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More sex and violence: Playfight @sohotheatre

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The funny thing about three girls growing up under a tree is that you never quite know when they're being serious or just messing about. One time, they might be talking about giving blow jobs on a tennis court at school and another, they might be yearning for a connection that they can't quite explain. That's what happens in Playfight, an Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024 hit currently showing at Soho Theatre .  Writer Julia Grogan doesn't give us much time to dwell on the lives of these three young teenage girls. One minute, they're fifteen and giggling, and then the next thing, they're off getting married or going to University. But underneath all the smutty talk, humour, and quick scene changes, there is a darker underbelly about relationships, power, and consent. It's about finding your way in a complex world that can dehumanise and degrade you. But as things move so quickly, you could blink and miss it. This is too bad as the performances capturing this co...

Lookout behind you: Panto season

Christmas also means that Panto season is coming and aside from the usual blockbusters in the West End or the likes of slightly edgier Jack and the Beanstalk at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, they are designed to lure families in with a mix of childrens comedy and dirty innuendo for the adult members of the audience. Or in the case of Dame Edna's foray into Dick Whittington last season, it was an opportunity graft Edna's material onto a panto format for a new unsuspecting audience...

Others are taking this to another level, with less innuendo and just filth and good ol' vulgarity.

There is Snow White and the Seven Poofs that has its run at the Green Carnation in Soho from early December... Subtitled, "The Climax" it looks like it leaves little to the imagination... With pop numbers and a show billed not for children (or for the faint hearted), it will be fascinating to see what they (ahem) come up with...

The Drama Queens Drag Theatre Company is also producing Sinderella What A Slut where "Sinders" is a big hearted sexy scrubber who is always horny... It's playing at the Two Brewers in Clapham over Christmas at various dates. Expect a plot with some resemblance to Cinderella complete with filthy language and lip-syncing to pop music...

Finally that rough theatre pub in central London, Above The Stag, may be gone, but the production team have moved south to the Landor pub where they will be performing Get Aladdin. Described as filthier than a Clapham late night takeaway and sweeter than satay sauce, it tells the tale of stowing away to the Chinese province of Hao Hung...

Filth is definitely in fashion for panto this year...

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