Reviews
"a compelling, atmospheric piece of new writing that examines the darker instincts that lie beneath love" ★★★½ In AN INSTINCT, Hugo Timbrell delivers a tense, unsettling drama that probes the blurry borders between love, obsession, and self-preservation. Tom and Max are former lovers forced back together when a deadly virus prompts them to flee to a remote cabin in the woods. What should be a refuge quickly becomes a pressure cooker. Old wounds resurface, resentments are traded like currency, and the pair soon find themselves dissecting their relationship. When Max’s current boyfriend, Charlie - abandoned mid-crisis - enters the narrative, the emotional terrain grows even more unstable. Timbrell keeps the audience guessing: is the virus real, or has Tom engineered the entire scenario to isolate Max and regain control? Or, in denying the virus exists and trying to win Max back, is Charlie putting all their lives at risk? The ambiguity is gripping. Themes of coercive control, blame, and toxic devotion coil together as the play edges towards a disturbing yet inevitable climax. The production’s slow-burn tension is carefully calibrated. Doubt permeates every interaction: Tom and Charlie’s motives are murky and complex, and Max, buffeted by conflicting loyalties, is pushed to finally make a decision about the future for himself. As suspicion deepens, the question of who is telling the truth and what the consequences might be looms heavily. The staging is understated and effective: a naturalistic country cottage living room complete with log burner, worn sofa, lamp, and scattered creature comforts that contrast sharply with the psychological unease. The design creates a believable, claustrophobic environment in which the characters’ anxieties can fester. Strong sound design and subtle lighting shifts heighten the sense of isolation and entrapment. Timbrell’s dialogue is sharp, often funny, and convincingly overlapping, capturing the rhythms of real conversation even as tensions escalate. These naturalistic exchanges are elevated further by strong performances and clear, assured direction, making AN INSTINCT a compelling, atmospheric piece of new writing that examines the darker instincts that lie beneath love. Croft and Dye Productions presents AN INSTINCT by Hugo Timbrell The Old Red Lion Theatre 18 Nov – 6 Dec Box Office Photography: Craig Fuller
‘Great ambition here’ ★★★ Well, I’m now an expert in cranberry farming and all that it entails thanks to Joe Edgar’s new play which looks at how the media can report, develop and manipulate a story. There is great ambition here - it’s a big tale with big themes and ideas played out in the gloriously compact Jack Studio Theatre and, with some reservations, Edgar strikes the right balance between emotion, fact and humour. The start of the play lost me. Four characters, after hours at the Boston Globe riffing and shouting and over-lapping and throwing stats and detail and facts - too much too fast. Throughout the play the characters very naturally talk over each other, interrupting and ‘sledging’ one another (it is the first day of the Ashes after all) and this works really well once things settle down and the audience can get their collective heads around what is what and who is who. So, plucky young investigative journalist Marianne has returned from deepest Massachusetts where she’s been looking at all aspects of cranberry farming and how / if dark deeds might be afoot. She encounters and interviews multiple characters - deftly managed and played by the rest of the 4-person cast - and gradually uncovers environmental and social shenanigans leading her to question what’s right and what’s not. Some slightly clunky plot devices drive Marianne to make some decisive moves and act in ways which require her editor boss and colleagues to challenge her approach and behaviour. The narrative flips back and forth from the after hours review of the article to key events and meetings ‘in the moment’. This is at times confusing and heavy handed but the cast runs with this well through simple but effective stage management (tables becoming cars etc) and lighting - once again showing how a small space can be wildly transformational. In between times, Marianne is also seen talking to her therapist about her dreams and fears (‘my mother was there of course’ - a great line) and this slightly muddles things as another layer of complication and fact-spouting. As Marianne, Molly Hanley holds the stage really well and if she is at times a little ‘one note’ her ultimate breakdown is genuine and profoundly touching. She is well supported (in multiple roles) by Juliet Welch as her prickly boss, Sydney Crocker as a fellow reporter and especially Xavier Starr in a couple of well rounded roles. This was a case of ‘almost but not quite’ - not enough killer lines, a slightly messy narrative and it all just being a bit much. A more focussed script, some choice editing and a clearer beginning would improve things and then you would have a strong, relevant piece of writing from an exciting new voice. BIG CRANBERRY by Joe Edgar at Jack Studio Theatre 18 – 29 November 2025 presented by Sosij Productions Tuesday 18th – Saturday 29th November at 7.30pm BOX OFFICE https://brockleyjack.co.uk/jackstudio-entry/big-cranberry/
‘how much control do we want to give technology’ ★★★ ½ Plastic and Chicken Bones, written and performed by Malcolm Galea is an example of astute writing, prescient themes and proof that science fiction does not just belong to high budget films and TV series. This one-man show above a pub theatre in Camden is Black Mirror meets Brave New World presented in a small black box theatre. This is all the more impressive considering the content of the show: powerful AI, ideologues and time-travel. It is proof that these ideas, if packaged in a good story, do not need CGI and green screens as vehicles to help tell them, they will hit home. The storytelling switches from the action of the play to audience direct-address, whereby our narrator and central character ‘Driscoll’ brings our 2025 brains up to speed on what has happened between now and then—then being an unnamed period in the distant (or not so distant) future. My favourite moment was a pseudo geo-history lesson when Driscoll patiently taught us about the Russo-Canadian alliance coming down the line: this was ingeniously mapped out using a pizza box, an empty vodka bottle and a maple syrup container. We also learnt about the migration of the global south to the global north represented using chai tea and oyster sauce: all too familiar packaging for this particular global north audience. Driscoll, we learn, has been projected back in time to 2025 from an unspecified future period. In this future world, AI reigns supreme and Siri has been replaced by Zimmi—faithfully trusted by human kind to prevent disaster. Humans apparently, had failed at this. This hits at the central theme and question of the show: how much control do we want to give technology and, if we’re not handing over the reins then when do we, as a society, start taking responsibility for our mess? Nonetheless, despite its undoubtedly pressing themes and smart writing, the production was at times let down by a performance which felt at moments self-conscious and hindered. Switching at times between different characters and talking to a disembodied AI voice representing Zimmi, Gallea’s direction felt lacking in specificity and that more could have been done to bring this insightful dystopia to life. Cast & Creatives Writer: Malcolm Galea Director: Denise Mulholland Cast: Malcolm Galea Voice Over: Maxine Attard Images: Andy O’Hara
‘Tanya Loretta-Dee is infinitely watchable, very engaging, and a performer of great promise’ ★★★ ½ Tanya Loretta-Dee has written a one-woman show about sexual obsession, which she is now performing, with direction from Sophie Ellerby. She tells the story of a young woman, Bex, who works in Peckham selling stuff for parties. A handsome, charming, gorgeous guy comes in and, who’d have thought? It turns out he’s a wrong-un with a wife at home and a baby on the way. Bex knows he’s a wrong-un but she’s drawn to him anyway, a mixture of obsession and self-loathing and horniness. The play explores the impact this has on Bex, on her friends, on her relationship with her mother. It also alludes to folk tales and primal imagery, with Bex morphing into a witchy, behorned forest creature. The forest-creature Bex is a far more threatening creature than the Bex who makes balloon animals, which is perhaps the point, but she remains very separate from the young woman enmeshed in a bunch of bad choices. It’s a powerful acting performance. It’s an interesting and challenging script. It isn’t as coherent as it needs to be, the witchy motifs distract from rather than illuminate the doomed affair. A straightforward telling of the story might have made the moments of character development - where Bex re-sets her relationship with her mum, where Bex is at odds with her best friend – more insightful. Alternatively, a supernatural tale of witchy vengeance on men who mistreat women might have had more bite. The piece fell into a space between the tellings, which made it lose power. That said, Cheng Keng has provided a glimpsy lighting design with lots of effective shadows, Mydd Pharo’s design uses bits of mattress in cunning and imaginative ways, the look and the feel of the whole show is compelling, and Tanya Loretta-Dee is infinitely watchable, very engaging, and a performer of great promise. Having a bunch of good ideas that aren’t quite tied together is so much better than not having the ideas in the first place. Ninety minutes of intriguing witchery combined with a morality story of a maiden led astray, all happening on a striking set with a warm and witty performer. It runs at Theatre 503 until 29 th November and it makes the journey to Battersea worthwhile. Loop 10 - 29 Nov 2025 Written by Tanya-Loretta Dee Directed by Sophie Ellerby BOX OFFICE https://theatre503.com/whats-on/loop/ Patsy Browne-Hope (Movement Director) Cheng Keng (Lighting & AV Designer Jamie Lu (Sound Designer & Composer) Mydd Pharo (Designer) Futures Theatre (co-producer) Join their mailing list and follow their socials to find out more: linktr.ee/Futures_Theatre Photography: Zoë Birkbeck
'leaves you smiling and has some strong moments, but it is not (yet) working as a whole‘ ★★ ‘I am a grown-up individual, playing an 8-year-old. I need my space.’ Two ‘children’ (one over 6 foot, with deep stubble), dressed in red braces, stare fidgeting out at the audience. Silence. More silence. Then giggles. ‘Today for the science project, we are presenting human anatomy.’ And thus begins the story of a brother and sister who are the despair of their parents and their teachers. Like their fairytale originals, this Hansal (Sachin Sharma) and Geetal (Shreya Parashar) find themselves turned away from home and banished—not to a deadly forest, but to a boarding school, to mend their trickster ways. Sharma and Parashar have performed together for a long time, and it shows in their easy rapport. But although Hansal and Geetal leaves you smiling and has some strong moments, it is not (yet) working as a whole. The production is at its best when it leans into surrealism—a slow-motion thumb war set to Mozart's Requiem is a particular highlight. At one point, a witch wanders on and considers the dinner menu. ‘Would you like your carrots with yourself?’ she asks Hansal politely. But this interactive clown show, as it bills itself, doesn't go all-out enough to abandon claims to themes and storylines. And those themes are still a bit of a muddle. Points are made about identity and culture (‘It's Geetal, not Gretel!’)—parenting (‘Are you proud of me, Daddy?’)—and childhood dreams. The siblings occasionally stare longingly at the phone, waiting for their parents to call, but there is no real tension, no real stakes. A prior production by the duo used clowning to offer a biting satire of colonialism, and a similar clarity of purpose would have been welcome here. Structural tweaks could have helped as well. Some jokes are overplayed or over-explained. The audience interactions at first required much coaxing; early group work might have sped up the timeline on everyone feeling comfortable joining in. For once that point was reached, the performers' improv skills shone. Hansal and Geetal feels like a duo workshopping their new material, with both the charm and pitfalls that implies. Part of Voila Festival BOX OFFICE Creator/Performer: Shreya Parashar Creator/Performer: Sachin Sharma
‘Together, the two works form an overwhelming experience’ ★★★★★ Oh. My. God. What did I just see? There are performances you don’t need to understand — you simply feel them. TWAWSI , a double bill by ACE Dance and Music, is exactly that. It is devastating that it ran in London for just one night; work of this scale, precision and emotional force deserves a long run. The first piece, choreographed by Serge Aimé Coulibaly, is one of the most astonishing works of dance I have ever seen. A relentless sequence of “wow” moments, performed by dancers with extraordinary control, grace and intention. Even their breathing — their moans, gasps, exertion — becomes choreography. The piece evokes the chaos of apocalypse, yet the bodies onstage move with a visceral, desperate beauty: mundane gestures flipping into impossible shapes, speed dissolving into stillness, construction collapsing into destruction. It is human resilience made physical. There was also a curtain raiser by Rambert students before the second half — a burst of raw, authentic energy, with an impressively crafted large-scale ensemble composition. The second piece, choreographed by Vincent Mantsoe, shifts the world entirely. Set against a rough wall that casts shadows, this work draws from softer, curved vocabularies. Where the first piece felt fierce and masculine, this felt deeply feminine — spacious, spiritual, elemental. If Coulibaly’s piece was the storm, Mantsoe’s was the quiet pulse underneath it. Together, the two works form an overwhelming experience: technically masterful, emotionally charged, and performed by dancers working at the absolute height of their craft. TWAWSI - The World As We See It... ACE Dance and Music Cast & Creatives Artistic Director: Gail Parmel MBE CEO: Ian Parmel Associate Director: Iona Waite Choreographers: Serge Aimé Coulibaly and Vincent Mantsoe Lighting Design: James Mackenzie Scenographer: Eve MartinCostume Design & Maker: Heidi Luker Production Manager: James McArthur Senior Producer: Juliet Thomas Rehearsal Director: Kennedy Muntanga Dancers: Georgia Collier, Camila Di Aloi Fandos, Lihle Mfene, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Thabang Motaung, Vuyelwa Phota, Sarah Santos
‘Thought-provoking but lacklustre’ ★★ ½ The theme of this inconclusive, oddly dated play is homelessness. Cheryl (Emma Riches) and Tim (Ed Jobbing) are a pair of teachers who own a Victorian terraced house in Tooting. One Friday night they are invaded – almost literally because he has found the key and let himself in – by a homeless man, Eric (Peter Saracen). The implausible scenario is that he had done the washing up and cooked their dinner. In the end, liberal folk who donate to charities regularly, they reluctantly agree to let him stay one night, Predictably it ends up being a lot longer. Alan Bennett did in first with Lady in the Van (1999). Eric has mental health issues, talks in a faint whine and repeats himself a lot. At the same time he’s believably and manipulatively cunning and threatens to kill himself if they throw him out. It’s a pleasing, well observed performance. And Emma Riches convincingly presents an articulate educated woman, good at negotiating. Her scenes with Eric are the best thing in the play. We get a clear vision of how good Cheryl must be at school dealing with troubled youngsters. Jobbing’s character is less sympathetic and at times the acting seems a bit overegged. The fourth character – much smaller role - is Lisa Minichiello’s Karin, Cheryl’s university friend who works for a homeless charity but who can’t do much to help. There are too many short scenes and clumsy shifts in this play involving much fussing with props and furniture. It should be more streamlined than it is (although characters wearing different clothes does indicate passage of time) and certainly doesn’t need the interruption of an interval. Moreover there are textual inconsistencies and plot holes. What time does Eric intrusively bring breakfast in bed to Cheryl and Tim? At one point 1am is mentioned. At another it’s 5am. And where does Eric get the money from to keep buying paint, wallpaper, pictures, runner bean seed and Fray Bentos meat pies? It’s also hard to believe that a youngish man like Tim would be reading an old fashioned newspaper. Surely in 2025 he’d have a digital version? There’s a poignant plot twist at the end of ‘Starfish’ which I didn’t see coming and that’s effective. We’re also left realising that there is no solution to homelessness unless, as Cheryl half seriously suggests everyone with a spare room takes in a homeless person which is not going to happen. In a rather obviously contrived didactic moment the play informs us that there are 300,000 homeless people in this country which is equivalent to the entire population of Brighton and numbers are rising all the time. If only there were an answer. STARFISH by Richard Fitchett, Directed by Lucy Appleby at Bread and Roses, Clapham 11 – 15 November 2025 BOX OFFICE https://www.breadandrosestheatre.co.uk/whats-on.html
‘Beautifully observed hilarity’ ★★★★ This two hander was inspired by the creators running a cramped catering caravan on a busy film set and it’s terrific fun. Half the stage (right) comprises a realistic catering kitchen in a capsule so that the actors can run in and out of it, take orders and use the “outside” space which is the rest of the stage. Designers Alfie Frost and Tash Tudor have done a good job with this. And there’s a lot of beautifully observed hilarity in Harry Petty’s play. This film set is full of outlandish characters with huge egos and Ollie Hart and Harry Warren, both fine performers, play them all with a wide range of voices, the odd hat and a couple of pairs of glasses. At one point Hart does a three way conversation all by himself and it’s very funny. Yes, we can all sympathise with their having to deal with “Clipboard Claire” who officiously guards health and safety and eventually closes their caravan because someone has put a dog poo bag in the bin. Then there is the customer so entitled she jumps the queue and asks for six ludicrously complicated drinks – a familiar stereotype. Even the elderly director who has an accident in the loo so Olly lends him a pair of trousers has a ring of truth to it. It rattles on with as much realism as romp. And the asides to audience are nicely judged. And yet, like all good comedies, there are some serious issues underneath to give the play a bit of depth. Harry’s relationship has just broken down and he’s hurting. He and Ollie exasperate each other but the play celebrates the strength of their friendship. It’s Harry’s catering business but he really wants Ollie to work with him. And we feel the dichotomy he faces at the end – until an unexpected piece of information ends the play and we all laugh again. This entertaining, pleasingly original show runs just over an hour and is well worth catching. WRAP PARTY Written and directed by Harry Petty at Jack Studio Theatre 11 – 15 November 2025 BOX OFFICE https://brockleyjack.co.uk/jackstudio-entry/wrap-party/ Cast: Ollie Hart and Harry Warren Written and directed by Harry Petty Contributors: Ollie Hart & Harry Warren Set Designers: Alfie Frost & Tash Tudor Lighting Designer: Conor Costelloe Sound Designer: Lauren Ayton Composer: Josh Tidd Graphic & Digital Media Designer: Luke O’Reilly Stills and Videography: Toby Everett & Alicia Pocock Producers: Lucy Ellis-Keeler & Tara Jennett Presented by You Guys Productions Ltd. Photography: Toby Everett
‘A work of great intention and heart … but an uneven attempt to transform testimony into ritual performance’ ★★★ There are eight performers on the intimate stage of the Drayton Arms, surrounded by scattered brown leaves, dangling washing lines, and a backdrop banner warning the audience “not to expect any hope” in red letters. The scene evokes an atmosphere close to ‘Inferno’ — both domestic and desolate. ‘Diaspora Inferno’ is a physical theatre piece by an all-female ensemble that ambitiously reimagines exile, womanhood, and migration through movement, multilingual storytelling, and live sound. The sincerity of the team’s vision is unquestionable; their intention to honour the testimonies of displaced women is palpable throughout. However, the execution doesn’t always meet the weight of its ambition. The performance, which largely unfolds without words except for fragmented testimonials in foreign languages, leans heavily on the audience’s willingness to decode its symbolism. While this alienating effect is clearly deliberate, it risks leaving the viewer distanced rather than drawn in. The dramaturgy often feels opaque, and the movement vocabulary could benefit from greater clarity and variation. The storytelling would be strengthened by a more refined physical structure and nuanced ensemble dynamics. One wishes the lighting design had been used more actively to guide emotional shifts and focus. A work of great intention and heart, ‘Diaspora Inferno’ stands as a sincere but uneven attempt to transform testimony into ritual performance. With clearer physical dramaturgy and more confident pacing, it could evolve into something truly powerful. Further details and box office https://www.thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/diaspora-inferno
‘an impressive debut in confident storytelling’ ★★★★ We are in a coal-scarred, intimate space that glistens in blackness beneath the lights. A rugby shirt is cast to one side, and we hear the heart-tugging sounds of Welsh children’s choirs. Stephen Jones, not quite eighteen, is on a glorious high, having just scored the winning goal that’s propelled his team into the finals. At first, he speaks to someone unseen who is unresponsive and then to a young woman, his sweetheart, Angharad Price. Writer, Liam Holmes as the irrepressible Stephen Jones performs alongside Mabli Gwynne as Angharad who is more mature and grounded. This sweet love story moves fluidly through time, and the duo present engaging performative chemistry, sparking off one another, flirting, scheming, and dreaming with a joyful musicality to their diction, proudly undulating and Welsh. Angharad hopes to go to Australia and study law. To Jones, even Cardiff seems like a distant land. He feels secure here in Aberfan. The title of the piece, Mr Jones, an Aberfan Story, might suggest a disaster play, on an epic scale perhaps with elements of documentarian story telling. Nothing could be further from this personal and banterish two hander of 80 minutes. The Aberfan national disaster of 1966, in which 144 died including 116 children at the local primary school when 150,000 tonnes of black coal waste descended to bury them alive, makes Aberfan a premier league black spot alongside places like Hillsborough and Dunblane. But beyond an ominous wind that blows and a rumbling in the distance, something like “thunder” but that goes on “too long” - an effectively unsettling sound design by James ‘Bucky’ Barnes - the disaster is never spelt out or explained. The power of the play works on the same principle as the film, The Zone of Interest, by Jonathan Glazer which depends on the audience already knowing what carnage is happening in the background. Through the experience of two young innocents - Angharad is a local nurse so up close and personal to the disaster while Stephen finds himself catapulted into the centre of the storm – this is a disaster distilled – and those who know of the tragedy will feel it in their gut. The horror is all in the subtext and what the audience bring to the drama. But those who don’t know the Aberfan story, who perhaps didn’t do their research or read the provided material, will struggle to understand where it’s going or to fill in the gaps. We learn through the characters, it wasn’t just bodies buried beneath the coal waste, but the hopes and dreams of a generation. The trauma cut deep and the grief of those left behind affected all those around them. Mr Jones, An Aberfan Story explores survivor guilt and the trauma experienced by the those who awake one day, to find their family or friends inexplicably vanished. It’s an impressive debut in confident storytelling by writer/actor Liam Holmes that elevates the work beyond exposition into pure feeling, expression, and experience. MR JONES AN ABERFAN STORY at Finborough Theatre 28 Oct – 22 Nov 2025 Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED 28 October – 22 November 2025 BOX OFFICE https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/mr-jones/ Photography: Ali Wright
