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Showing posts with the label Lily McLeish

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Wine time: The Frogs - Southwark Playhouse

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For a show called The Frogs, there isn’t much amphibian activity in the piece. But being a show with music by Stephen Sondheim, you could be mistaken for thinking it’s a critical theatrical piece. But like Sondheim’s final musical playing at the National Theatre, while it may not be a musical that fills you with provocative thoughts, it’s a fast-paced romp through hell and back to save the world for the sake of arts. With rousing choruses, thrilling choreography and plenty of cheap laughs, what more can you want from the theatre? It’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) . There isn’t much to the plot, except that Dionysus (Dan Buckley), disillusioned by the state of a divided world, and his sidekick and slave, Xanthias (Kevin McHale), cross the river Styx to the underworld to find a great writer who they can return to the world to teach the world about life. He has his mind set on bringing back George Bernard Shaw until he hears the poetry of Shakespeare.  This v...
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Random doubts and gaslighting: Late Night Staring at High Res Pixels

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Sending a semi-naked photo to a boyfriend sets off a chain reaction of events between two women in Athena Steven's Late Night Staring at High Res Pixels . Is it a case of overthinking everything or is some power game at play? Writer Athena Steven's has repurposed her play into a streamed online event split into mini-episodes released every night over February. Now that we're in March, you don't have to deal with the suspense of waiting for the next instalment, and you can binge it all in one sitting online. It feels like a part drama, part theatre at home and part paranoia. The story unfolds through monologues from the two women. They don't have names other than the girlfriend (Evelyn Lockley) and the best friend (Stevens). What brings them together is a man who turns out to be bringing out their darker side. They begin to question everything, and what slowly emerges is a tale of power and control.  It's imaginatively captured on stream on the YouTube platform. ...
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The woke and the trolling: Scrounger @Finborough

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Athena Stevens takes her experiences with an airline that damaged her wheelchair and refused to pay for a replacement into a sharp and an incisive piece on how discrimination affects disabled people. The incident led to her confinement in her flat in Elephant and Castle for months while she tweeted about the experience and gained media attention. And was called a scrounger by the usual band of internet trolls. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre . It's an exciting piece of storytelling that puts you in her shoes. Stevens is a detailed storyteller, and she expertly covers the everyday ordeals that people with disabilities face. From the passive aggressive remarks uttered by flight attendants to friends who have trouble thinking that Elephant and Castle is a part of central London. It's all told with humour, warmth and a healthy amount of outrage. While the case was eventually settled, she explains as far as her non-disclosure agreement allows, how people,...
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