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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

The night that was: At the theatre with Love Bites

Sunday night was an opportunity to catch a series of short one act plays - or as @johnnyfoxlondon and I liked to call them in the Audioboo below, snatches - at the Southwark Playhouse called Love Bites. It was one night only which was a shame as it was a lot of fun could do with running over a few Sunday nights for when people are looking for something strange and interesting to do.

The concept has been running for a few years and has produced over thirty new one-act plays. But this was my first Love Bites, which also was also a best of collection of the material so far. Some are self-contained stories, some are monologues and some could potentially be other stories. It is a great little concept that is simple and very entertaining. The writing was great and the works presented had something funny to say about the art of love. There were also a few surprises in store in some of the pieces. But best of all is the opportunity to see new work being tried out in a simple yet slick presentation with a talented group of actors.

Here is hoping that there are many more nights at the theatre involving Love Bites.

listen to ‘Interval boo: Love Bites’ on Audioboo

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