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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

On a clear day: The View From the Shard

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The View from The Shard opens on Friday and having caught a preview of it earlier in the month, it is worth a look... Even if it is a snowy day... And visibility is poor... There is still a gee whiz excitement about looking down from the London landmark. There is something light and delicate about The Shard that makes it intriguing and not just another tall building. The journey starts with a slightly eccentric tour of London and its people before you are shuffled into one of two lifts to take you to the thirty-third floor. You are told that it will take you at speeds of six metres a second but unlike other tall buildings in London , it is not a glass lift so there is no horror or nausea from shooting up. Perhaps it is the low lighting and video screens of soothing autumnal leaves and snow that does it, but you do not feel a thing. You then have to take another lift to the top which again has soothing music and video screens which takes you to the top. There are a few more stair

Everything: Taboo

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A smart, slick new production of Boy George's musical Taboo has been playing in Brixton for the past month. What makes this production worth a look is the insanely talented people on stage. Some are even making their professional debut here and in the small yet perfectly formed space of the Brixton Club House (on the corner of Brixton Road and Coldharbour Lane... above the KFC), it makes for one hell of a show. The story focuses on the club scene in the early 1980s and the rise of the New Romantic movement. It is a journey (of sorts) into fashion, big hair, bitchy  banter and decadent antics. At the centre of this was Boy George and living artist performer  Leigh Bowery ... The latter role is played by newcomer Sam Buttery who manages to make a larger than life figure rather human and delicate, even when singing a song about Bowery's voracious sexual appetite. Buttery was in the recent BBC chair-swining series The Voice  and you get the impression from his performance tha