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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 ...

Beauty fades: Dorian A Rock Musical


Usually, rock stars either die young or fade into obscurity as they become old and weathered. If they’re lucky, they will get tour with their greatest hits or get on some celebrity television show. But when it's a rock star by the name of Dorian, you know that he's going to be a baby-faced singer with a few skeletons in the attic. Or at least a portrait that's a bit suspect.

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, serves as the inspiration for this story of an eternally young rock star who wants to discover love. The electro-pop soundtrack makes it more like a nineteen-nineties pop musical than a rock musical. But it's melodramatic enough to hold interest as this Dorian takes off with both song and his heart. Although I was hoping that fate would befall Dorian like other nineties stars once he destroys the painting. Such as morphing into resembling a cab driver and shouting about conspiracy theories. In this case, however it’s a faithful rendition of Wilde’s story. 

The show initially began as a reading. It was due to open at The Other Palace in March 2020, just as the pandemic hit. Now that it's been filmed in a secret London location, we finally get the chance to see it online. 

Written and directed by Linnie Reedman with music by Joe Evans and musical direction by Sophie Jugé, Dorian A Rock Musical is available to stream at Stream Theatre from this weekend. It will be available on-demand from 22 July through to 12 August. 

Photos from Stream Theatre. 

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