Five athletic dancers scuttle and shift across a grey stage. Ticks and jerks punctuate their otherwise fluid movement, hands caress feet and bodies block one another. In Jean Abreu’s vision of prison an incarcerated man is akin to a butterfly pinned in a display box. Inside is inspired by the idea that a society’s jails are […]

Entering after a warm reception in the foyer where everyone was given Rum and Ginger Beer in washed-out baked bean tins, the audience are greeted in the studio space by ‘identical’ twins Peter and Finnegan. Both are stood in a fishtank of blue water, Finnegan communicating through semaphore and Peter through exaggerated expression. There is […]

Inspired by the infamous feud between Hollywood actors Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, Bette & Joan is set in the bedroom of Bette Davis – where, in the last moments of her life, she is lying in bed wearing a nightie and hairnet, grumbling about her glamorous past whilst clutching a picture of her daughter in one […]

Uniting the oral tradition with physical theatre, Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni come together for Tell Them That I Am Young And Beautiful in the studio space at the Arcola Theatre. Comprised of short stories from around the world, with text by Gilles Aufray, the production is an impeccable example of the strength that lies in simple […]

Whatever else, I liked it. In making a show about manga artist Osamu Tezuka, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has taken on the challenge of meeting and responding to an enormous body of work (~150,000 pages, hundreds of characters, illustrative styles spanning several decades) and created a rich, intelligent, sprawling work which communicates – and perhaps, for some, […]