Where are the sailors and the lifesavers? The swimmers and the singers? Well, the singers are certainly here. And the lifesavers, guiding us in the art of artificial respiration. Cover the nose and mouth and breath. Breath, breath until you see the chest rise. This on our headphones, connected not (as is the wont these […]

Welcome, welcome – come inside, take a look around. Welcome to Number 1, The Plaza. Our house is a very very very nice house. And you’re very, very welcome. Tonight is party night and the door is open. Two young women circle the performance space, dressed in slutty evening wear, one wearing killer heels, one […]

Though I am not the target audience for this, I soon became it, tuned into a youthful frenzied display of the almost indescribable. The Christeene Machine, marketed as ‘a gender-blending booty-pounding perversion of punk dragged through a musical theatre gutter’ is a journey into a liminal space that is abject and transforming. I want to talk about […]

The first moments of this show present the audience with a simple set up: straight man and fall guy. The fall guy looks like a clown, with a white face and red nose. The straight man is being serious at a typewriter. The company wants to explore the Manichean struggle between mirth and melancholy using […]

There is nothing more satisfying in theatre than a number of recognisable traditions filtering through and cohering into a completely fresh and new artistic sensibility. Discernible influences on the young company Barrel Organ include Forced Entertainment, Sarah Kane and possibly some representatives of the current trend of interactive theatre pioneered by the likes of Tim […]