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For the fans: An Evening Without Kate Bush at Underbelly Boulevard

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I’m not a fan of Kate Bush. But as Sarah-Louise Young in her show An Evening Without Kate Bush says, that’s ok. She appears, initially illuminated only by a red lamp, dressed in black, and moving across the stage in the style of Kate Bush. Or given that I’m not a fan or that familiar with her works, what I would assume Kate Bush might do if she had full run of the Underbelly Boulevard theatre. It’s evocative and a little bit funny. But soon it becomes clear that this is a show for the fans of anything out there. Be they Kate Bush fish (what the fans call themselves), friends of fish or foes. Ultimately, it’s a show about how music is often the soundtrack to our lives, capturing the spirit of being a performer, a fan and being alive. It’s currently playing at the Underbelly Boulevard .  This wasn’t my first evening without Kate Bush. A little over four years ago, I saw Ms Young writhe about the stage, gaze at the audience, and drag the odd audience member on stage as she recounted h...

Gay Gore: Sex/Crime @sohotheatre


At a point early on in Sex / Crime, the lights go dark in a room covered in plastic with a rubber floor, and all you can hear are the screams. The mind is left to imagine just what pre-negotiated terror is unfolding. Until it becomes clear, nothing is happening, and we can all laugh. Part tease and part terror, the piece unfolds against a backdrop of gay fetishism and modern-day neuroses. It’s currently playing at the Soho Theatre upstairs.

Written and performed by Alexis Gregory, he’s visiting a man with a specialism, who goes by the name of A (Jonny Woo). He provides a service of reenacting the works of famous gay serial killers for the right fee. Just the thing for a man who is bored with his life and searching for the next extra special thrill.  With the promise of experiencing what it was like to be a victim of one of these killers. Or as close as far as health and safety regulations allow.

If gay serial killers and the people who fetishise them seems a queasy topic for a night out at the theatre, the subsequent comedy that arises from the setup serves to diffuse the tension and apprehension about what comes next. Everyday household objects such as a toilet brush or a frypan are lying about. Are they implements of terror or are we just expecting the worst given our preconceptions about what thoroughly modern inner London gay men get up to?

Apart from messing with your mind, the comic moments shock and awe you with their speed and relentlessness. The comedy serves to focus on the contradictions of modern gay life. Gay men are now free to do whatever they want.  But they’re still bound in chains, gagged, drugged, or just little fucked up.

Directed by Robert Chevara, Sex/Crime is at the Soho Theatre until 1 February.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️



Photos by Matt Spike



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