The phone rings. The pair of clowns onstage are waiting for the big call – the one from an international festival that will make them stars. Nope, not this time… Both are in traditional dress and make-up. One is definitely of higher status: tall, slim, obviously in charge – and the base in the highly […]

Tröll is the seventh production by award-winning New Zealand company, Trick of the Light and the second of their shows I have seen. Their work is marked out by a satisfying aesthetic rigour that playfully interweaves visual languages and new writing to create a very complete on-stage world. In Tröll, that world is the 90s, […]

Dorothy Max Prior spends a whirlwind 24 hours in Birmingham, enjoying a taster menu of the 10th edition of BE FESTIVAL  We’re onstage at Birmingham Repertory Theatre – not performing in a show, although you could describe it as a performative event. It’s a communal dinner – long tables laid with white tablecloths, vases of […]

She sleeps, she dreams, she sleepwalks… She is dressed in diaphanous white. She lies, curled, on a glossy black floor that’s as reflective as a mirror. The low-key soundtrack hinting at a heartbeat, a ticking clock. The electronic drones and pulses are augmented by bells and bowls. She is lit beautifully, her graceful form illuminated […]

Oh, the passenger / He rides and he rides / He sees things from under glass / He looks through his window’s eye / He sees the things he knows are his / He sees the bright and hollow sky… Today I am The Passenger. And I ride, and I ride: train, train, tube, DLR, DLR – and with just […]