Sound of the Underground is a tongue-in-cheek reality check for consumers of Drag Queen culture. This play-turns-cabaret brings together some of the best queer talent and presents them in their FULL drag selves. I attended with four of my queer friends and each one of us had our favourite that we’d previously seen on the queer London nightlife scene. (Mine is, of course, Sadie Sinner, creator of the Cocoa Butter Club and my unashamed celebrity crush.) It felt revolutionary just having these eight powerhouses at the “Rrrrrroyal” Court.

Courtesy of Helen Murray.

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Milli Bhatia directs yet another outstanding play at the Royal Court by Jasmine Naziha Jones, a playwright that stared shame back in the face with smoke, cheap thrills, bells and whistles and ran with it. What we all really want to see is someone else face what we couldn’t, a storyteller that spits her truth out and an added bonus is doing it with style. A stunning production with pace and gut-wrenching symbolism that has made its mark on contemporary theatre. Extraordinary acting too from our playwright-cum-actor who amazingly plays a child better than she plays an adult. It’s the best exploration of intergenerational trauma I’ve seen on stage and to think this is only the start with this being Jones’s debut play. We love to see it.

Courtesy of Helen Murray.

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Written by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti and Directed by Michael Buffong, A Kind of People ‘is set amidst a contemporary British community, and asks how it’s possible to get on when the odds are stacked against you’. Starring Richie Campbell, Thomas Coombes, Claire-Louise Cordwell, Asif Khan, Petra Letang, Amy Morgan and Manjinder Virk, the production will premiere at the Royal Court Theatre from 5th December and runs until 18th January 2020.

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There’s more than just euphemism to unpack in Ellie Kendrick’s Hole at the Royal Court. Featuring an electric line up of actors, burlesque babes and music artists- fierce, fabulous women are aplenty. Running at 60 minutes, Kendrick’s writing debut bubbles with rage and spits in the eye of patriarchy.

Courtesy of The Other Richard.

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Courtesy of Stephen Cummiskey.

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On entering the Jerwood upstairs theatre one is first struck by Fly Davis‘ tongue in cheek set design: a tasteless boudour of pink satin, lace curtains and an intimate thrust staging in which the audience are also lit. The pre-show soundtrack of squelchy synth, hits a downmarket wine bar tone, the only thing missing is a bowl of car keys. It is dated, it is provincial, it is oh so British and it sets the tone perfectly.

Courtesy of Manuel Harlan.

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‘Has anyone ever told the truth?’ asks Liwaa Yazji in her weighty political drama Goats, translated for the Royal Court by Katharine Halls. And if it’s truth we’re after this play is as chaotic as it is vital, but Hamish Pirie’s direction seems to flounder and distract from the content of the piece.

Courtesy of Johan Persson.

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Bad Roads is not really a play. Rather, it is a sequence of scenes sewn together into one fragmentary meditation on the brutalities of war. The text’s background is the Donbass region of Ukraine, following the 2014 revolutionary movement that ousted President Yanukovych; its foreground, the effect of war on the female subject, in all its complex, brutalising, all-consuming force.

Courtesy of Helen Murray.

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Yellow Earth are a theatre company renowned for their championing of diverse voices from the East Asian community. In their 22nd year, they continue to blaze the trail, broadening the range of characters represented on stage. Having worked with original Yellow Earth founding member Kumiko Mendl to develop her piece, ‘Zen’, Joyce Lee discusses how she’s crafted the show, the importance of speaking out about mental health and whether there are enough strong female protagonists represented on stage…

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From Friday 24th until Saturday 30th December, Liwaa Yazji’s Goats will make its debut at the Royal Court Theatre. Initially performed as a stage reading which was a part of As Told From the Inside: Stories from Syria and Lebanon last year, the topical play is translated by Katherine Halls and directed by Royal Court Associate Director Hamish Pirie.

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