Rewind to 2004 and the likes of Kanye West, Terror Squad, and T.I were dominating the airwaves. A once disregarded musical form, hip hop was now at the pinnacle of global success; it’s  a crucial component of popular culture. Hip hop’s influence is no doubt evident within the fields of music and dance, however the movement continues to fuel multiple facets such as art and fashion. 2004 would also be the year that Jonzi D, a key figure in the movement of Hip Hop Theatre within the UK, would curate a weekend packed full of workshops and performances that 15 years later would still inspire many.

What will the millennials of today look like in twenty, even forty years time? James Fritz’s The Fall, commissioned as part of the National Youth Theatre’s 60th anniversary, asks exactly that. Will we still be splurging our house deposits on avocado on toast and be glued to our mobile phones? It’s impossible to predict, but chances are the worries and fears of today will still blight the society of tomorrow.

National Youth Theatre’s The Fall

Christopher Rüping‘s distillation of Shakespeare’s most famous play places Hamlet in the here and now. His story is told by three Horatios, who take over all the parts in this heavily cut production.

Courtesy of Thomas Aurin.

Connection and communication have taken on new possibilities in today’s internet driven world. Anyone and anything can be accessed anytime at the click of a button, as long as there’s a stable connection to the internet.

Courtesy of Marc Brenner.

Confronting action, bold design and a defiant aggressiveness. An English Touring Theatre, Theatr Clwyd and Nuffield Southampton Theatres co-production supported by The Royal Theatrical Support Trust, A Streetcar Named Desire is given a modern revival, but I wonder whether its initial upbeat tone invites the appropriate spectatorship.

Toshiki Okada is one of the most important Asian directors. No Sex is his third work for the Kammerspiele, it premiered on 14th April 2018. A stage director and author, Okada founded the theatre group chelfitsch in 1997, which had their first international success with 5 Days in March, a play about two young people fleeing to a love hotel to have sex for five days. His latest play deals with a group of young men who think that sex no longer matters.

Courtesy of Julian Baumann.

Gerhard Polt is an award-winning Bavarian writer, filmmaker, actor, and one of the most highly regarded cabaret artists in Germany. His satire focuses on the Bavarian people, culture and politics with Polt usually playing the role of a feisty Bavarian petit-bourgeois. He enjoys using puns and his texts constantly switch between Bavarian and high German, also including a few English words often used by Germans who want to appear particularly trendy. In 1979, Gerhard Polt first staged Kehraus (Last Dance) in the Werkraum (studio) of the Münchner Kammerspiele, followed by his successful production München leuchtet (Munich Shines) in 1984. Following the musical revue “Fein sein beinander bleibn” by the Well Brothers – formerly Biermösl Blosn, Behold the Man (Ekzem Homo) is a political revue by and with Gerhard Polt and the Well Brothers that first premiered at the Kammerspiele in 2015 and is now celebrating its 70th performance.

Courtesy of Andrea Huber.

I was keen to see The Jungle Book after learning that it was created by The Children’s Touring Partnership, which seeks to create bold and imaginative theatre of the highest quality for children aged eight and above, throughout the UK. The Children’s Touring Partnership have recently produced The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which was fantastic and Running Wild, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Michael Morpurgo, which I also thoroughly enjoyed.

Yablochkov Candle is an aerial exploration from Finnish performer Ilona Jäntti and an incredibly unique vocal performance from singer-songwriter Aino Venna. The live music complements the acrobatics perfectly, or should I say the acrobatics complement the music, for each art form is of equal importance throughout.