This tender and intimate production is devised by Olive Merrill and Emma Clarke and explores the world of a five year old child who is learning to write. My interest was piqued by the piece’s concept, inspired as it was by ‘company members’ background in education and experience of working with children who have incredible […]

This stunning solo piece fully captivated me right from the start. Originally performed in 1987 (with Tilda Swinton in the role), Manfred Karge’s gritty play is enlivened in a new translation by Alexandra Wood with the excellent Margaret Ann Bain as Ella. The pre-set introduced a stylish design: a sparse room with basic furniture (including […]

Dressed in nicely designed pyjamas, Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez amuse each other and the rest of us with their silly, semi-improvised spoof of Dumas’s novel. Using just two chairs as set, and accompanied on several instruments by a very talented musician, the plot provides some sense of a logical journey through the daftness, with […]

We start with a man sitting at a desk and a speech from Shakespeare – Henry V to be precise. Inventor of the parchment passport in 1440, it would seem. This leads into a breathless dash through the history of the passport. Twentieth century innovations include the 1920 League of Nations standardisation, with 32 pages […]

The centre of the stage is filled with soil. Three almost-naked bodies. It rains, they get wet, the soil turns to mud. They get very dirty, their bare skin and the skimpy bits of muslin cloth preserving their modesty (more or less) coated in mud. It’s a mess, a filthy bloody mess. So that’s the […]