The Southwark Playhouse have announced the FORGE artist development programme, a programme that will support 4 exceptional emerging companies who will become attached to the Playhouse for 9 months, receiving free rehearsal space to R&D ideas, dramaturgical support from the Southwark Playhouse senior artistic team, free office space for producers and a week-long slot to platform a show in ‘The Little’ space to a paying audience. The scheme will also provide industry mentorship from established theatre professionals and bespoke workshops from the Playhouse team on a variety of key learning topics, to guide and empower them in this creative journey.
105 years since the end of World War I, or would have been known as The Great War at the time, we step into a time whereby the cusp of a global conflict appears very possible, current world events creating a ripple effect, impacting the geopolitics of the day. Crafted over 50 years ago, post World War II, Oh What a Lovely War offered a satirical historical lesson on the events that led up to, and inevitably formed the four year conflict – addressing the necessity to look back, to hopefully avoid what became one of the most catastrophic world events.
Owning who you are is a complex process, one that takes time to fully realise. Our teenage years a time where we start to consciously make some sort of sense of this – a time where we awaken and rebel. Sisterhoods a vital support system outside of our own families that further define our journeys. Initially premiering at the 2020 edition of the VAULT Festival, Joel Samuels and Lilly Pollard’s punk rock musical Sugar Coat returns to the Southwark Playhouse stage with its unapologetic observation of a young woman’s journey from adolescence through to early adulthood.
Courtesy of Ali Wright.
Six years post arriving in the UK to seek a safer environment to live as a result of rising protests in his native Sudan, performer Mohand Hasb Alrosol Abdalrah generously offers his own experiences of not being able to return to his homeland, a story that I’m sure many who have migrated can relate to. Alongside fellow PSYCHEdelight theatre member Peter Pearson, Mohand & Peter fuses clowning, physical theatre and improvisation to craft 70mins of nostalgia, yet also looks towards the future.
Having created a much needed space for the first hand experiences of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers within the UK to be heard, PSYCHEdelight have presented a series of crucial works placing these stories centre stage. Currently presenting Mohand and Peter, drawing on company member Mohand Hasb Alrosol Abdalrahem’s real life experience of leaving his native Sudan to seek asylum, the devised piece, created by fellow company member Peter Pearson and artistic director Sophie Bertrand Besse blends clowning and visual poetry to explore explore cultural identity and the traumatic effect of long-term exile as well as celebrating refugee home countries. Ahead of the production, showing at the Southwark Playhouse from the 9th March until 9th April, Mohand and Peter tell us more about exploring this pertinent story, what it means to have a platform such as PSYCHEdelight to tell these stories and how the team have approached creating the show.
As we continue to adapt post pandemic to our new normal, the past two years have caused us to look back at early 20th century history, in doing so, we’re able to draw many parallels current circumstances. Nearly a century on from The Great Depression (1929-1030), a century on from the prohibition era (1920 – 1933) and WWI (1914-1918 what would would have been known as ‘The Great War’ at the time) F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby encapsulates the unpredictability of world events taking shape. Drawing on Fitzgerald’s iconic novel Ruby in the Dust Theatre turn the work into a musical, Gatsby: The Musical – tying our 21st century experience of the 20s and transporting us back to the opulent, roaring 20s of the last century!
Courtesy Lidia Crisafulli.
Salomé’s biblical story has been one of much intrigue, the daughter of Herod II and Herodias, a memorable request made by her, one that has inspired man a retelling, her story referenced throughout art, literature and drama. Adapted by Oscar Wilde in 1896, the one act tragedy includes the depiction of the heroine’s dance of the seven veils as well as her shocking request. Presenting a regendered interpretation of the tale, Lazarus Theatre Company craft a 75 minute spectacle, filmed earlier on this year at the Southwark Playhouse and now available to catch on demand.
Courtesy of Adam Trigg.
Iva Toguri – not a name you are familiar with perhaps – but certainly a woman whose story is worth telling. A proud American of Japanese descent caught in the cross fire after the Second World War; she was accused of treason for radio broadcasting Japanese propaganda to Allied Forces. Burnt Lemon Theatre have brought to life this astonishing slice of history in their new musical Tokyo Rose, and it is a whirlwind.
Burnt Lemon Theatre
An important time for highlighting the stories of the often underrepresented, as the industry emerges post pandemic, we’re witnessing more of these take to our stages. Debuting at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe to sold out audiences, Tokyo Rose tells the real-life story of American radio broadcaster Iva Ikuko Toguri D’Aquino, the show’s title, the nickname given to female broadcasters believed to have been spreading propaganda to the Allied Forces during WWII – of which Iva was wrongly accused. Two years after the show’s initial run, Tokyo Rose returns, starting off at the MAST Mayflower Studios before going on tour. Co-written by Maryhee Yoon and Cara Baldwin, the pair have re-worked the show into a two act, full length format. Ahead of tour, co-writer Maryhee tells us more about what inspired the team to explore the narrative further, how she’s worked with Cara to realise the show and what she’s taken away from the process.
An exceptionally intimate reconsideration of hyper-masculinity, Shook is brilliantly structured in its damning condemnation of a system that leaves many without aspirations. Although it’s a little on the nose at times, Samuel Bailey and Papatango manage to present a compelling narrative of three young offenders facing unanswerable questions.
