The English Guide to...

Golem is a thoroughly modern play which probably isn't for everyone (I saw at least 6 people get up  and leave before the first half hour was up). It runs for 90 minutes with no interval, and showcases dance, music and performance art in an original way.  At one point the  characters perform in an 80s synth-punk band called Annie and the Underdogs, which I can't get out of my head a week later. There are moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity mixed in throughout the play. I can't fault the script or storyline but I can understand how the style of the performance could grate on people. In fact there were moments where, despite my fondness of quirky theatre, I felt on edge from the offbeat pacing and (deliberate) awkwardness of the characters. However, if you can get past those minor points, Golem is a brilliantly original piece of theatre. The play is all about technology, and an impressive amount of digital technology is used by animator Paul Barritt in realising t...

[I wrote this post back in January following the second night of the performance's original two week run at the Royal Court. The tour of this play continues into 2015.] Samuel Beckett, I have begun to realise, is quite a big deal for those who know theatre. An Irish playwright who spent much of his adulthood in Paris writing in both French and English, he is a figurehead of something called 'theatre of the absurd'. The only previous knowledge I had of Beckett's work is a rather well known play called 'Waiting for Godot' of which knowledge, the majority comes from Sesame Street's version of the play renamed 'Waiting for Elmo' which you can see here ( http://youtu.be/ksL_7WrhWOc ) Waiting for Godot is a play about basically nothing at all (except perhaps the writer's own existential crisis) and features two characters called Vladimir and Estragon (or Grover and Telly Monster) as they wait for Godot (or Elmo) endlessly and fruitlessly wh...

I wasn't sure what to expect of the performance on Thursday evening. A form of 'verbatim' theatre involving a leading climate scientist and directed by Katie Mitchell, who previously explored the future of human life on Earth through the lens of a scientist in Ten Billion with scientist Stephen Emmott. Will there be acting involved? Will we be subjected to corporate-style PowerPoint presentations?  The play seeks to ask what legacy we as a species are leaving for future generations, whether we are responsible, and what- if anything- can be done to slow the (literally) rising tides.  In this performance Chris Rapley, professor of climate science at UCL takes centre stage, alone, to deliver what is essentially a lecture. But it is more than that. The set is simple, a dark stage containing a simple chair to the right hand side, a glass of water on the adjacent table. As our scientist humbly takes the stage there is no fanfare, the lights are dim and we can truly see t...

| an old Review from Feb 2014| Nestled in the bowels of the large, modern Hampstead theatre building is their downstairs venue, which seats only around 80 people in a really versatile space. For this show it's set up so that we face the other half of the audience with the stage between (I'm told this is known as a traverse stage).  The Blackest Black is billed as an unconventional love story between a highly driven professional astronomer, Martin, and Abi, an excitable, slightly unhinged artist. The set is simple, decked out as a functional and organised control centre for an observatory which we soon find out is based in an Arizona desert.  The play starts slowly as we see Chuck, a technician at the observatory methodically setting up the equipment while looking glum but focused. As he switches on monitors and machinery he places a CD of low key Americana into the stereo. Abi enters the room and quickly transforms the atmosphere appearing fickle, chaotic but slig...