Heart warming and laugh out loud funny, Deborah Frances-White’s Half a Can of Worms showing at the Pleasance Dome is a charming tale of discovering who your family is whether biological or otherwise.
Make your evening shine by being part of the awe inspiring hip-hop sensation Groove On Down the Road, which is brought to you by the massive talent entity that is ZooNation‘s Artistic Director, Kate Prince, and ease on down the road to the Southbank Centre this month for a show you can’t sit still for.
‘Life moves pretty fast in Kilburn, If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it…’ Ferris Bueller references aside, that’s exactly what the busy residents of Kilburn are forced to do as a humdrum day is turned on its head. The Kilburn Passion, by one time Kilburn resident Suhayla El-Bushra is a thumping choreographed play by the Tricycle Young Company Ensemble, back by popular demand after a sell out run in April as part of the Takeover Festival.
Set inside and around the gorgeous St. Paul‘s Church in Covent Garden, Iris Theatre‘s Alice Through the Looking Glass is a triumphant piece of ensemble work, that every adult should see as well as the children for which it is intended. The mood is set when the band ushers the audience into the cathedral and so starts a growingly mad adventure. While the first half feels somewhat long (but never uninteresting) the tale grows in the telling and the second half is simply outstanding.
Will Seaward’s Spooky Midnight Ghost Stories @ The Gilded Balloon Teviot Review (Edinburgh Festival)
The ticket to Will Seaward’s latest masterpiece shows the warning “contains ectoplasm”, so straight from the off I knew I was in for some superbly silly fun. Following the success of his 2013 show Socialist Fairy Tales, Will Seaward seems to have earned himself (quite rightly) a large Fringe fanbase: the room was packed on the second performance, a promising sign.
Dessa Rose is a musical masterpiece based on the novel by Sherley Anne Williams, about a young pregnant slave girl in the Antebellum South of the United States, who stumbles into an unusual friendship in her tumultuous bid for freedom. With Broadways foremost theatrical song writing duo of their generation, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, behind the production, Dessa Rose achieved rave reviews back in its 2005 American debut, snapping up the 2005 Audelco Award for best musical, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations. Now, at the critically acclaimed Trafalgar Studios, Arion Production Ltd presents The European Premiere of Dessa Rose, the smash hit sensation that pushes the boundaries of contemporary musical theatre productions, through its stylish use of minimal set, innovative staging, unforgettable music and lyrics and downright heart rendering plot.
It has to be said that London has to be one of the most liveliest, if not the liveliest city in the world. A city that appears to never sleep; every road, street, avenue and lane takes on a characteristic all of it’s own. With Kilburn High Road, it’s no different as playwright Suhayla El-Bushra highlights the roads identity and diversity in her latest project, The Kilburn Passion. Noted for her previous works: Pigeons, produced by the Royal Court and Cuckoo, performed at the Unicorn Theatre, I was able to speak to Suhayla ahead of the production, which sees the playwright collaborate with the Tricycle Young Company Ensemble, about the production being brought back by popular demand, why theatre is for everyone and how being a former resident helped to write the show!
You’re currently working with the Tricycle Young Company Ensemble on their production of the Kilburn Passion which will be playing from Tuesday 5th until Saturday 9th August. Could you describe what the production is about?
The production is a kind of modern day Passion Play. It’s about a disparate group of people on Kilburn High Road, all lonely and disconnected from the rest of the world, whose lives are changed when a (vaguely) Christ like figure appears and affects them all in some way. It’s also about alienation in a big city, how we learn to ignore all the people around us and switch off, especially in the digital age. It’s mainly about those two things but each character has their own little story, so there’s lots of other stuff going on too.
The other week I went to see the National Theatre’s revival of David Hare’s Skylight, starring Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan and the lesser known but exceptionally talented Matthew Beard. I drove just 2 minutes to get to the show, sat in some great seats and saw a fantastic performance. I do not live in London, I do not know someone “in the biz” or have a spare £148.50 to spend on a ticket. The show was being beamed to me in Kent, live from Wyndham’s Theatre for less than the price of a train ticket to London by NT Live.
Beyond was a breathtaking exploration of the beauty and strength of the human form, without failing to also portray the body’s strange grotesqueness. In a frantic hour of flying chairs, Rubik’s cubes, animal costumes and impersonations, unbelievable contortion and awesome gymnastics, Circa’s contribution to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, playing at Underbelly’s McEwan Hall, did as promised and went well beyond what I believed the body had the capacity to do.
For centuries, our perceptions of the circus have been fixed into believing that the art form is a set genre, devoted to showcasing a selection of the weird and the wonderful, from contortion artists to jugglers, trapeze artists to clowns. Fast forward to the 21st century, and Artistic Director of Circa, Yaron Lifschitz updates the traditional art form into a thematic and imaginative playground full of wonder amazement. As the founder of the internationally acclaimed Circa, noted for their ambitious and awe inspiring productions, Yaron has witnessed the company’s popularity go from strength to strength. Having taken their performance of Beyond worldwide, Circa will be making a pit stop in Edinburgh for the next month as they take on this year’s Festival. Ahead of their performances, I was able to speak to Yaron about his inspirations for the production, what he’s looking forward to the most at this year’s festival and why it’s important to not take yourself too seriously!
Yaron, you are the Artistic Director of Circa, who will be showcasing the critically acclaimed Beyond at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 30th July. Could you describe the concept of the production?
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