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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

Mixed race privilege: White @ovalhouse


I always knew what I was. I was mixed race. I was... And so begins Koko Brown’s monologue White. It’s about being mixed race and being an outsider and growing up in modern Britain dealing with labels when sometimes none really fit.

It’s currently playing at the Ovalhouse Theatre as part of its Autumn Series of shows.

Koko Brown uses spoken word, live vocal looping and multimedia to create a powerful and compelling statement on how we view people.


Whether it’s the black girl in the corner, who like’s Panic! At the Disco. Who doesn’t get why she’s always cast as Scary Spice. Who stumbled onto a Black Lives Matter march.

The vocal looping creates a series of songs to comment on the various stages of her young life.


It’s fascinating for both it’s assured performance and uncertainty with what happens next.

It would make a great double bill with  Joe Sellman-Leava’s piece Labels.

In the meantime, you can catch it at the Ovalhouse until 25 November.

Next up at the Ovalhouse is The Sex Workers Opera, which combines theatre and music to showcase the lives of sex workers... Warts and all (or so to speak).

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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