Typical, a film version of a powerfully poetic and painful 2019 monologue about institutional racism, is brilliant.
Mates blogger: Aleks Sierz
Aleks Sierz is one of over 45 theatre bloggers who are part of the MyTheatreMates collective. This page features Aleks's posts on MyTheatreMates. Take a look at our full list of theatre bloggers and our aggregated feed of all our Mates' posts. We’re always looking for new theatre bloggers. Could that be you? Learn about how to join us.
Aleks Sierz FRSA is a theatre critic, and author of the seminal study of new 1990s playwrights, In-Yer-Face Theatre. His other books include Rewriting the Nation, The Theatre of Martin Crimp, John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights and Modern British Playwriting. His latest book (co-authored with Lia Ghilardi) is The Time Traveller’s Guide to British Theatre. He also works as a journalist, broadcaster, and lecturer. Aleks blogs independently at www.sierz.co.uk and tweets at @alekssierz.
The latest from Aleks on MyTheatreMates
‘Captures the men’s glowering rage & moments of acute vulnerability’: SHOOK (Online review)
The latest example of this problematic switch from stage to screen is the strongly acted Shook, Samuel Bailey’s debut play, which won the 2019 Papatango New Writing Prize and had a run at the Southwark Playhouse in November of that year.
‘Warmly assured, instantly engaging & softly inspiring’: HEADS OR TAILS – Living Record Festival (Online review)
Yesterday I watched Skye Hallam’s excellent one-woman show, Heads or Tails, one of the headline acts at the new Living Record Festival. It’s a gently confessional monologue about the afterlife spoken by 25-year-old Steph, who has – as they say – been “taken too soon”.
‘The themes are both relevant and mildly hopeful’: DECEMBER – Old Red Lion Theatre (Online review)
I watched the streamed version of December, written and directed by Alexander Knott, and performed in the Old Red Lion Theatre and pub.
‘The acting is uniformly good’: S-27 – Finborough Theatre (Online review)
With S-27, the Finborough once again punches well above its weight, making another compelling contribution to the brave new world of streamed theatre.
’An acute emotional punch’: LIVING NEWSPAPER: A COUNTER NARRATIVE – Royal Court Theatre (Online review)
The promise of being “urgent, responsive and fast” may not always be achieved, but at its very best the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative is both pertinent and full of joyous energy.
‘Plenty here to engage both mind & feelings’: OVERFLOW – Bush Theatre
Travis Alabanza’s play Overflow at the Bush Theatre is both tender in its empathy for the different kinds of trans experience and passionately angry about prejudice.
‘Both humorous & moving’: MISFITS – Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch (Online theatre)
Misfits, from the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, comprises four excellent fractured monologues, written by Kenny Emson, Sadie Hasler, Guleraana Mir and Anne Odeke, which focus on Essex,
‘Positively electrifying stuff’: LITTLE WARS (Online review)
There’s plenty to enjoy in Little Wars’ jokes, and then, later on, the final harrowing monologues about the genocide are both powerful and deeply moving.
’It’s definitely essential viewing’: A COIN IN SOMEBODY ELSE’S POCKET – Theatre Uncut & Traverse Theatre
Originally commissioned as part of The Power Plays produced by Theatre Uncut in 2018, A Coin in Someone Else’s Pocket is a wonderfully thoughtful meditation on what it means to be a female Muslim writer.
‘Melancholic & funny’: IN A NUTSHELL – Lost Dog (Online review)
Theatre is just different organisms in close proximity. It’s a great image, and one of many that float gently to the surface in Ben Duke’s In a Nutshell, a monologue which explores with a marvellously tentative touch the nature of theatre, meaning theatre as it was until the pandemic struck.
‘Blends wry reminiscence, personal experience, poetry & music’: AN EVENING WITH AN IMMIGRANT – Bridge Theatre
This is a masterly revival of An Evening with an Immigrant, Inua Ellams’ 2016 autobiographical one-man show which is both poetic and engaging.
’An insightful & fascinating journey of exploration’: ABOUT WE ARE SHADOWS – Brick Lane
Although I have visited Brick Lane a number of times over the years, much of We Are Shadows: Brick Lane this was refreshingly new to me and the adventure was a delightful experience.
‘Marvellously inventive & thoroughly compelling’: BLINDNESS – Donmar Warehouse
Simon Stephens and Juliet Stevenson create a perfectly beautiful and haunting installation for our times in The Blindness at the Donmar Warehouse.
‘Beautifully conveys its emotional & political charge’: SCROUNGER – Finborough Theatre (Online review)
The bright colours of the performance underline the surrealism of Scrounger’s quest for justice, and Athena Stevens, the first actor in a wheelchair nominated for an Offie, performs her story brilliantly.
‘This is a play that certainly repays interest’: JANE CLEGG – Finborough Theatre
A rediscovered Edwardian problem play gives a clear picture of marriage and morals in a bygone era.
‘Psychologically convincing & fiercely compelling’: CONTINUITY – Finborough Theatre (Online review)
In Continuity, Gerry Moynihan explores the men’s fanaticism and the effects of their frustrated masculinity on their political beliefs.
‘Theatre is rarely so forceful or so urgent’: THE PROTEST – Bush Theatre
This venue’s urgent response to the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter campaign is powerfully realised.
‘Mark Gatiss’ mesmerising acting dominates the play’: THE MADNESS OF GEORGE III – Nottingham Playhouse (Online review)
Alan Bennett writes that “I’ve always had a soft spot for George III”, for no better reason than that he had studied the monarch’s reign at secondary school and then again at uni.
‘A real gem’: Philip Ridley’s online series The Beast Will Rise is ‘sublime storytelling’
The problem with creating theatre in an era of lockdown is that the constraints of working online tend towards a uniformity of creativity