Reviews

“A must-see. FLUSH fits an entire carousel of the female experience into a single women’s room in a Dalston nightclub” ★★★★ April Hope Miller’s ensemble-comedy FLUSH is a must-see. Of course, FLUSH’ s unique humor, point-of-view, and narrative structure are no surprise coming from the winner of the 2025 Fringe Theatre Award. It’s clear the audience is in safe hands from the moment of entrance. Before audience members are seated, they are first ‘stamped,’ consistent with passing through the door of a nightclub. The set is immediately visceral and transportive; the tags and graffiti plastered across the three toilet stalls are comically accurate. Under careful direction by Merle Wheldon, FLUSH fits an entire carousel of the female experience into a single women’s room in a Dalston nightclub over the course of a single night. The play’s talented ensemble rotates through characters and stories – actresses are tasked with portraying at least three characters each – through a series of fragmented toilet visits. These characters are recognizable fixtures of any ladies room on a night-out: drunk bridesmaids, teens with fake IDs, strangers hiding out from bad Hinge dates, and - worst of all - ghosts from the past we must avoid on the dance floor. Although the audience is privy to just a series of brief moments from the recurring characters’ evenings, Miller and her company deliver a complete narrative full of comedy, pathos, drama, and authenticity. Female audience members have a unique ability to relate to the events on stage. We are likely filling in gaps in the characters’ evenings without realising. Women will recognize the unique intimacy of this specific shared space; Miller’s decision to tell her particular story in this particular place is an incredible marriage of setting and content. The ladies room is full of secrets, drugs, romance, community, and connection, both universal and unique to womanhood. Impossible beauty standards, struggles with body image, the proliferation of plastic surgery, and the politicization of Black womens’ hair all show themselves in the bathroom mirror. In this singular setting, women will recognize moments showcasing the prolific cruelty of teenage girls, the nuances of female friendship, and the shared responsibility we feel to protect each other under an invisible umbrella of sisterhood. A shared responsibility that compels us to call Ubers for strangers. While highlighting shared experience, FLUSH is also careful not to flatten femininity or sanitize the role of race and sexuality in the female experience. Women’s rooms are, at their best, unique bastions of safety in environments and in a world with the constant threat of violence, just outside. And yet, the women’s room cannot escape this violence thanks to TERF weaponisation of the space. FLUSH is for anyone who has or has not been inside a women’s room. Non-female-identifying audience members are invited to share in a secret world for just over an hour. Perhaps it’s the first time they’ve seen the ASK FOR ANGELA poster, which female-identifying audience members know all too well from toilet stalls and mirrors across London. FLUSH , of course, represents the axiomatic futility of attempts at institutional protection against sexual violence. As any performance centering the female experience at night must, FLUSH reckons with the dark reality that begets the posters. These moments are, unfortunately, the weakest in the script and Jazz Jenkins is left to carry what feels like nearly all of the show’s heaviness and darkness alone. Jenkins is the only actress who represents a single character and story throughout the night. Jenkins’s Billie is a recent Michigan transplant on a corporate night out, attempting to befriend new coworkers in a new city. The brief encounters we witness between her and her teammates only underscore that she is alone. Through no fault of Jenkins, Billie’s moments drag and the content of her story arc is the most on-the-nose. Her arc flirts with heavy-handedness and predictability, flaws the rest of the show so masterfully avoids. Miller’s ear for dialogue is clear in both her script and her performance. Miller herself stars alongside Jenkins and fellow co-stars Ayesha Griffiths, Miya Ocego and Joanna Strafford. Each actress is as talented as the next and all transition impressively between roles, reconstructing new and three-dimensional characterizations within minutes. All of this to say, London audiences should be sure to catch this 75-min comedy-drama at the Arcola Theatre through 6 June. You are guaranteed to laugh, relate, and possibly cry at just how true it all is. FLUSH 6 May - 6 June Arcola Theatre 75-mins, no interval 16+ Information & tickets available at - https://www.arcolatheatre.com/event/flush/

A house party booming Latin music becomes the broken fourth wall to the audience watching a play placed onto a Hackney skyline. It’s an absurd work and nothing but an absurd setting would be fitting. Based upon Nikolai Gogol’s short story, The Nose, written in the early 19 th century and, making a protagonist of an official’s nose, who losing his master’s face, enjoys the autonomy of being its own entity. Basset Theatre, a brand-new collective with a nose for the bizarre, bring together sculptors, performance artists and chefs to provide a truly inventive, original but haphazard, theatrical event which certainly behaves by its own rules. Though the whole didn’t always feel complete, the attempt was admirable. It's in the promenade, meaning in this case we walk up through a block of flats whilst the inhabitants stare at us with a mixture of acceptance and suspicion. A rather lovely rendition of Eastern European music greets us at the entrance, composed by a man tunefully blowing on a recorder and a woman, in period dress, singing with a passionate, calm and excellent cadence. Before you know it, when the musical motif repeats for a second time on a balcony, you’re surrounded by party goers and even these few drinkers our stunned. Your reviewer, though wondering what the heck might be going on, enjoys himself with a glass of red wine, people watching at first before deciding to pluck up the courage and speak to the performers who are loitering about. Gogol himself, a Russian novelist, short-story writer and playwright originally from Ukraine had a penchant for all things weird and wonderful, especially for anything grotesque. This play, albeit very loosely, tells Gogol’s story of Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov, whose nose eventually finds itself, herself or himself (I do wonder what the pronouns for a nose would be ) at a greater rank than the face it belongs to. It’s a wacky satire of Russian society and the Table of Ranks. This renditions defiance for the absurd, though valuable made the practical retelling rather difficult to follow. Frankly, the performance played second fiddle to the absurdity in this case. That being said, there was some great shadow puppetry by Drew Colby and there were no complaints here about the quality of the food. A three-course meal, in fact, rarely goes down badly and much can be made of the borscht, as main course. Compliments to the chef! Ultimately, I think the artists need to refocus on the story. After all, theatre relies upon narrative, perspective and repetition. These things sit rather difficultly with the random splendour of the design and work. This takes nothing away from the experience, the desire to reinvent and I hope this is just the beginning for a group which could take our breath, or nose, or what you will away, at the right moments. P.S: Thank you, to the kind partygoer, who did a round of crisps for the whole audience. It was much needed with the wine on an empty stomach. Produced by Bassett Theatre

'virtuoso performance that had all the elements of a blockbuster movie' ★★★★★ The Night Ali Died is a one-man show, written and performed by Chris Sainton-Clark. This virtuoso performance of storytelling started with a gripping account of the life of a simple man with a dull job, until things began to change. This was a performer who with the minimal of props and a few well placed sound effects gave us a performance that had all the elements of a blockbuster movie. It was like watching a film and the whole audience were drawn into a world of crime, drama and comedy. After the initial outline of the story, given to us by Ali, the lights went down momentarily. Then another character appeared to give us an alternative version of the events. Then another, then another. With each additional person, we were treated to continual plot twists, with each adding another layer of understanding of just what was going on the night Ali died. The answer was drug dealing, violence, a crooked policeman, suspense and revenge. The writing was very good and so too was the acting. The accents and mannerisms flowed so effortlessly from one character to the next, that at times, it was barely believable that there was only one person on stage. With a well toured piece like this, with its myriad of good reviews, awards and nominations you would by now expect the performance to be flawless. I'm sure it was, and I for one didn't notice anything wrong with it. I would highly recommend this to anyone. Even if it turns out not to be your thing, at 55 minutes and with all that was going on, the time will fly by regardless. Chris will be continuing his tour, showing off his talents in the hope that one day his material will be adapted for the screen. He also intends to record an album of his Pub Tales. Something we can all look forward to. Written and performed by Chris Sainton-Clark Directed by Rosanna Mallinson Website of the performer here Photography: Jonathan Dodds

'rage and poetry' ★★★★ That rage is in good hands with Amar Chadha-Patel, who plays the solo role of AK, a young Indian-British boy growing up on an island which is not very tolerant of nuance, of difference, of a family with a different background. The love interest. The rival. The racism. They are all there in this mostly storytelling, at times spoken word poetry of a piece: high energy, staccato phrases. AK’s early crush on Katie is spoiled by her fling with Max, a rival since the early days on the football pitch. This coming-of-age starts during 90s Britain and takes us into AK’s adulthood. Sometimes victim, sometimes aggressor, AK moves between gentle, caring moments (sharing music with his best friend) and having to find ways to stand up for himself. The violent, if slightly anticipated, ending splits in two parts, which is also foreshadowed, and yet not predictable. And there is sufficient humour to alleviate this pressure cooker of a play. Chadha-Patel is captivating from the start. Despite this being his stage debut, he is no stranger to acting and this is a compelling part for him to chomp on, requiring a tremendous energy from him. He commands the space, and he demands attention, and despite his intensity, makes us laugh at moments; it is beautifully directed by Annie Kershaw. His gentleness and power range helps him take the voices of father, mother, nemesis, lover, rather than imitating voices. The set has everything despite its deceptive simplicity. The bold, round light at the front that contrasts with the streetlight upstage, the mike slightly off-stage. A single bench so central. The slight fog that becomes evident in certain light evokes a sense of the sea air. The constant background beat, building tension. There is a lot to unpack in this piece, especially about familial responsibility and expectation, but the largest themes are about finding yourself with so much against oneself. There is resonance of these themes today, even as political tensions rise along racial lines. There are moments that speak to me, having grown up not on an island, but with a similar background in a different land. Hearing a story I can connect to like this… well, it’s poetry to my ears. Photography: Steve Gregson Presented by Indira Varma and HFH Productions In association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre BOX OFFICE Written by Titas Halder Performed by Amar Chadha-Patel Directed by Annie Kershaw Assistant Director:Jillian Feuerstein Set and Costume Designer: Cara Evans Lighting Designer: Rajiv Pattani Composer and Sound Designer: Pierre Flasse

‘Joey never quite made it to London … but boy oh, boy are we glad that O’Dwyer did’ ★★★★★ Poised upon the church doorstep in Galway wearing a mesh top, Joey is afraid that he won’t be let in. A queer, Irish, Catholic lad, struggling to merge these three worlds together, he’s armed only with a hurling stick painted with flowers and the mascara that runs down his face. Emerging playwright Conor O’Dwyer, holds their first solo show Homo(sapien) up to the limelight — a queer coming of age story that twists in and out of humour or tears — with a joyous charm worthy of a Dublin session, complete with fiddle, folklore and song. In the story, Joey never made it to London, cancelling his place at Kings College London to remain in the town of his birth alongside his best friend, frightened of the big smoke and leaving everything behind. But boy oh, boy, are we glad, quite selfishly, that O’Dwyer did. Take the absurd from Samuel Beckett, sprinkle it with Judith Butler, queer joy and transformation, till you get a simple, stripped-down set of three chairs alongside a cross covered with flowers in the background supporting O’Dwyer’s sprawling narrative. It moves about in time like Joey moves in and out of accepting his identity. The show has had its own journey, bouncing about Ireland and the British Isles from Dublin’s Gay Theatre Festival last May and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival during July, complemented by O’Dwyer’s screen work. Celtic Tiger in the arts scene may have just found one of its new faces. Let’s pick at a few cherries on top of this play from frankly a whole cake of cherries: The top of a chair is used to form the water level (to remarkable effect) when Joey is up to his neck in the sea through his tears on a nasty come down; in a repeated skit Jesus enters Joey’s consciousness as a camp, guardian angel, warding him off taking the plunge and losing his virginity, battled by a libido produced through a strange but hilarious Scottish accent (Shakespeare fans please remember Launcelot Gobbo from The Merchant of Venice); a hurling stick, a memorable token from childhood, performs the function of a penis for multiple urinal scenes, where Joey meets other men. Nothing on stage is mere ornamentation. Nothing is decoration without purpose. Everything is truly in its right place. It’s a lesson on what to do on a tight pub theatres budget. The tech desk also taps to this tune. Lighting motifs, appearing again and again throughout to signal club nights, times that Joey was beaten up for his sexuality and church interiors, that snap or crackle with Jen McGregor’s tight stage direction. Colour builds up like a musical motif highlighting different moments from the past with different perspectives. There is something Wilde about O’Dwyer. A natural stage presence, a witty pun always waiting on his tongue. He challenges not only the institutions of his past with a cool, considered script and with endless empathy but generational trauma, cascading down from parents, children, teachers, suggesting if the queer community are forced into hiding, then the ricochet spreads so much further and wider. I can firmly say that this should be the beginning of a spectacular career.  Presented by Genesis Theatre Productions and Conor O’Dwyer HOMO (SAPIEN) Written and performed by Conor O’Dwye Theatre503 5 – 9 May 2026 BOX OFFICE https://theatre503.com/whats-on/homosapien/ Creative Team: Writer/Performer: Conor O’Dwyer Director: Jen McGregor Producer: Michelle McKay Lighting Designer: Abbie Lowe Technical Operator: Jen McGregor Sound Designer: Parasol Wu Set Designer: Sandra Karolak

‘electrifying music, but lacks the shape and high stakes a play needs to remain engaging’ ★★ ½ Thrown into the underground punk rock scene of the late 70s in London, Stickin’ Boy features the gritty music of rock’n’roll band Taurus Trakker, led by Martin Muscatt, also writer and director of the play. The story follows Eddy (Tom Patrick Coley) in his early 20s as he fights to follows his dreams as a musician while he stumbles upon the underground sex & drugs scene of the ‘beginning of punk rock’. Muscatt introduces the musical through a documentary-style interview: he appears on screen (while being physically onstage, playing live with his band) to retell parts of the story – his story. The mixed media remains throughout, with interludes of Muscatt speaking to camera, while time passes with footage of Soho’s hottest streets. If the setting transports us directly into the world of Taurus Trakker, and the raw rebellious music pulls us instantly into their frantic energy, the overall writing struggles to match the power of the musical performances. The narrative structure follows Eddy encountering various characters. The beginning feels like a slow burn: Eddy works in a warehouse, where his boss comes in twice before actually firing him. His father appears, but doesn’t bring essential conflict to the rest of the play – apart from the fact that he later visits the same prostitute whom Eddy develops feelings for, yet even this comedy potential isn’t fully exploited. It is only when Eddy meets Candy (Phoebe White) that the play truly starts unfolding. The world of the brothel is the most captivating part of the show. Madame O (Jennie BelleStar) runs the business where Candy, Mandy (Jojo O’Donoghue) and Wendy (Freya Christina Thomas. ) spend their time meeting men, drinking and laughing, recruiting Eddy as their ‘sticking boy’. Their songs are playful and enjoyable to watch, especially Phoebe White’s heartbreaking ‘So Far Down’, which was an incredibly moving performance. Meanwhile, unfortunately Eddy’s character remains sort of passive in his own story, and the drive of the plot seems unsure of itself. This is a general retelling of his life, and ultimately, it lacks the shape and high stakes a play needs to remain engaging. Overall, Stickin’ Boy’s electrifying music, inspired by The Clash, shows great potential for a new punk rock’n’roll musical. Stickin’ Boy By Martin Muscatt at Etcetera Theatre 5 – 10 May 2026 BOX OFFICE https://www.etceteratheatrecamden.com/events/stickin-boy-la8zx-l263p The play has an accompanying double album of songs, performed by London band Taurus Trakker, cast members and Special Guests. Link to sound track https://taurustrakker.bandcamp.com/album/stickin-boy

‘a winning formula’ ★★★★ The best thing in the Tabard’s splendidly joyful HMS Pinafore is the flautist. One of an orchestra of just two, the delightful, diminutive Marissa Landy is also an accomplished dancer, actor, singer and comedian, and she lifts the spirits every time she leaves her seat and comes onto the stage, with or without her flute. And she is also, apparently, responsible for the fast and funny choreography. But I’m sure that some of the more extravagant moves made by Gloria Acquaah-Benedict came from the actor herself. This is not the shy, demure Little Buttercup normally presented in this opera. Demure she isn’t. She is loud, robust, full-throated and magnificent, and she owns the stage from the moment she opens her mouth to sing I’m Called Little Buttercup. For me, she’s the star of the show. This is the Tabard’s second Gilbert and Sullivan after its successful Mikado last year, again directed by Keith Strachan with musical director Annemarie Lewis Thomas, and they have found a winning formula. G&S operas were written for the big stage and the huge orchestra, but Strachan and Thomas have shown again how well it works in small spaces, with just nine people on stage including the musicians. You can hear Gilbert’s witty words better, for one thing. John Griffiths played the Mikado in that production last year, and he returns this year as a wonderfully snobbish and un-seamanlike naval chief Sir Joseph Porter, whom you can easily believe followed his own injunction: “Stick close to your desks, and never go to sea, And you all may be rulers of the Queen’s Navee.” Leopold Benedict as Captain Corcoran is also as unlike a sailor as possible. He’s all bespectacled middle class delicacy and propriety, staying just the right side of effete. Because of the financial constraints of theatre in small spaces, Griffiths and Acquaah-Benedict both have to double – Griffiths as a seaman, and Acquaah-Benedict as one of Sir Joseph’s sisters, cousins and aunts - which is a pity, as it detracts slightly from the strong characters they create. The songs are al belted out with tuneful abandon. Highlights for me, apart from I’m Called Little Buttercup, were Kind Captain I Have Important Information, which turned into a rollicking duet between Captain Corcoran and Ralph Rackstraw (Ryan Erikson Downey), and Griffiths’ rendering of the great patter song, When I Was a Lad. But we also had fun with the cod patriotism of He Is An Englishman, which the audience were invited to sing along with the cast: “For in Spite of All Temptations/ To Belong to Other Nations/ He remains an Englishman.” We needed little encouragement, though personally I declined the invitation to wave a Union Jack while I sang. HMS Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan The Tabard Theatre 6 May – 6 June BOX OFFICE https://tabard.org.uk/whats-on/hms-pinafore/ photographer Matt Hunter CAST Little Buttercup|Gloria Acquaah-Harrison Captain Corcoran| Leopold Benedict Dick Deadeye|Ryan Erikson Downey Sir Joseph Porter| John Griffiths Josephine| Stevie Jennings-Adams Cousin Hebe/Flautist|Marissa Landy Ralph Rackstraw| Finan McKinney Bosun Kieran Wynne Musical Director |Annemarie Lewis Thomas

‘affectionate homage to the glory days of Hammer horror’. ★★★ The 1970s were another country and they did things differently there. Not least in the world of British cinema where the twin warhorses that had kept the domestic industry going for 50 years were beginning to run out of puff. On the one hand, the kind of cheap and cheerful comedy exemplified by Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor was soon to stop Carrying on. On the other, camp horror classics populated by granite-jawed heroes and diaphanously clad heroines fleeing a nameless dread through ‘Transylvanian’ forests (that could not more clearly have been the back of Berkshire) were teetering beyond self-knowingness into self-parody. And so to The Horrors at Hell House, an affectionate homage to the glory days of Hammer horror that brings four actors and a director together in 1970 in a dilapidated house to rehearse a forthcoming film shoot. The staples are here: the grand actor who needs a job, even this job, to pay for his drink; the Swedish ingenue who wants to be a serious actress when she’s finished running around in a nightdress; the solid English rose (Ellie Ward); and the good looking young dummy who’ll play the hero (Alfredo Mudie). The milieu of the Hammer productions is excellently recreated. Cue a dark and stormy night. A screeching violin. A clap of thunder. Blood-red credits on the back wall announcing the title and the cast. The visuals of the show are brilliant, with Bridge theatrical director Luke Adamson’s audio-visual backdrops creating sets of wallpaper, bookshelves, grand halls and dark basements. And the performances are strong – Paul Winterford’s messianic (or is it satanic?) director, Jay Joel’s booming-voiced, seen-it-all, didn’t-like-it, fading star actor, and Julia Thurston’s serious and intelligent bit of fluff in particular. The play, for all its wit and erudition, is, though, a bit of a shapeless narrative that meanders through a series of quite talky (if often funny) situations until a plot emerges from the fog well into the second half. Characters are too often required to deliver long soliloquies that deliver more exposition and research than story or character development. Tension’s ratched up nicely through visuals and surprises, with the right level of comic undertone – the unexpected arrival of a man without a face (who’s come to fix the window), for example. But it falls again, not least as some characters (the fading star who always seeks another drink, the young male hero who worries repeatedly about his hair or his dimness) become a little repetitively static. The author’s love for and knowledge of the 1960s horror movie are profound and enjoyable, and digressions into the worlds of the likes of Aleister Crowley and Dennis Wheatley are just the kind of thing for an audience who’ll know what they’re getting into here. n to be cinematic about it, a few cuts and a fair bit more action could help the more general viewer. If there’s one bit of Hammer-style iconography not captured in a long show, it’s the 75 to 90 minute running time of the likes of The Devil Rides Out or The Curse of the Werewolf and To The Devil a Daughter. This canters past the two-hour mark, and a tighter plotline and a bit more pace wouldn’t hurt, but it’s still fun and beautifully produced and performed. THE HORRORS OF HELL HOUSE by Tim Connery Directed by Andrew Hobbs Bridge House, Penge – 5 May to 23 May 2026 Box Office: https://thebridgehousetheatre.co.uk/shows/hell-house/ Reviewer David Weir’s plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow) and Better Together (Jack Studio, Brockley, London). His novel The Honourable Member for Murder will be published by Allison and Busby on 20 August 2026.

“A balance of the comedy and tragedy of human existence” ★★★★ It is hard to ignore how timely the works of Sławomir Mrożek ring true today; in fact, you could be forgiven for thinking these two plays had been written with the world we currently know in mind. The plays were in fact written in the 1960s and 1970s, when Poland was still under Soviet influence. Orsolya Nagy and DHR Arts have brought the plays to Camberwell, with Nagy directing following a successful pilot run of Striptease as part of the Birmingham Theatre Festival last year (2025). Charlie, our first play, is an absurd portrayal of heritage, complicity, and victimisation. Everything is highly specific, yet the actors have such a strong sense of inner life that when their characters’ biases spill out left, right, and centre, the natural delivery makes the dialogue feel almost routine. The premise of Charlie is simple: Grandfather (played by Kenneth Michaels) needs to shoot a “Charlie”. The problem, as his Grandson (Simon Brandon) informs us, is that Grandfather cannot see and therefore would not be able to locate “Charlie”, so the Oculist (Rowland D. Hill) is brought in to fix this. All three actors bounce off each other beautifully, each seemingly taking turns to deliver their character’s particular slice of outrageousness. The idea that a Charlie would be shot today feels almost immaterial, as the audience largely views these characters as bumbling fools. So when a shot is finally fired, one cannot help but think: at least they followed through. The sense of heritage is especially present in the relationship between Grandfather and Grandson; shooting is simply what they do. Why would the Oculist waste everyone’s time trying to determine Grandfather’s eyesight by asking him to read an eye chart? Neither of them can read — it is not what they do. They are proud shooters. Striptease is a wonderful portrayal of action, inaction, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes neither can offer comfort when freedom has been taken away. A more stylistic play, with an almost Pinteresque air, no sense of place or time is given. The characters simply know that they were both heading somewhere before finding themselves trapped in a room with just two chairs. The use of silence, when permitted, adds to the sinister undercurrent of this “striptease”. Great writing is timeless, and Sławomir Mrożek’s work is certainly proof of that. These plays have been staged with great care, and the entire cast deliver precise, excellent performances that balance the absurdity of both Charlie and Striptease with ease. As an audience member, you leave with much to reflect on, as the parallels between today and the past are undeniable. Dates: Tuesday 21 st April – Saturday 9 th May 2026. Location: Golden Goose Theatre, 146 Camberwell New Rd, London SE5 0RR. Box Office: www.goldengoosetheatre.co.uk Price: £18 full price (£15 concessions). Running Time: 90 minutes plus interval. Cast Occulist / Man 1: Rowland D. Hill Grandson / Man 2: Simon Brandon Grandfather / Hand 1: Kenneth Michaels Hand 2: Orsolya Nagy Creatives Director: Orsolya Nagy Producer: Rowland D. Hill Lighting Designer: Matthew Biss Film Maker: Ghost Chan Social Media: @drh.arts / @rowlandd.hill2 / @goldengoosetheatre Website: Charlie and Striptease | Golden Goose Theatre Images: Paddy Gormley