Matty’s mother is packing his suitcase for him to leave home. In a room full of cuddly toys in all the colours of the rainbow (plus plenty of neon shades), she counts pairs of trousers, t-shirts, socks, off a checklist. She’s matter-of-fact, impatient, over-brisk and chatty, talking to Matty through the bathroom door. Talking to […]

In Stillpoint’s Moon Project there is good chemistry between Rachel Blackman’s character Leilah, and Jules Munns’ Shahab, demonstrated through language and physicality. He is soft and languid, she is tense and jerky; the way they move illustrates their differences and is a strong visual metaphor for the ensuing action. Moon Project is about a collision […]

Sam Fox is captivating. Every muscle she moves during this 55 minute performance conveys something to us. She can be intimidating, crazy, cute, curious, and all within 10 seconds, with the flick of a wrist or the sharpening of a stare. She is both pretentious and unpretentious, flouncing about, the only performer on the stage, […]

The Disappearance of Sadie Jones enacts the Newton’s cradle mutual rebound between the eponymous heroine’s mental illness and the reality around her. The form is kaleidoscopic, the chronology dislocated, the viewpoint subjective, and the world artfully disorientating. The characters of Sadie’s sister and lover drift through other identities, archetypal (‘the dead’), allegorical (a swindling barrow […]

Balding, and with spines rather than hair; with deep-set glittering eyes and wrinkly, stretched skin covering a huge, flattened, almost alien face; with claw hands, hunched back, scrawny neck, and a hobbling but alarmingly spry gait – the larger-than-life puppet of Baba Yaga is a real treat. Manipulated with gusto and a treacly thick Scots […]