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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...

Love and war: Creditors @JSTheatre

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Walking into Jermyn Street Theatre to see the new translation of Strindberg's Creditors feels like you're transported to a small seaside hotel in the late 1800s. The sounds, look and feel, takes you there on some unknown Nordic island where the action takes place. And it's gorgeousness lulls you into a false sense of security for the mind games that are about to take place over the next ninety minutes. It opens with Adolf (James Sheldon), talking desperately about the love for his new wife with a man he recently has befriended, Gustaf (David Sturzaker). She's just published a book about her idiotic husband from her first marriage and now gone away for a few days. And her absence is driving Adolf crazy. He's stopped painting and started working on a very sexually provocative sculpture. But his new friend is sowing the seeds of doubt about his wife. He saw her on the ferry chatting to some young men. And as Adolf becomes increasingly neurotic about his new...