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Iron Maidens: Iron Fantasy at Soho Theatre

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Two women chase the elusive six-pack in Iron Fantasy, only to embark on an unexpected journey exploring what it truly means to be strong in today’s world. In a culture that demands visible strength and power, they subject themselves to lifting, protein powder-guzzling, and raw-egg drinking. Interestingly, consuming raw eggs elicited many squeamish reactions from members of the audience. None has obviously been to Cabaret to see Sally Bowles guzzle prairie oysters. But in the search for the attributes that make someone strong, a little more is revealed about being a young woman in the modern world. And that strength comes from a number of ways. It’s currently playing at the Soho Theatre .  It’s part performance, part musical, and part interviews, as writer-performers Shamira Turner and Eugénie Pastor, who make up the theatre performance duo She Goat, don a variety of silly costumes and play a range of musical instruments on their journey researching strength, fighting, and pumping i...

Theatre: Nocturne

I found myself at the Almeida on Friday night watching Nocturne, thanks to some some spare tickets Sue had because she had to go to a summer barbecue.

This is a one-man show written by Adam Rapp and performed by Peter McDonald. There was something slightly unnerving about sitting in a theatre on a warm summer night watching a monologue about a man who accidentally kills his sister. It wasn't exactly summer fun and that might have explained why the theatre was a little empty. Perhaps it was the night for barbecues and drinking rather than monolgoues. Still the performance and story was strangely captivating. At times it was like you were at the edge of your seat, knowing you were about to hear something awful but keen to hear how he accidentally decapitated his younger sister.

I have been wary of watching monologues ever since I endured the pretentious and coma-enducing one-man Macbeth. Fortunately there was none of that here and McDonald's performance was incredible to watch. At times still all this guilt and memory and impotence was heavy going (which may be the production's fault), but overall there was something still quite remarkable about it.

I dragged David along to see it and after the show we had quite an intriguing conversation about all the ways you could lose your head. None of which included going to see monolgoues on a hot summer night so I am assuming he didn't mind it either. It is now off to Edinburgh Fringe.

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