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Love is love: An Instinct - at The Old Red Lion Theatre

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What do you do when a pandemic breaks out and people start dying? In An Instinct, the answer is to escape to a remote cabin in the woods with your ex-boyfriend, leaving your current boyfriend behind. This is the premise behind Hugo Timbrell’s An Instinct, billed as a queer thriller that delivers a few shocks along the way. Yet, the real tension lies in the disturbing dynamics between the three characters—the mind games, gaslighting, and unhealthy dependencies. While the play is cleverly constructed, its underlying themes of domestic violence may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It's currently running at the Old Red Lion Theatre .  The play opens with Max (Conor Dumbrell) and Tom (Joe Walsham) arriving at Tom’s parents’ cabin in a remote part of England. A pandemic broke out, but not the kind where you have to pretend to practice social distancing or hand out government contracts to your mates for dodgy hospital gowns and face masks. This one is highly contagious and very deadly. But s...

Theatre: Wig Out



When friends visit from Australia I find that I see a lot more musicals in the West End. Adrian was in town from Melbourne this week and as a fan of musical theatre I knew that at some stage this week it would end up like this. And it did. I ended up seeing Avenue Q (which in its third year is still fun, but a little lacklustre and the Tuesday evening performance this week had some pretty poor puppeteering), and Zorro (enjoyable sort of panto with the music of the Gypsy Kings and well-shaved gypsies). Bearing this in mind, I was determined to mix it up a little as well. So last weekend I took Adrian to the Royal Court's production of Wig Out by Tarell Alvin McCraney. This is an entertaining and slick production. While music features prominently in the story about competing drag houses in New York, it is no musical.

It seems that for the characters in this play, the motivation for doing drag was that their grandmother wore a wig. Who knew that grandmother's could cause such an impression? By intermission Adrian declared was impressed by its high wig factor. Normally only period dramas would have such an endless parade of cast members in wigs, but we can thank our grandmothers for giving us drag dramas.

While the story at this point did tend to go on a bit (too much exposition), the performances and production were great. The second half was even better and moved much more quickly. Certainly a different sort of play to see over the Christmas period. It runs until 10 January and good discounts are available to see the show from various places.

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