Featured Post

Iron Maidens: Iron Fantasy at Soho Theatre

Image
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...

Hull on earth: Starved @TheHopeTheatre

It’s a game of survival of the fittest in Starved. A desperate world set in a bedsit on a rough estate in Hull in northern England. Two characters circle each other like wild animals as their circumstances and choices strip them of their dignity. And any creature comforts. It’s a short and provocative piece that’s currently at The Hope Theatre in Islington.

Money may not be able to buy you happiness, but it gives you options. Here the two young characters, Lad and Lass, have nothing. They’re on the run and hiding out, having dropped out of society. But they’re running out of luck too, trying to get by living on a diet of cup-a-soups and whatever they can steal.

Writer Michael Black (who also plays Lad) lures you into moments of comedy before quickly shifting gear into much darker territory.  Imprisoned by their circumstances, they retreat into a world of hunger, scraps, sexual favours and addiction until they hit the point of no return. But it’s such a natural progression that the power of the piece is how it highlights how easy it is to be young and poor and drop off the radar.

Both Black and Alana Connaughton keep you on the edge of your seat with their sparring. And it’s underscored by an unsettling soundtrack that ratchets up the tension in the piece as it develops and the two young people reach their breaking points.

A simple production which marked out by ropes that make it feel like the characters are in a boxing ring. A dirty mattress is in one corner and strewn about are a few bottles of vodka and a few empty cup-a-soup packets. It’s grim, yet evocative.

Directed by Matt Strachan, Starved is at The Hope Theatre until 3 August.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Photos by lhphotoshots



Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan...
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...