Your Place Or Mine - review

Written by Daisy Thurston-Gent (@daisytgpoetry)

Ovalhouse Theatre, London

**

Your Place Or Mine is the latest project undertaken by Tim Redfern and David Sheppeard that takes place in the Café Gallery of the Ovalhouse Theatre. The short piece explores the difficulties that two colleagues face when attempting to downsize an archive, discussing what makes a history worth saving.

Girls! Girls! Girls! - review

Written by: Jess Nesling (@JessNes1)

The Pheasantry, London

**

Babette’s Feast, the quartet composed of vocalists Emma Ruth, Verona Chard, Tamsyn Salter and Sophie Burnham, took to the small stage of The Pheasantry for a performance advertised as a “delicious musical double bill”. The repertoire took the audience on a tour through the ages, from Glenn Miller to Paloma Faith; but something was lacking.

Bottleneck - review

Written By: Lily Grouse (@LilyKG)

Soho Theatre, London

*****

This is one of those occasions in which I was genuinely blown away. Bottleneck is a powerful script, and its realisation on stage is just as strong. Playwright Luke Barnes captures the 1989 Hillsborough disaster with a sensitive and personal approach, his piece bursting in equal measure with moments of trauma and comedy. I urge you not to pass up the opportunity to see it. 

Bitch Boxer - review

Written by: Anna Jones (@Now4567Anna)

Soho Theatre, London
****

Charlotte Josephine has crafted, and is now delivering, a genuinely excellent piece of theatre, which incorporates all the rhythms and pace of a boxing match into an hour and a half monologue. Her words jab and fall back, daze you, knock you down only to lift you back up again with a funny observation. It is the touching story of Chloe, an amateur boxer looking for Olympic glory whilst coming to terms with a family tragedy.

The Deep Space - review

Written by: Andrew Crane (@AndrewRCrane)

Old Red Lion Theatre, London

***

Sprocket Theatre don’t waste any time in setting the mood for their presentation of Lila Wheelan’s bleak new play The Deep Space. On entering the dimly lit auditorium, the audience is greeted by a girl in a tracksuit huddled on a camp bed, a traumatised look across her face. This proves a fitting warm-up for the oncoming slew of gritty drama and disturbing realism, and although the emotional punches it throws certainly sting, they lack the heavyweight to knock out.

The Mikado - review

Written by: Chris O'Shaughnessy (@ChrisSE20)

Tabard Theatre, London
****

For the first ten minutes this version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado, here set in the trendy The Royal Japan Golf Club and Spa (a green, pink and black Japonaiserie conservatory by Christopher Hone) - an axe among the golf clubs displayed on the wall - comes across as a fairly pedestrian, small-scale, bargain-basement, youthful rendering of this perennial classic. But with Ed Norwood’s entry into the mix as Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, the production shifts, gloriously, into an entirely different register - effervescent, fun-filled - and stays that way until the finale.

Coalition - review

Written by: Anna Jones (@Now4567Anna)

The Pleasance, London

****

Coalition is a very satisfying play (if you voted Lib Dem and were subsequently sorely disappointed), and an impressive debut from Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky (also directing), which doesn't necessarily make an earth shattering point but neatly sums up a wealth of opinion on our current government. Matt Cooper (Thom Tuck), the central character, is a thinly veiled equivalent of Nick Clegg, desperately trying to out manoeuvre the Tories by playing dirty and betraying his Lib Dem ideals. 

Linck - review

Written by: Caroline Mathias (@caroveraclare)

The Last Refuge, Peckham 
***

Catherina Linck had an extraordinary life: she grew up an orphan, lived in a religious community, lived as a man, fought as a soldier, and married a woman at a time when homosexuality was illegal and stigmatised. Linck was executed in 1721 (this isn’t a spoiler – the flyer describes ‘the only woman ever executed for sodomy’), but to see this story played out today as the UK moves towards legalising gay marriage is apt and thought provoking.