Black. Black room, black bed, black lamps, black piano, black performer. The title of this piece reflects the strong and driving theme singer Le Gateau Chocolate (British-born but brought up in Nigeria) seeks to challenge: What does black mean? In descriptions of mental health. In the battle between good and evil, light and dark. And […]

Having seen some of Sleeping Trees’ previous shows, my expectations were high for this comedy-theatre performance, presented in a rotating bill parodying either the ‘mafia’ or ‘western’ genre. The inclusion of a live three-piece, The Physics House Band, on stage made this production particularly distinctive. First, spatially, as the set-up immediately becomes more gig-like than […]

Headlock Theatre, a young company founded by Sheffield University students in 2010, have created an energetic and very physical devised adaptation of the classic fairytale Bluebeard. Their narrative centres on Blue, a young woman and distant relation of the titular Bluebeard, a man renowned for killing his young brides when they dissatisfy him. Soon Blue […]

There is a drummer at his drum kit, dim light, smoke, and three performers dressed in grubby wartime hotel worker uniforms. There’s a large square of canvas on a rolling scaffold at the back and an air of suspense, intent, and unease. Stefan Zweig’s novel The Royal Game tells a tale of love, loss, solitary […]

The arriving audience is greeted by electronic music being created live by a musician, a plain white set of walls, windows, domestic furniture, and a young woman sitting wide-eyed on a small bed staring off into the middle distance. As soon as the performance begins a man appears, very clearly in grief for a lost […]