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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 ...

Murder on the dance floor: Disco Pigs @TrafStudios


Twenty years on, Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs still manages to shock and fascinate with its evocative and provocative world of deprivation. It's currently playing at Trafalgar Studios.

But with its endless slang and two unpleasant characters, it's often an an impenetrable world. Even with two masterful performances and slick production values, this is still a journey through hell.

The piece is about Pig and Runt. Born on the same day and at the same time in the same hospital, they've been inseparable all their lives. They have their own language, own rules, and exist in a world of petty crime, violence, drinking and dancing...

But as they approach adulthood, Pig's feelings for Runt grow. Runt struggles to break away from Pig's advances and the world in which they have built over their lives.


The energy of the performances is astonishing and keeps the momentum of this piece. Colin Campbell as Pig is edgy and  threatening. Evanna Lynch as Runt is also threatening. But she also conveys the tentative aspirations for a different life. At times the two seem to bounce off each other, even if you can't understand a word either of them are saying.

There isn't a glossary in the programme to help you out. You just have to feel your way through the emotions, movement and feelings.

When things start getting complicated, there's a throbbing soundtrack of classic dance tracks and Elliot Grigg's lighting to transform the space into a rave.

But these thrills feel like a clever attempt to skirt around providing any context to the gratuitous violence and depravity. And that makes it hard to care about either of them in the end.

Directed by John Haider, Disco Pigs is at Trafalgar Studios until 19 August.

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Photos by Alex Brenner

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