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One hundred people’s ninth favourite thing: [title of show] @swkplay

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[title of show] takes you back to a time before the fast paced social media where word of mouth for a positive show came from chat boards, video diaries or (god forbid) blogs. A simple staging makes it an ideal (and economical piece to stage), but it’s sweet and earnest take on just putting on a show, and putting it out there and taking a chance gives this show its heart. With a strong and energetic cast and endless musical theatre references, it’s hard to resist and it’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse .  It opens with Hunter (Jacob Fowler) and Jeff (Thomas Oxley) as struggling young writers in New York City. An upcoming New York Musical Theatre festival, inspires them to write an original musical within three weeks to make the deadline. As they discuss ideas, writers block, distractions and endless other good and bad musicals, an idea for a show emerges. Which is about writing a show for a musical theatre festival.  Their friends Heidi (Abbie Budden) and Susan (Mary Moor

Live couples therapy: Tonight I’m Gonna Be The New Me @sohotheatre


Tonight I’m Gonna Be The New Me, currently playing at the Soho Theatre is a theatrical endurance piece, both for the performers and the audience as it attempts to describe a relationship, or a relationship re imagined.

It should be part of Soho Theatre’s programme of weird shit to see in the West End. It’s alienating, amusing and infuriating. So depending on your frame of mind you’re going to love it or think you are trapped. I suspect the intention is to feel both. Thankfully it only lasts a little over an hour.


Performed by theatrical group Made In China - which consists of Tim Cowbury and Jessica Latowicki - it is presented as a one woman show with the shadowy Tim standing in the control box, venturing out only to get a beer.

It starts with an extended dance sequence that combined with sound effects seemed like it was depicting a woman trapped in a washing machine. With all the gyrations and arms spinning as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, it looked like something a physiotherapist wouldn’t recommend. It then moved into a series of monologues and random riffs on a relationship that is partly real and partly fiction.

The central message seems to be a relationship is never what you think it is going to be, and definitely not what it is like in the movies.

There is audience participation, weird stuff and a lot of movement. You know you’re in for a fun time when the set includes a fan that can blow hair about in a dramatic fashion.

I get the feeling that it probably played better at the Edinburgh Fringe where the unique and weird does shine out like a beacon of hope amongst the sea of earnest mediocrity. But it still felt like a forty minute concept stretched to over an hour.

It’s been running for a week and concludes on Saturday 26 October. See it with somebody you’re weirdly attracted to.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

Photo credit: David Monteith-Hodge

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