Posts

Showing posts with the label Rob Crouch

Featured Post

More sex and violence: Playfight @sohotheatre

Image
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...

Dying: A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the (etc etc) @Finborough

Image
Halley Feiffer’s A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre of New York City explores the fine line between laughter and grief. It’s having its European premiere at the Finborough Theatre . In this case it is facing grief, cancer and death in a pink hospital room. Complete with wall art that’s evocative as much as it’s hideous. You have to laugh that even facing death stereotypes persist. But it could be a hospital anywhere. These waiting rooms for those between life and death with their safety signs, equipment all look the same. And for anyone that’s had to visit someone in such a room, there is something funny about that. Even if you aren’t working on a stand up routine. Feiffer, who dramatised a dysfunctional playwright and his actor daughter in I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard , explores the funny side of death here. It opens with Karla (Cariad Lloyd), a stand up comedian trying out jokes on her mother, Marcie (Kristin...

Silly monkey: King Kong (A comedy) @thevaultsuk

Image
King Kong (A Comedy)   is currently at the Vaults at Waterloo. A show that needs to tell you it's a comedy (albeit in parenthesis) might give you reason to hesitate. If it's funny why does it need to tell you that it will be? But fortunately it is like a sketch show put together to tell the story of the beast that almost conquered New York.  King Kong is such a silly story that giving it a comic treatment actually doesn't change much of it. Struggling producer needs a leading lady for his next animal picture. No self-respecting actress would work with him and so he finds a lady off the street. Only this time she can speed read ancient texts and maps. There is enough silliness to appeal to children and enough adult themes to keep the rest of us tittering away. A cast of serious (and not so serious) actors; Ben Chamberlain, Rob Crouch, Sam Donnelly, Aix Dunmore and Brendan Murphy play a range of characters that featured in the film.