A woman kneels as we enter the auditorium. On stage, there is little more than a chair and glass bowl. Between Strands is a minimalist piece of physical theatre, deeply rooted in East-Asian culture and ritual. A young woman from Taiwan is studying in the UK. She is of course far from home and this distance weighs heavily on both her and her close family. Her grandmother dies – but she is not yet ready to say goodbye. Selina Hsung-Chih Tseng performs sensitively as both grandd

Set in a struggling CD and DVD shop on a London high street, Physical Media follows proprietor Tony (Alex Machell), who obsessively curates the shop’s soundtrack largely for his own benefit, given the near-total absence of customers. The easy familiarity with which postman Gary (Paul Richards) rifles through unpaid bills and recommends discarding final demands immediately signals the shop’s precarious financial state, a point reinforced by the persistent calls from Tony’s lan

In Neddy Goes To Glasto, Sinead (Neddy to her friends) returns to Glastonbury after a ‘hiatus’ of 30 years. Yet beneath the festival setting, this is fundamentally a story about grief and the struggle to process loss. Neddy’s sister has died tragically young. More than a sibling, she was Neddy’s closest friend, bound to her through a shared childhood trauma. Her death has left a wound so raw that Neddy has scarcely begun to confront it, let alone heal from it. But off to Glas

There is a structure, centre stage, concealed by a theatrical short curtain. A show is clearly about to break out. And so it does: a coquettish, apparently French, MC - Razmatastique- takes to the stage, her movement staccato, deliberate and provocative. She introduces the premise of this evening’s proceedings: heartbroken and unable to let her former romantic interests go, Razmatastique is going to summon them to the stage in pursuit of closure. The first apparition is from

Mrs Gary Breath…well, that’s some title – so what’s going on? It’s her 34th birthday and Annie’s life is pretty good: she has a steady job, close friends and enjoys an easy-going flat share with her good friend Chuck. Romance, however, has slipped down the agenda. Her last serious relationship was six years ago, with Gary, whose halitosis gives rise to the title of the show. She meets her parents for lunch, but something is off - and it’s not just the awkward interactions bet

Photo credit: Mayah Salter

A man is in a cage, fasting. He is The Hunger Artist (Jonathan Sidgwick) and his impresario is selling tickets across Europe for people eager to observe the spectacle. His impresario will insist that his fast does not extend beyond 40 days; perhaps alluding to Jesus in the wilderness, or on the grounds of health and safety, but more likely because novelty fades and fresh tickets must be sold. As the production unfolds, we learn about the unnamed man, who regards this unusual

Seated on a barely lit stage, a suited man is somewhat pensive. It soon becomes clear why. It’s 1865, and we are in Victorian London. Henry Webster (Ashley Munson) has joined the London Ghost Club, hoping to write a ghost story. There, he befriends Edward Price (Paul Ackroyd), who persuades him to join their investigation into a reported haunting. Rumours speak of the spirits of two children wandering their former home in search of light and safety. Apprehensively, Webster pr

A performer is on stage as we enter the space, scurrying from one container to another. Newly arrived drag artist Goody Prostate (Ryan Stewart) has belatedly been asked to headline the local library’s reading hour. They will be reading to children and their parents. However, these are dark, fractured, times: word has spread that a drag artist is going to read to children, and the authorities expect the worst. It seems very likely that there will be an unruly reception committ

Julia Knight took to the stage on her birthday with Songs of Joy & Justice, a thoughtfully structured cabaret blending wit, social commentary and musical skill. The show unfolds as a sequence of songs themed around joy and justice, with Knight accompanying herself on the keyboard almost throughout. Humour runs as a constant thread, inviting easy comparisons to Victoria Wood—a connection Knight acknowledges directly by including two of Wood’s songs in the programme. The set mo

The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show celebrates its 20th anniversary at this year’s Brighton Fringe with a lively collection of short-form theatre. The show offers a series of vignettes, short scenes of new writing. These are designed to entertain, of course, but in some cases may serve as a springboard for full-length productions. The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show offers two different versions of performances – the ‘Early Riser’ and ‘Late Brekkie’, with the audience being offered

Climate change has had a devastating impact already on the 21st century. Politically, a combination of wilful refusal and culpable neglect is exacerbating the crisis before our very eyes. Devastating images of floods, fires and more fill our networks from around the world – events from which nobody is immune, not even in the well-heeled surroundings of Los Angeles… It’s January 2025 and wildfires are taking hold in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Erin Hunter is living in L

Carly (Kathryn Mincer) sits alone, nervously broadcasting to the outside world. An agitated man pounds at the door. She is fraught, but determined to complete The Final Episode of her podcast. We rewind just six weeks to find the same woman in a quite different state: confident and amiable, at the outset of her launch into broadcasting work. With modest expectations, she is surprised to realise that she has, somehow, tapped into a cultural mood. Her audience numbers surge bey

Lucy Roslyn delivers a performance masterclass in BoonDog Theatre’s production of Lovett. The show explores the origins of Eleanor, before she became Sweeney Todd’s partner. Widowed, she is confronted daily by the battle for survival. 19th Century London is a challenging place to be impoverished: workhouses, crime and cholera abound. Resourceful and formidable, she draws upon those skills learned from her whaler father, a courtesan mother and a butcher husband. The arc of her

Photo Credit: Luxpraguensis

Northern Soul is a dance and music movement that formed in the north of England over half a century ago, drawing heavily on Motown. Its influence endures, which brings us to Two-Stroke: The Northern Soul Musical—a production inspired by the movement. It’s 1986, and three teenagers (Fizz Lewis Marlton, Ellie Warne, and Freya Mackay Blake) are in rebellious mood, heading to a scooter rally on the Isle of Wight in search of hedonism, freedom, and escape. Inevitably, not everyth

The last light of a balmy May evening filters through the beautiful stained-glass windows of St Mary’s Church, lending an atmospheric backdrop to Something Underground’s ambitious solo show History Has No Safe Word. The premise is hardly straightforward. A once formidable and renowned college professor (Nathan) is now in decline. He suffers from sleep deprivation. While being observed in a clinical trial, he begins to speak in his sleep - but in an ancient language that he se

There is a light and whistle for attracting attention.” A phrase that rings with easy familiarity for anyone who chooses air travel. But why is it the title of a piece of theatre? The copy for this production was a little opaque – to the point that it felt deliberate. Which, of course, turned out to be the case in this simply brilliant production by Play Nicely Theatre. The stage is set, intriguingly, with a chest of drawers and small wooden boxes off stage left and right. Th

Tish (Letitia Delish) is stuck. In more or less every sense of the word, in fact. She is increasingly uncertain of her gender and wishes to explore nascent alternative sexuality. Tish is studying musical theatre in Bognor Regis, hardly a hotbed of cosmopolitan acceptance or tolerance. And then there’s also rent to pay. A chance encounter on Grindr (a dating and social app, popular with the LGBTQ+ community) pushes her into highly unexpected territory. Tish decides to become a

Identity confusion sits at the heart of this re-telling of G. K. Chesterton’s best-known novel. Chesterton is probably most famous as the creator of Father Brown to the modern audience, but this is an intriguing revival of The Man Who Was Thursday with modern resonance. The year is 1908 and Europe is witnessing political upheaval, which will ultimately lead to the outbreak of World War I. A variety of groups are pushing for reform and governments are increasingly under p