-
Preview: Boom, Theatre 503
Reviewed by Oliver Wake, during previews Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s new play Boom is difficult to describe, thanks to its high-concept premise and unusual plot, the intricacies of which I’m trying to avoid spoiling for you here. It is set in an underground research laboratory, where young scientist Jules (Will Merrick) has arranged to meet student…
-
King Kong, The Vaults
Guest Review by Oliver Wake Like its eponymous ape, this King Kong pastiche is a strange beast. Monkey Live’s production doesn’t seem to know whether it’s a string of sketches with common characters linked by a vague plot or a genuine comic play. It falls somewhere between the two. Daniel Clarkson script is slow to…
-
The Dark Side of Mime, Etcetera Theatre
Guest Review by Oliver Wake The Dark Side of Mime is an alarming prospect. I’ve always thought there was something slightly sinister about the traditional white-faced mime act, looking like some kind of anachronistic vaudevillian newly escaped from a silent film. Promising to mix “clownery with classic pantomime, porn, splatter, and violence”, it sounded like…
-
The End of Hope, Orange Tree Theatre
Guest post by Oliver Wake David Ireland’s The End of Hope (previously seen in Glasgow as The End of Hope, The End of Desire – a long title for a short play) comes to the Orange Tree for a short run as part of the theatre’s directors’ festival. It’s an intimate two-hander performed in the…
-
Leaf, Lion and Unicorn Theatre
Guest review by Oliver Wake Leaf is hard to categorise – part comedy play, part sketch show, part mess. Its publicity tag-line likens it to “the bastard child of Monty Python and the Mighty Boosh”, which proved surprisingly accurate. Like these suggested antecedents, Leaf is weird, chaotic and intermittently very funny. The story, as far…
-
Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, Jermyn Street Theatre
Guest post from Oliver Wake Named after a pamphlet issued to US troops stationed in the UK during the Second World War, Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain finds its humour in the absurdities of parochial English village life and “two countries separated by a common language”, as the saying goes. It’s not a new…
View from the Cheap Seat 