Habitable Histories
Blood of My Blood
by Joy Nesbitt
The English Stage Company at The Royal Court Theatre, Chelsea until 7th November
Review by Ravenna Vale
There are histories that refuse to remain buried. They linger in the walls of old houses, in the silences between generations, and in the lives of those who inherit the consequences of events they never witnessed. In Blood Of My Blood, playwright Joy Nesbitt brings these ghosts into the present, crafting a searching, provocative drama about ancestry, ownership and the uneasy question of who has the right to claim a story. Staged at the Royal Court Theatre, this is a production of considerable ambition, emotional depth and startling theatrical intimacy, elevated by an immersive design and a company of actors whose performances breathe extraordinary life into its intergenerational narrative.
The play’s setting is a cabin in South Carolina, bridging 1862 and the present day. Once a home during the American Civil War, it becomes, in contemporary America, a ‘fashionable’ Airbnb, where a pregnant Black woman turns to conjure up the voices of her ancestors in search of answers. Nesbitt understands that the past is not merely a sequence of events to be revisited; it is an active presence, shaping identity, complicating belonging and demanding recognition. The cabin becomes a repository of memory, a contested inheritance and a reminder that history is never as distant as those who benefit from forgetting might wish. What happens when a place marked by suffering becomes a consumer experience? And what does it mean to inhabit a space whose history has been repackaged, sanitised or simply ignored?
Read more…Mesmerising
An Oak Tree
by Tim Crouch
Francesca Moody Productions at The Other Palace, Victoria until 15th November
Review by Claire Alexander
Could this be the future of theatre? At a time when audiences are dwindling, ageing, and less engaged with live theatre than ever before, in his play An Oak Tree, Tim Crouch invites a different actor* on stage at each performance to perform without having seen the script or knowing very much, if anything, about how it is going to play out. It’s not a new idea – Red Rabbit, White Rabbit by Hassim Soleimanpour has been incredibly successful throughout the world creating live and spontaneous theatre while he remains trapped in Iran. Tim Crouch actually premiered An Oak Tree in 2005 and over 350 performers have shared the stage with him.
Read more…Entitled to Be Proud
Toy Soldier
by Helen Goodman & Joseph Dewey
Theatre on the River and Stephen Leslie Productions at the Union Theatre, Southwark until 18th October
Review by Gill Martin
We catch the odd phrase of a chart topper. We glimpse snatches of grainy newsreel. We shudder at the sound of heavy mortars, of a ship being shelled, a fireball exploding, lives extinguished.
These are the haunting lyrics of Tears for Fears’ biggest chart hit, part of the soundtrack to an arresting new play, Toy Soldier:
Welcome to your life
There’s no turning back
Even while you sleep
We will find you
Acting on your best behaviour
Turning your back on Mother Nature
Everyone wants to rule the world
Zoomin’ and Boomin’
The Brown Suite
music and lyrics by James Brown, Sam Cooke and Etta James
Fundamentally Dance at Richmond Theatre until 3rd October, then on tour until 22nd May 2027
Review by Vince Francis
This week, Richmond theatre is the premiering The Brown Suite, a funk-soul dance show, set in 1970s New York, created by Nahum McLean and Darius Drooh, under the moniker BlackBrik, produced by Fundamentally Dance, with Jamiel Davernay-Laurence as Creative Producer.
Here’s the background. Having met in The Ailey School in New York Nahum McLean and Darius Drooh discovered a shared enthusiasm for the music of James Brown in particular, but also Etta James and Sam Cooke. They describe their jointly choreographed duet, Death of the Bachelors (2023), as being “pulled forward” by Brown’s music, rather than being secondary to the movement in any way, which, in turn, led them to consider how they might put together a full-length piece.
The show seeks to depict the evolving relationships, connections and tensions within a group of friends, and uses a fusion of dance styles from ballet to hip-hop, with a soupçon of locking – remember that? – to boot.
Read more…More Equal
Animal Farm: As Witnessed by Moses the Raven
by George Orwell, adapted by Dov Citron
Dov Citron Productions at the Barons Court Theatre until 3rd October
Review by Eleanor Marsh
George Orwell’s Animal Farm was written in 1945 as an allegorical study of the Russian revolution of 1917 and the subsequent rise of the Stalinist regime. It could have been written at any time in history and remained relevant. It is more relevant than ever today and the fact that Dov Citron’s adaptation is heading for schools is greatly encouraging; there is no better way to educate than through storytelling and Victoria Waddington’s direction and Citron’s charismatic performance are both thought-provoking and moving.
Read more…Fangs a Lot
Dracula
by Bram Stoker, adapted by Nick Lane
Reading Rep and Blackeyed Theatre at the Reading Rep Theatre until 10th October
Review by Sam Martin
Blackeyed Theatre’s Dracula arrives at Reading Rep with all the menace, theatrical ingenuity, and Gothic atmosphere one might expect from Bram Stoker’s enduring tale. Yet it is the production’s new surroundings that give this revival a particularly compelling bite. Having previously seen it staged in a considerably larger theatre, I found that Reading Rep’s intimate auditorium transforms the experience. The audience is drawn closer to the action; every shadow seems darker and every approaching footstep more threatening. The result is a production that feels enticingly immediate, as though Dracula has slipped free from the stage and entered the room beside us.
Read more…Clouded Courage
a small and quiet light
by Stephanie Street
Chichester Festival Theatre and Orange Tree Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond until 24th October
Review by John Davies
So, what’s in a name? Or more precisely who’s behind the name? Stephanie Street’s play a small and quiet light tells of a young woman, known by many names: Babuli, Jeanne-Marie, Nora, Madeleine – an undercover World War Two operative, who is being questioned by the Gestapo while reflecting upon her life. The story is not complete; we are left with gaps in her journey and no definitive ending, but we are given a glimpse into some of the events, feelings and relationships that shaped this remarkable life.
Read more…Miner Differences
by Beth Steel
Putney Theatre Company at the Putney Arts Theatre until 26th September
Review by Heather Moulson
There is a deception in the simple open set for Putney Arts Theatre’s Till The Stars Come Down, in its painted images of coal miners against the soft pink lighting. A rotating mirror ball adds needed glamour, but it’s a clever paradox when set against a backdrop that shows stark black and white images of miners and former collieries in Nottinghamshire.
Read more…Forty Years On
Man to Man
by Manfred Karge
The English Stage Company at The Royal Court Theatre, Chelsea until 24th October , on tour until 7th November , then on international tour
Review by Patrick Shorrock
As part of its Seventieth Anniversary celebrations, the Royal Court has revived its forty-year-old production of Manfred Karge’s Man to Man: the story of a woman (Ella/Max, played by Tilda Swinton) who takes on her late husband’s identity just before Hitler comes to power and is unable to let it go. Director (Stephen Unwin), designer (Bunny Christie) and performer (Tilda Swinton) are all the same as they were forty years ago, but there is no hint of this as a museum piece, and they have all clearly come to it fresh. In addition, Karge has added a couple of additional scenes to include the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the resurgence of the right wing in the recent German polls.
Unwin says in a programme note that the piece is a ‘study of survival in a terrifying world’ and ‘explores the deepest forms of alienation – in which all identities are fluid and everything that is solid melts into the air’. The play doesn’t provide answers or even much by the way of narrative clarity. Initially, Ella/Max’s change of gender seems to be about economic survival – she takes over her husband’s job – but then it isn’t possible to switch back, despite being subject to conscription, although, now she doesn’t present as a woman, she is likely to avoid sexual molestation and rape.
Read more…River Reveries
Three Men in a Boat
by Al Smith, based on the novel by Jerome K. Jerome
Rose Theatre Productions at the Rose Theatre, Kingston until 10th October
Review by Gill Martin
The warning was clear at the entrance to the auditorium of the Rose Theatre: This show contains strobe lights, explosions and severe maritime incompetence.
Male incompetence meets hilarious farce, slapstick humour, vaudeville theatrics and rollicking musical score in a show based on Jerome K. Jerome’s classic novel Three Men in a Boat.
The book was published in 1889, has never been out of print and has spawned a couple of movies and two TV series. Now is its enjoying a world premiere as a musical showcasing three lifelong chums Jerome, George and Harris.
It’s a friendship tested to the limit as their river holiday in a hopelessly unsuitable rowing boat sets off from Kingston-upon-Thames, home of this very theatre, to the dreaming spires of Oxford where Harris is to marry Petronella, his fiancée of a dozen years.
Read more…
