‘Host’ is one of those delicious words whose multiple meanings sit, humming, in tension with one other, creating a delicious mental paradox. Both intimate, generous even, and legion, slightly threatening, its abstract use in the project’s title leaves all possible meanings in suspension. As if what exactly the project is to become has yet to […]

Sometimes you get to watch artists hit their stride and step majestically into full expression of their ability and passion to perform for an audience. Here Search Party present something beautiful and excoriating, a show which hit me over the head and made my noggin ring like a bell. Pete Phillips and Jodie Hawkes, who […]

There have been several plays about Florence Foster Jenkins, the American heiress, eccentric and self-proclaimed opera diva, one starring Maureen Lipman. I doubt any of them match this production by Dutch company Mtg de Koude Kermis in which form is so perfectly aligned with content. On a set like a playground, with sumptuous backdrop badly […]

Slap Talk is a six-hour sparring match: a constantly changing stream of aggression and one-upmanship, quiet digs and impressive bravado. At its centre is a game; a challenge to follow the rules, to keep going, to throw these words back and forth without break, without breaking. Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse, the two artists who […]

The concept of The Money is simple. Very, very simple. Absurdly, gloriously, deliciously, terrifyingly simple. Some of the things it did to my head were more complicated. This is how it works: a representative from Exeter-based Kaleider – a company who ‘produce and promote live experiences’ – places The Money on the table. The Money […]