Category: Reviews
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4 stars – powerful fresco Famine, fire, war, and death. They are in the Bible, represented by the four Horsemen of Apocalipsis. They are, also, in a more literal form, in the suburbs of big cities. Four women of different ages track a geography of Bracknell on the last school day before summer holidays.
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5 stars – literally marvellous I thought it wasn’t literal. I thought it must be some reduction of a kind, something more or less inspired by the Shakespearean tragedy. I didn’t think it possible that two people could do the whole of Hamlet. I was wrong.
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4 stars – A feminist myth Io and Prometheus share a sense of rebellion, but of different natures. Prometheus has defied Zeus by giving fire and hope to mankind. Io suffers for Zeus’s whim but doesn’t want to surrender to the idea that gods can be cruel and the world purposeless.
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5 stars –storytelling of a quest On stage, everything bears meaning. In the real world, it doesn’t. Humans have a tendency to extend the search for meaning to the hazard and randomness of events, be it to feel in control, or as a defence mechanism.
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4 stars – highly entertaining and insightful When you see a play twice, you become more critical. You are more aware of the technical aspects, and the plot is no longer a surprise, nor the wits are. This evening, Mabel Thomas’s Sugar was more entertaining than last year.
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4 stars – God damn honest James Nokise runs a brilliant and honest stand-up comedy. He is a kiwi and ironises about the perception of his New Zeland-Samoan identity abroad (and related episodes of racism). He loves making fun of his preacher father and has some very funny story about ‘f*cking’ Donald Trump.
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2 stars – Celebration of friendship Jack is tormented by the mourning of his best friend Michael. He hallucinates about the whistle of the train who killed him, when Michael reappears in flesh and bones, but visible to him alone.
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3 stars – emotional comedy Not so many men are as lucky as to get to speak the most handsome man at a party, and if it happens, make sure it’s towards the very end, when your friends want to leave. It might become your husband, eventually.
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4 stars – ocean-broad hilarity Is racism weirder in the US, in the UK, in Malta or in Romania, from the eyes of an Indian Californian (illegally) living in Great Britain? Sid Singh is a professional stand-up comedian, a human rights lawyer, and… an idiot (his word, not mine!).
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5 stars – playful and insightful mix What do clowns do when the director is not there? It starts like this, with spontaneous freedom, and it escalates to a play that breaks most rules of performance genres. With lightness and bliss, it explores the possibilities of the stage, as well as those of human relations.
Butterwort 