Did GCSE History teach you how sassy and irresistible Henry VIII’s wives were? Didn’t think so. Brand new British musical SIX has achieved what every new theatre show could hope for; a fresh, buzzing production that’s the insatiable talk of the town.

We’re living in a time where changes within the industry are proving incredibly significant; conversations around making theatre accessible and a lot more diversified are greatly prominent. There’s a feeling that within the next few years that theatre will truly reflect its audience, both on and off stage. It’s a very exciting time and offers hope to many who perhaps wouldn’t have thought theatre was a space for them, due to the feeling of theatre being an elitist art form. Many initiatives are shaping our landscape, one of which – #CONNECT: Black Women in Theatre offers a space for black creatives within the theatre industry to contemplate various issues to further advocate change. Founder and Executive Producer of the initiative, Stella Kanu tells us more about the event’s second year!

A topic receiving greater prominence within wider conversations is that of ‘cultural appropriation’; an issue regarding taking an aspect of a culture unfamiliar to an individual, an aspect of great significance and commodifying it for financial gain or trivialising it due to its aesthetic. Playwright Lekhani Chirwa explores this issue in her debut play Can I Touch Your Hair? Ahead of her 2 date performance at this year’s Vault Festival, Lekhani talks about the show’s themes, working with Ovalhouse, HerStory Festival and Blacktress prior to the Vault Festival and what audiences can expect.

At the beginning of The Paper Man, the cast asks audience members to raise their hands if they don’t like football. About half the room’s go up. But like the sport or not, everyone’s got a story about football.

With the Royal Court I often find that it’s the smaller shows upstairs in the Jerwood that are actually the most powerful explosions across the London theatre scene. Clean Break’s Inside Bitch is no different.

Courtesy of Ali Wright.

Technologically impressive, with a fascinating sci-fi concept that ultimately falls short when searching for depth or meaning. Tesseract is divided into two halves like many pieces of conventional theatre, yet more unconventionally, Tesseract’s first act is a 3D film, the second a live performance. Armed with 3D glasses, Charles Atlas’s film exhibits incredibly impressive visuals, the clarity and scope makes for an immersive experience. For want of better terminology, the performers look as though they are truly popping out of the screen in such clear lucidity, far more-so than any 3D cinema experience.

An unexplainable claustrophobic nuisance gradually pervade my untested frail limbs when the stage sparkles to life, diverting me from my dreamy yearning for white wine and Madagascan-vanilla ice-cream at the interval. The sordidness of the rocky and craggy scenography anaesthetises me from the glamorous formality of the auditorium, with blinding torches on robust helmets remorselessly stinging my confident imperturbability like a treacherous mosquito. I am catapulted, descending anxiously underground via a wobbly and unstable lift, in the surreal reality – if you pardon my jeu de mots or, in other terms, wordplay – of the gritty life of 1980s miners.

From the moment this production of Equus begins, it succeeds in engulfing its audience into the world it creates. Peter Shaffer’s text returns to the London stage in a co-production between Theatre Royal Stratford East and the English Touring Theatre and it’s a production that delivers on every level. It conjures up disturbing imagery in its staging choices that echo the characters feelings, as well as pay detailed attention to every movement made by the actors. This all results in creating a world that both fascinates and repels its audience for all the right reasons.