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Eyes, hair, mouth: Darkie Armo Girl at Finborough Theatre

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Darkie Armo Girl, Karine Bedrossian’s electrifying one-woman show, commands attention from the moment it begins. First performed in 2022 and revived last year, it now returns for extra performance and it's an event not to miss. The show takes you through the thrills and horrors of a hectic life. She struts, shimmies, and taunts while revealing some horrific truths. She is such an irresistible storyteller that you find yourself hooked. The story is one of fame, glamour, abuse, self-harm, and suicide. If that subject matter doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you haven't seen it delivered with such high energy and provocation. It's currently at the Finborough Theatre . The show's title refers to a slur a popular girl at school once called her. Her ancestry is Armenian, and her parents were from Cyprus, where they fled the civil war and arrived in the UK with nothing. Shortly after she was born in Roehampton. The birth was an emergency C-section that left the baby and ...

I see a river: The Fishermen @Trafstudios

 
A Booker-Prize nominated novel by Chigozie Obioma about families, vengeance and fate, is adapted into a two-hander play and currently playing at the downstairs space at Trafalgar Studios. It’s an intense, haunting and brisk adaptation by Gbolahan Obisesan of two men reunited after a tragedy.

A prophecy of foreboding trouble haunts four brothers living in a small Nigerian town. Two brothers, Ben (David Alade) and Obembe (Valentine Olukoga), secretly fish at a forbidden river along with their two older brothers. They risk both their lives and angering their father by fishing there. Until one day, they come across a madman who changes their lives permanently.

It opens with the two brothers meeting on either side of a riverbank. Some time has passed, and their reunion at first brings joy. And then takes a darker turn as family relationships, guilt and superstitions are remembered.

As the two storytellers, Alade and Olukoga bring humour and warmth to their roles as they portray a variety of characters. Even if you’re not entirely sure what you are seeing. Those familiar with the book may be on firmer ground. But the confusion doesn’t always distract from the journey.

It’s imaginatively staged by designer Amelia Jane Hankin. A real barrier of meandering sandbags and poles splits the stage becoming the divide. But it’s also the tools for fishing and much more.

Directed by Jack McNamara, The Fishermen from New Perspectives theatre company is at Trafalgar Studios until October 12.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️


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