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Iron Maidens: Iron Fantasy at Soho Theatre

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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...

Hammams of convenience: Mozart's Die Entführung @PopupOperaUK

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There is something appealingly convenient about the format of Pop Up Opera’s productions. They take witty (and often seldom performed) pieces and stage them in unusual locations, with a modern twist. The convenient part comes in the fact these locations are either close to your place of work, your home et cetera. So by the time Die Entführung came to south east London, I was ready to go. Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) is about a hero, Belmonte and his servant, Pedrillo, and their attempts to rescue their lovers, Konstanze and Blonde from an Ottoman harem. Given the popup opera treatment, the harem is now a big brother-like bath house come beauty boot camp where no men are allowed. And no women are allowed to leave (at least until the treatments are complete). In this production most of the spoken dialogue is removed and in place are some rather witty title cards. The role of the figurehead-dictator Pasha Selim is now an omniprese...