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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

Diplomatic banter: The Ballerina @khaoseurope


One person's waterboarding is another person's banter in The Ballerina. It has a short but somewhat delayed run as part of the Vault Festival under the railway arches at Waterloo. It was due to appear in 2020, but the pandemic got in the way. Since then the world post George Floyd, post dumping of a slave trader statue in Bristol Harbour seems to have diminished the novelty of the piece. But you never quite know if it's all a bit of a mind game or some friendly banter.

The Vaults is a dystopian theatre setting at the best of times. Damp, cold and with the constant rumbling of trains overhead. When you throw in a piece that includes mind games and the odd bit of torture, it certainly is a confronting piece of theatre. Although perhaps not for the intended reasons. While there are various trigger warnings about the content, perhaps the audience could have also done with a bit of reassurance that no actors were harmed in making the piece too. 


Told over a series of short scenes, what unfolds is an incident that leads to a diplomat's detainment. What at first seems to be a typical narrative of some unnamed African dictatorship detaining freedom and the peace-loving western individual becomes more complex as the line between rights and wrongs becomes unclear. 

It's an immersive experience as actors with animal face masks, music, and lighting conspire to challenge the audience to think about western foreign policy around the world. And also how little we know about the daily life on the African continent that doesn't include a story of war, famine or corruption. 

Enjoy a front-row seat for your preconceptions if you have them. And don’t mind the backwash from the waterboarding… It’s all part of the banter. Written by Anne-Sophie Marie and Directed by James Barnes, The Ballerina is at the Vaults until Sunday, 5 February.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Photo credit: production photos


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