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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Theatre: Theatre of Horror and Grand Guignol

I was really in the mood for watching Theatre of Horror at the Southwark Playhouse Thursday evening. Maybe it was the skin biopsy I had a lunchtime that put me in the mood. There I was, watching chunks of flesh being taken out of me and put into little jars, blood dripping down my leg and feeling the stitches forcing it all back together. At one point the doctor said, "Oh you turned your head at just the right time," as I watched a little slice of me going in a jar. The shows were tame compared to all that, but still in the same vein.

The first piece, "The Exclusion Zone" started off incredibly disturbing about a young couple wanting to have some fun in the woods. It was a nice ride until the end song, which was inaudible and hard to understand the connection to the previous twenty minutes.

The second piece "The Unimaginable" was a slightly creepy monologue about people who swipe your children. After mentioning parents who go out to the theatre and leave there children at home, I was half expecting a reference to the Tapas Nine. Alas it was not so topical. After intermission was my favourite piece, "Country". This centred around a woman coming to terms with her dead husband who had just written the latest NHS White Paper. It turns out she was possessed by him and seeking revenge against her left-wing friends. Finally there was "Reanimator" which was a long piece adapted from short stories by HP Lovecraft, but had some fascinating scenes with a dead rabbit and zombie-like resurrections.

Holding the show together were Sarah-Louise Young and various others with songs and belly dancing. While the pieces were a mixed bag and scene chewing abounded, there were a few thrills across the piece and some inventive uses of the space. The Southwark Playhouse also has a great bar and you can take your drinks into the theatre. Grab a drink and go for a slightly disturbing evening. The horror runs through the end of the month.

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