Scenes from Tooting Bec Common Monday 14:17 - Another lovely overcast day. It had warmed up considerably today as it was at least eight degrees this afternoon. Actually it may have been warmer... It could have been nine or even ten...
Brief encounters never seemed hotter in this latest revival of Joe DiPietro’s comedy-drama play, Fucking Men . In part due to the sexy cast and witty one liners but also because it is summer and pub theatres are hot at the best of times. The work had its premiere in 2009 at the Kings Head and went on to have a long run and transfer to the West End. It is presented here as part of the It is running as part of the King’s Head Gay Theatre Festival.
There’s an awful lot of enabling going on in Anomaly. Liv Warden’s slick new play about three sisters whose father has been arrested for GBH after attacking their mother. He’s a Harvey Weinstein-like character who is the head of a big film studio. There’s money and film careers at stake. But not so much character development and so it’s a bit hard to understand any of them. It’s currently playing at the Old Red Lion Theatre . Everyone’s turned a blind eye to his past indiscretions and violent outbursts as there’s something in it for them. There’s Piper (Natasha Conley) the cold executive who is going to run the studio one day. If the other investors don’t pull the plug on the whole business following the scandal. Then there’s Penny (Katherine Samuelson) with the dazzling smile and breasts about to land a great film role thanks to her father’s connections. But there’s a third sister, Polly (Alice Handoll). Out of rehab and slightly out of her mind. She’s meant to be the conscience...
At a point early on in Sex / Crime, the lights go dark in a room covered in plastic with a rubber floor, and all you can hear are the screams. The mind is left to imagine just what pre-negotiated terror is unfolding. Until it becomes clear, nothing is happening, and we can all laugh. Part tease and part terror, the piece unfolds against a backdrop of gay fetishism and modern-day neuroses. It’s currently playing at the Soho Theatre upstairs. Written and performed by Alexis Gregory, he’s visiting a man with a specialism, who goes by the name of A (Jonny Woo). He provides a service of reenacting the works of famous gay serial killers for the right fee. Just the thing for a man who is bored with his life and searching for the next extra special thrill. With the promise of experiencing what it was like to be a victim of one of these killers. Or as close as far as health and safety regulations allow. If gay serial killers and the people who fetishise them seems a queasy topi...