Oh Mary, oh Eve, what alarming, degrading, furious role models you are for womankind. Ruling your shitty, filthy world, with your lack of morals and shifting affiliations, with your disorganised bodies, shallow greed and steel hearts. Who should I follow and what should I believe? Caroline Horton’s ensemble show, which premiered in January, set the […]

I came home from the play and looked out my copy of the novel.  It is hard to believe how yellow the pages have grown – more brown towards the edges. The glue in the spine has become brittle, so the book can only be opened with great care, and probably not with a view […]

This is the second production inspired by Frida Kahlo that I’ve seen this summer. The first, The Four Fridas, was an enormous spectacle put together by Greenwich & Docklands International Festival’s Bradley Hemmings. It included a mesmerising and moving flight of the Voladores. Caroline Bowditch’s piece is the opposite in scale – intimate and friendly […]

Vertical Influences presents a pair of contemporary dance pieces set on ice. The first piece, Influences, places the audience in a typical configuration, in the side seats above the ice rink. We watch the width of the rink where five dancers/skaters explore notions of groups and loneliness. There are soft and striking passages, though the […]

Three bright white slabs hover above a pitch black floor – isolated, yet full of potential. Fred Meller’s stark design beautifully compliments Stef Smith’s new play Swallow, which follows three women as they fiercely navigate a moment in their lives when they feel utterly alone. A slim door that rotates is the only other set […]