Justice. Mercy. Religion. Power. Sex. The former two words are at the core of this season at the Globe, and perhaps no other works of the bard better encapsulate those themes than Measure for Measure.
Paul Anthony Morris’s Sarai tells the story of one woman. A woman who addresses the hardships and cruelties of a nation on the brink of war and corruption.
Friends are your extended family. They’re there for you during your darkest, as well as your lightest moments. Score, explores the value of friendship, with the added weight of drug addiction. Written by Lucy Bell, the piece places the everyday lives of two teens centre stage.
In 1997, Femi Elufowoju Jr. pioneered the first theatre company in the UK to specialise in producing works focusing on voices hailing from the African diaspora and heritage. Challenging preconceived ideas perpetuated by mainstream media, tiata fahodzi, meaning ‘theatre of the emancipated’ offers a platform for the playwriting stars of tomorrow to unveil a range of perspectives on what it means to be African in the UK. 18 years on and it’s current Artistic Director, Natalie Ibu celebrates almost a year with the forward thinking theatre company. As Natalie prepares for this year’s tiata delights festival, Theatrefullstop are lucky enough to speak with her about what the festival has to offer, why she was drawn to becoming tiata fahodzi’s Artistic Director and offers advice to aspiring theatre makers.Hi Natalie! tiata fahodzi will be hosting the tiata delights festival on Saturday 7th November. How are you feeling ahead of the event?
Nicola Wilson’s Plaques & Tangles is a deeply emotional piece dealing with the complicating and devastating effects of Alzheimer’s. Megan, a mother of two, must fight this terrible illness knowing full well that no cure is yet to be found. Breaking her family apart and eventually leading to a tragic death that breaks your heart as an audience member. We also get to see the earlier years of Megan’s life which are flashbacks to her first realising she was diagnosed.
Game is the gloriously geeky, hilariously irreverent debut show from newly formed company Unstable King, bringing their innovative mix of circus skills, encyclopaedic gaming knowledge, and rapid fire puns to the studio stage of the Bristol Old Vic for Bristol’s Circus City Festival. As a gaming enthusiast myself, seeing a theatre company prepared to champion gaming as the artistic and sociable endeavour that it’s become, I have high hopes for the piece. I am not disappointed.
L’Enfant Qui comes to Bristol as part of the Circus City Festival, a show created by France/Belgium based company Theatre D’Un Jour (or ‘T1J’). Their self-proclaimed manifesto of ‘What is the role of man in this world?’, a theme that informs the vast majority of their projects, is here analysed through the eyes of a small child lost in the woods, and the things that happen there.
Master of the Macabre bills itself as the most horrifying magic show in London. This is possibly true, though the play is competing within a relatively select niche… Set in the eminently atmospheric Vaults in Waterloo, this one-man show depicts an ominous story of sibling rivalry, punctuating the tale with frequent, suitably sinister, sleights of hand.
Forming in 2009, Non Zero One have shaken up the theatre scene with their unique, immersive theatrical experiences. Challenging conventional theatrical spaces, Non Zero One are renowned for staging pieces in galleries and museums, reinforcing the idea that theatre is a form of art that can be admired, but not from a passive stand point. The theatre collective are now taking part in London’s edition of The Other Art Fair, after receiving a commission from the art festival. Ahead of Non Zero One’s participation at this year’s festival, Theatrefullstop were able to speak to the company’s founder, John Hunter about creating interative theatre performances, taking part in this year’s festival and the inspirations for forming the company!
Lloyd Webber‘s sexy reinvention of the Easter story is currently on tour across the UK. To call Jesus Christ Superstar a musical seems a bit tame: it’s a rock opera rich with excellent technical touches and incredibly strong vocals from the ensemble cast.
Pamela Raith