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Showing posts from April, 2021

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The brown word: Death on the Throne @gatehouselondon

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We’re warned at the start of the show with an upbeat number that this is not the usual sort of musical. And it turns out to be just that. But with boundless enthusiasm and energy from its two leads, who deploy a range of voices and breathtaking energy to create a series of voices for puppet characters, a bedtime story becomes a silly oddball tale about four souls stuck in purgatory. With puppets. And various toilet humour references. It’s currently playing at Upstairs At The Gatehouse . The piece starts as a bedtime story. Daddy (Mark Underwood) is about to read a bedtime story for Louise (Sarah Louise Hughes). But her stomach felt funny, and soon, she went to the bathroom. Then, for reasons that seem to only make sense in the confines of the show, they start telling the story of four people who died in unfortunate circumstances in the bathroom. Depicted as puppets, they’re stuck in purgatory as St Peter doesn’t have enough space for each of them in the afterlife. And so begins a puppe...
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Streams of observations: Tales from the Front Line @TalawaTheatreCo

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The final films in the online series from Talawa Theatre Company’s Tales from the Front Line are now available. The series uses verbatim interviews with Black key workers to explore what it’s like living in Britain today. The pandemic, Windrush Scandal, Black Lives Matter are all reference points to suggest that the post-pandemic world should be a different one.  One of the new episodes features Adjoa Andoh, as a teacher with vaccine hesitancy. Yet among the disinformation and noise that’s enough to fill Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon, she decides to protect herself and get vaccinated. Since sometimes, all her children need is a hug.  Tales From the Front Line aims to create a record of the stories of Black people on the front line of the Covid crisis and designed as space for Back workers to share their experiences. Black artists and creatives have then taken the testimonies to convey stories with music, performance and choreography. The final series of films are avai...
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Resilient streams: Safe @HackneyEmpire

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Titling a piece "Safe" at the moment evokes all sorts of meanings. Is it about going out in London? Is it about social distancing and testing? Is it about the latest vaccine? But don't one needs not have a pandemic.  Here, safe is about the basic need for young people to grow up in a safe and supportive environment. Particularly when they are discovering that they lesbian, gay, bi, trans or queer.  In this verbatim piece, writer Alexis Gregory weaves together a series of stories about the lives of young people and the fine line between being accepted and being on the street. The young people are trying to find their identity while their families, religion, race and class are forcing them to be categorised, classified and standardised into something else.  Taken from interviews with young people met through the Albert Kennedy Trust (AKT) with live music and additional words by poet Yrsa Daley it sets out how easy it can be to fall into poverty, abuse and addiction without ...
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