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High anxiety: Collapse - Riverside Studios

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It’s a brave or maybe slightly provocative production to use Hammersmith Bridge on their artwork for a show called Collapse, which is about how everything collapses—poorly maintained bridges, relationships, and jobs. Nothing works. That’s probably too close to home for Hammersmith residents stuck with a magnificently listed and useless bridge on their front door. It gets even weirder when you realise the piece is staged in what looks like a meeting room with a bar. However, keeping things together in the most unlikely of circumstances is at the heart of Allison Moore's witty and engaging four-hander, which is currently having a limited engagement at Riverside Studios . The piece opens with Hannah (Emma Haines) about to get an injection from her husband (Keenan Heinzelmann). They’re struggling for a baby, and he’s struggling to get out of bed. But he managed to give her a shot of hormones before she started worrying about the rest of the day. She’s unsure she will keep her job with ...

Theatre: Revenge of The Grand Guignol


It was a bloody night at the Courtyard Theatre Hoxton where I finally managed to catch Theatre of the Damned's Revenge of the Grand Guignol. Well it is not all blood and gore, but these four stories all have enough thrills, laughs and shocks to have you and the ice within your favourite beverage all aquiver... So much so that when the lady in front of @johnnyfoxlondon and I blew her nose, we both jumped.

Last year's show in Camden was great, but this year was even better with stories that are even more compelling and some great performances. There is a melodramatic story about a mad doctor, a pensioner with a buried secret, a long distance relationship gone wrong and a beautiful woman trapped in a munitions factory. All of the stories have in common the ability to turn something ordinary into the unusual. And through some rather clever lighting and sound effects, even when things seem fine, you were on the edge of your seat.

The show is part of the London Horror Festival (which has been running over the past month). It is great to see there is a dedicated festival for giving audiences intended shocks. Here is hoping there is more next year. It runs through to Sunday...

An audioboo with @johnnyfoxlondon follows
listen to ‘Evening horror at The Revenge of Grand Guignol ’ on Audioboo

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