ideals. . . but without any 2026 perspective on these views.

The performances also felt uneven; at times it felt like the actors were in separate plays, and often a bit shouty. While other of Fein’s productions have been celebrated, I struggle to think positively about this one.

Here There Are Blueberries @ Theatre Royal Stratford East

Moises Kaufman’s latest Pulitzer-finalist play, Here There Are Blueberries, picks up his trademark documentary theatre style to explore the real life events surrounding the discovery of a photo album of Nazi officers in their day to day at Auschwitz, during World War 2. The script follows the investigations of the research archivists at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, who are made aware of the album and undertake to identify the individuals, dates, and times of the photographs, while wrestling with the moral dilemma of of whether to display these photographs.

The cast are well rehearsed, and move around the stage in deftly smooth choreography; the stage space itself transforms from an office to various rooms, while at times through the way projection is leveraged, it is as if we’re looking at the inside of a microphiche. The real photographs are like characters in the play; as the individuals are discussed, very clever lighting design focuses our attention on specific individuals or areas, taking what’s effectively 90 mins of exposition and translating that into the excitement of a true crime podcast.

It was particularly interesting to think about the timing of this production; it was first written and premiered in 2018, in the shadow of Trump’s first presidency, which came with Islamophobic policy and a subjugation of women in the US. It has continued, and today feels just as compelling to hear these stories of the everyday nature of the lives of these individuals relayed in American accents, while the US government build camps and arrest individuals on the street for the colour of their skin or perceived passport. These photographs were made public in 2007, in what feels like a wildly different time.

This production is slick and timely, and could drop into a West End theatre at the blink of an eye. I hope it does, so that more people have the opportunity to reflect on the insidiously “normal” behaviour of the perpetrators of some of the worst crimes against humanity….and what t is happening right before our eyes once again.

Cohen, Bernstein, Joni & me

This is a biographical solo play with music, following the life and career of New Zealander Deb Filler, framed around her encounters with music and the people who make it. Simply set with a stool and two guitars, supported by projections of real family photos on a small screen behind, Deb paints the picture of her experiences around the world — from a small girl singing Judy Garland songs in a talent show to an accomplished musician creating a documentary in Toronto after visiting Auschwitz with her dad who survived the camp.

Deb’s performance is playful and engaging — but it is at its best when she expresses through song, armed with her guitars. There are some lovely moments of audience participation and even sing along, which are quite heartwarming.

There are a few moments that drag, and the overall script could be tightened up slightly through the middle, but on the whole it is the kind of show I can imagine my parents grinning through. A heartwarming and hopeful 90 minutes.

I Do @ Malmaison London (Dante or Die for Barbican)

Guests arrive in the hotel lobby, and are split into groups with an usher, signified by a buttonhole flower of different colours. We are then quickly briefed by the usher, who acts as our guide, up the stairs, and into a hotel room where the party has begun. The script is a collection of 6 15 minute scenes which overlap, taking place in 6 separate rooms on the same hotel floor. As we progress from one room to the next, elements of the story reveal themselves, reminiscent of Alan Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests. Indeed in a similar way, the depth of the relationships grows, and our perceptions of behaviours change.

The timeline of the script is quite impressive, and the performance a feat of stage management and direction. The entire company work as a unit to craft deep and meaningful performances in these tiny rooms, with audience often right under their noses (at times literally). The choreography of the scenes to re-set themselves, leveraging the character of “the cleaner” to reset time and space, but also to provide a point of view on the activities, is a clever device.

This is a remount of the 2013 production, and an exceptional one. I wouldn’t argue that it is doing anything particularly NEW in the world of immersive, but indeed it did it quite well.

The Lost Library of Leake Street @ The Glitch

While billed as a Christmas story, The Lost Library of Leake Street is much more. Told by two actors who are transformed through the stories held by objects, the script jumps through time to tell these stories. The production is housed in the basement space in The Glitch — long and narrow with the audience in alley style along two walls, with shelves and objects filling every corner of the space. The detail in the set design is delightful, but more exciting was the lighting design which despite limited technical capacity, leveraged the use of practicals, fairy lights, and some well-placed theatrical lighting to focus our attention and create the magical worlds where these stories live.

The two performers were equally matched. There was a gentle energy about the performances — where so many performances these days are high energy and large, both actors were soft and subtle in their embodiment of the characters. They let the words to the work, letting themselves be the conduit for the story.

The relationship to the space and the engaged complicity of the audience made this seem different to so much other work we see these days. While no single element felt innovative in itself, the relationships and connections between them made it so.

Diaspora Inferno: From My Grandmother's Kitchen @ Drayton Arms Theatre

A group of women, moving through their own stories in the world, yet with a common thread. Diaspora Inferno explores the common experiences of women across places and times through highly physical and representative work; the piece is experimental in nature, and really pushes the edges of how story is typically told on London stages, leaning instead into an outside-in approach, stepping away from narrative and arguably even structure, yet creating emotional moments of connection for the audience.

The scenes are not evenly powerful, however those that are - notably the actor eating an ice cream, telling us a story of rationed sunshine, is exquisite, and will sit with me for a long time to come. I would love to see this piece develop further to clarify some of the ideas and images, as there is something really compelling and engaging at its core.

Uprooted @ New Diorama

Uprooted is an esoteric piece of performance which lives in the frame of physical theatre and imaginative use of props to create visual story. There are elements of a narrative, at times through text but more often (and more effectively) through visuals and sound — indeed the text moments were the weakest of the production, and in many ways undermined the larger thrust argument of the piece.

There were many strong visual and audio elements, but also many moments of confusion, shouting, and indiscernible communication to the audience. While the ideas were original and innovative, at times it almost felt like innovation for the sake of it rather than to convey an idea — which is too bad. The ideas themselves were interesting and compelling however there were too many, and often they were under-served by the loyalty to using the props in new and different ways.

Overall there’s something here, but it needs another round of refresh to get there.

ROTHKO - Łukacz Twarkowski @ Barbican

What gives art value? This is the central question of Twarkowski’s Rothko, a dazzling multimedia epic which blends live performance, live to film recording, an extravagant set, and overwhelming encompassing music. Positioned as a documentary, but in overlapping timelines, the play digs into the historical moment when a Rothko was sold posthumously at a record fee, but then identified as a fraud, actually made by someone in China. The core event is surrounded by its past and future, layering a single place — the restaurant frequented by Rothko and his contemporaries in New York — with the current reflective documentary moment, the moment itself, and Rothko himself.

It would be challenging to say there is a narrative here (although there are elements of story), but rather the production is an argument. We see layers of “real” and “fake”, authentic and inauthentic, high art and workaday. They overlap and bump into one another. The text at times is scenes, but at others is documentary, while still others arguments, almost ted talks.

This is compelling, deeply intellectual work — and yet it didn’t feel like a lesson. The pace and inventiveness of the way the piece moves, both physically and intellectually, is blistering, relentless. Absolutely incredible, and its questions are still cropping up in my mind, even weeks later.

Giant @ Harold Pinter Theatre

It is unusual to see an “issue play” that feels as though it properly explores all angles and points of view through its characters,. Giant is such a play, exploring the real historical moment when cherished children’s author Roald Dahl spoke out against Israeli aggression in Palestine, and received backlash. The script has a lot going on, and perhaps some elements of character and even setting I struggled to understand why they were chosen; the gardener for example, served little purpose other than to give the protagonist another older man to align himself with.

What was truly outstanding here was not the play, however, but John Lithgow’s performance. Nuanced and funny, while still being powerful and at times intimidating, Lithgow commanded the space. I have known his work primarily through tv sitcoms, so it was refreshing to get to see the depth of his skill live, and in a character who is so deeply challenging intellectually, with seemingly opposing viewpoints within himself. An absolutely extraordinary performance, sat within a decent play.

Similar to other such historical moment plays about big personalities, I do think that without Lithgow in the lead, the play would find itself rudderless.

Our Cosmic Dust @ Park Theatre

An adaptation of a Japanese story, Our Cosmic Dust is visually stunning. Making use of a massive dynamic projection screen over the back wall, and a reflective floor which at times creates infinite loops of visuals, the story takes you through the experience of a young boy and his mother, following the death of his father. The boy goes on an epic adventure, while the mother follows anxiously hoping for the best for her son.

The script is whimsical to match the design, and the 5 actors move through the space beautifully, supporting the puppet and magical world they create together. They leveraged many techniques common in physical theatre practice, clearly inspired by Complicité, to great effect.

All of that sounds lovely, and it is — but something struck a negative note with me when it came to the direction. While each of the characters were fully realised and unique, they also somehow felt tonally quite different, and not aligned in the mood and character of the play itself. It is definitely disappointing, as so many other elements were simply outstanding.

Overshare @ Greenwich Theatre

An ambitious solo performance, Overshare lives both in the world in front of us, and in the online world. Our protagonist comes to us via Instagram live, mediating what we see before our eyes and what we see on screen, with all moments perceived through this duality. The contrast in the way she appears across the two mediums is stark and at times jarring, calling into question our perceptions of what is real in these heavily digitally mediated times.

Struggling with anxiety and depression spurned by a toxic relationship with an older (and married) man, while having never properly recovered from the death of her mother as a small child, we see a woman reaching out for connection but unable to connect when it is in front of her. Simultaneously performing her mania and asking us to agree she is fine, we bear witness (at one moment, quite literally as the camera is turned on the audience).

Darkly funny and heartbreaking, but also calling the audience to the attention of our own inaction — watching the downfall from the safety of our seats. The performance also lives within instagram; if you follow the show, there are ways to interact, and the stream itself can be viewed. It is a production for these times, like few others — truly challenging us to question where and how we interact, just what we think is real; and importantly, what we do about it.

Goner @ Battersea Arts Centre

Goner is a solo dance and theatre piece which mingles cultural references to Black culture in Britain with a horror story. There is music and dance, but also murder. Repetitive dance choreography creates a hypnotic state, and the choices of when we are fully lit vs when we’re plunged into darkness are quite interesting, coupled with overloud sound effects, and lights which are at times so blinding the audience needed to cover their eyes. These choices were intentional, creating a discomfort for the audience and calling attention to our complicity as viewers of the act of performance.

Overall, the piece creates some compelling images and thoughts as it progresses, and in many was is quite aggressive in its overall aesthetic, which is thought provoking, however falls short of quite landing its message. If I’m honest, I can’t quite place my finger on what it was that I felt it was missing to achieve this. That said, it was incredibly well considered and masterfully performed.

When The Cloud Catches Colours @ Barbican

This multilingual verbatim play examines the experience of homosexuals in Singapore before and after the law change which made it legal to be homosexual. Exploring the changes legally and their conflict with social changes, the deep seeded beliefs held particularly by older generations. It primarily takes the form of two monologues which overlap one another and speak with one another - although only rarely do the two performers interact. Instead, they interact with the web of semi transparent fabric which pulls up, is propped up, and creates different spaces to explore, almost revealing what is beneath.

There were a number of really great ideas in the piece and its direction, but it never quite realised the momentum or revelation that could have been. That said, it was a very interesting and engaging piece — I just would like to see it have another round of work and some adaptations to the production to see them fully realised.

Igloos Don't Melt @ Camden People's Theatre

Igloos Don’t Melt is a new piece of experimental performance art which explores the experience of nostalgia, memory, and sense of place through the metaphor of literal blocks of ice. There is a complete lack of performativeness to the production; a folding banquet table and a small freezer are all that fill the space, yet it is captivating to watch blocks of ice be removed from the freezer, moved, stacked, and then dismantled through various means and methods. The audience are part of the performance; delivered through direct address, with moments of interaction it is almost like an oddly reflective and convivial stand up show. There is no narrative per se, I would classify the production as post-dramatic — which is really what makes it work. Ideas fill the space, yet we’re given the space to apply meaning to them as the audience, with minimal intervention. There are moments that don’t work as well as others, in particular a longer monologue toward the end about nostalgia could benefit from further integration with the physical elements of the performance. Yet many moments are thought provoking and really sit with you. 

This was a piece steeped in theatrical innovation. The ideas within the show and their manifestation through the performance are truly innovative and push the edges of theatre and semiotics. In particular, the  many ways to interact with ice — which literally melts and is smashed up, changing form and shape, causing us to see “reality” change before our eyes — is quite magical, and incredibly powerful. 

Vers @ Hen & Chickens Theatre Bar

Vers is a double bill of short plays performed by the same exceptional trio of actors. 

The Dinner Scene is first; centred around a couple having dinner (who are interjected by a hilarious Chloe Taplin as the restaurant employee) whose conversation begins surface level, and as they dine dives deeper and deeper until they are having a deep-seeded argument about the fundamentals of respecting one another and the planet. The argument is funny and relatable as each demonstrates the extremes of contemporary middle class concerns, from the vegan offended that the boyfriend ordered pepperoni to the boyfriend offended that the partner would try to police their eating as someone recovering from an eating disorder. As the argument gets more subterranean, the play is interspersed with surreal moments of heightened text-free movement, signifying their underlying emotions and frustrations. While exceptionally well performed and rehearsed (the whip smart and rapid fire dialogue in particular, coupled with some brilliant comic timing) the play as a whole feels like a not quite finished idea. It begs for another round of dramaturgy, as there is really something in there. 

The second play, Poofs with Guns, is a highly campy take on 50’s crime dramas set around the gay community in East London. The text is part silly crime drama, part reflective history, part mash up of audio clips, and is overall quite engaging. Again the performers are really strong; you can see in the design and direction the vision for what the “bigger” version of this production is. In particular, by positioning the story around 50’s gay culture, and using Polari in the dialogue, the production brings to light a piece of history not known by many in contemporary circles. I would have liked to see them go even further with the camp; rather than the light makeup we got for the 2 criminals, give us a full beat face, or even clown (as was in the promotional materials!) — because the moments when the production really leaned into the camp, it was fabulous. 

Paradise Lost (Lies Unopened Beside Me) @ Battersea Arts Centre

Lost Dog have remounted their renowned Paradise Lost 10 years on from its original production, with a new cast. Obviously the script, design, and choreography are outstanding — but they were 10 years ago. The new performer Sharif Afifi, however, is exceptional. It is always challenging for a performer to step in to a role that was originated for someone else, and Afifi does this with such effortlessness that you would believe he is the originator of the role.

The play begins with “beginning of show face”, an actor reading from the script, engaging with the audience, lights up. First impression may cause you to think this is a failure of performance, failure to embody, however as Afifi progresses and the piece moves into movement and music, it becomes clear that the awkwardness of the early moments were a distinct choice. His physical performance breathes out the choreography with ease, despite the visible effort, his linen shirt soaked in sweat. The play progresses, and we learn it isn’t just about Milton and Paradise Lost, but also about a man trying to create, and about our relationships with what we create, whether those creations are universes, other humans, or a work of art. What we create becomes unruly despite our best efforts — or indeed perhaps because of them, and the hubris to think we can control things.

In the chaotic world we’re situated in now, 10 years on from its premiere, this production feels all the more timely. Good ideas turn sour, beautiful things erode and fade, and ultimately we are ineffective. This sounds terribly drab but indeed the production is hopeful. Rain washes away the effort, the failure, the disappointment, and we go again. 

Bitch Boxer @ Watford Palace Theatre

The 2012 play Bitch Boxer gets an update for 2025, with a fresh view of the young female boxer as a black and queer character. There is little need to change the text to achieve this, however this simple change breathes new life into the script, meaning that it doesn’t feel dated at all. Indeed the story of a working class girl, whose relationship with her father centres around her connection to sport feels even more relevant in the years since the Lionesses Euros win has invigorated a focus in women's sport.

The production is helmed by Prime Isaac in their first major theatre production as director; there is a vision at play here, and at times it comes together beautifully, however on the whole the direction is a bit uneven. It is clear which moments are clearly aligned versus those which felt a bit underdeveloped. This is unfortunate, as Prime has brought together an excellent actor, clever designer, and intelligent sound design — it just all doesn’t quite come together in a cohesive whole. Jodie Campbell is quite strong in the solo show, for her first stage performance, bringing a calm and nuanced performance. That said, the unevenness in the production as a whole is seen in her performance as well; while there are nice moments of giving her space to breathe and play, it also does mean that at times the production feels rudderless. This isn’t a discredit to Jodie’s work; she is engaging, funny, serious — and impressive, she skips and boxes like an athlete throughout the play.

What was strong, however, was this commitment to the community. Jodie is a Watford local, with her first stage performance, and in the Q&A following the show several audience members spoke up, commenting that they heard about the show on instagram or that they don’t normally go to the theatre. The local connection, centred around a stage newcomer, was really exciting to see, and clearly created a moment for the community.