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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...

Life among the poppies: Shoot I Didn't Mean That / The Last Days of Mankind @Tristanbates

Is it okay to smile and take a selfie when you visit a memorial or make a nazi salute gesture in Austria? Maybe even write something glib in the visitors book at the Anne Frank museum? If you did not know the answer to these questions, Shoot I Didn't Mean That starts to explores the implications of doing things like this.

Catriona Kerridge's dark comedy looks in to the strange and surreal downfall of four women as they become fascinated and then obsessed by the politics of The Great War.


In an era of conflict tourism and ongoing global crises, Juliet finds herself making an obscene gesture in a Viennese flea market and finds herself in jail. Two schoolgirls get carried away at a Remembrance Day service and an interpreter loses her voice and her mind listening the antiseptic responses from present day politicians. It's funny but thought provoking as well.

Running along side this new work is the harrowing epilogue to The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus. This part of this epic work is an expressionistic and apocalyptic vision of a world. While Kerridge's work is a response to this piece, played together it becomes apparent how distant modern life is from real horrors.

In a year when light shows and ceramic flowers are stylistically commemorating the outbreak of WW1, this serves as a stark reminder that war is always hell.

It runs at the Tristan Bates Theatre until 18 October and contains replica weapons, haze and some frightening looking gas masks.

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