While University Of Wonder And Imagination is fun it is also educational and provides a stimulating introduction to a number of topics which can be explored further.
‘Highlights the creativity displayed by female writers during this pandemic’: PRESS PLAY – Popelei Theatre
A season of new digital performances written and performed by a female-led creative team, Press Play offers bite-sized chances to escape from the worries of the current world situation.
‘Quirky, knowing, endearingly awkward, innovative & inventive’: FIRST DATE – Crazy Coqs (Online review)
A Broadway musical turned streamed extravaganza, First Date is a co-production from Lambert Jackson and Crazy Coqs and features an awkward encounter between Jewish Aaron (Simon Lipkin) and agnostic Casey (Samantha Barks).
‘Paul Kennedy gives a performance of note’: CONTINUITY – Finborough Theatre (Online review)
Continuity is just one of the online plays available from the Finborough Theatre’s repertoire. It is not an easy watch but has many important points to make about political and personal beliefs and is a worthy addition to the theatre’s growing roster of material which challenges and provokes.
‘The characters are bubbling with emotion’: Hannah Bristow stars in A Passion Play as part of the Written on the Waves project
Emma Clarendon chatted to the actress Hannah Bristow about starring in A Passion Play as part of 45North and Ellie Keel Productions’ Written on the Waves project.
‘Develops into an intriguing & sinister plot’: CLOSE YOUR EYES, I’M FILMING – Greedy Pig Theatre Company
The Greedy Pig Theatre Company’s latest production Close Your Eyes, I’m Filming follows an up and coming vlogger.
‘A special piece of theatre’: FINDING PERCY EREBUS – Elephant Talk Theatre (Online review)
With a startingly original score by Sam MacDonald, clowning, puppetry, and different video and audio effects, a variety of settings and emotions are conjured up Finding Percy Erebus, a depiction of a child’s sense of loss and curiosity.
‘What happens when the camera stops rolling & there is no self-editing?’: ALL BY MYSELF – Part of the Main Theatre Company (Online review)
All By Myself is a production by Part of the Main theatre company for Applecart Arts and it explores identity during the Covid crisis when your only connection to the outside world is via the internet.
‘Demonstrating the power of aural memories’: DIGITAL CARAVAN THEATRE – Series 2 (Online review)
The microplays in the Digital Caravan Theatre Series 2 are full of a richness born out of careful time management giving them a leanness which is sometimes lacking in longer works.
‘Brilliantly adapted for digital delivery’: PLAY-ALONG PLINK & BOO – Can’t Sit Still (Online review)
Nothing can replicate the feeling of live and interactive like a production that is indeed live and interactive. Or so we thought until we watched Play-Along Plink & Boo.
‘Especially pertinent at present’: LAST DAY – People Show (Online review)
Rather than veer down the road trod by films such as I, Daniel Blake, People Show’s Last Day addresses the ‘inconvenience’ of having a conscience if one is in middle management and the choices that one has to live with… or not.
‘Deftly experienced hands are shaping this new kind of experience’: MACBETH – Big Telly Theatre Company (Online review)
Not quite ‘when shall we three Zoom again’, Big Telly Theatre’s imaginative online version of Macbeth has some impressive moments.
NEWS: Small Truth Theatre launches the Digital Caravan Theatre second season of audio plays
Small Truth Theatre’s Digital Caravan Theatre 2 will be launched on 17 October 2020, its second collection of 15-minute audio plays, all available to download for free and BSL interpreted.
‘Offers psychological chills from the start’: MACBETH – Big Telly Theatre Company (Online review)
With some scenes of conflict filmed in a style which evokes the “found-footage” style seen in The Blair Witch Project and others, this Big Telly Theatre Company’s Macbeth – for which audience members are instructed to draw the curtains and dim the lights – offers psychological chills from the start.
‘The play is stunningly realised’: APOLLO 13 – THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON – Original Theatre (Online review)
The whole creative and production team involved in Original Theatre Company’s Apollo 13: The Dark Side Of the Moon can be rightly proud of a superb job which really pushes at the frontiers of online drama.
‘A musical makeover that is far from obvious’: ADDING MACHINE – A MUSICAL – Finborough Theatre (Online review)
Finborough Theatre’s latest online offering is Adding Machine: A Musical, based on the American expressionist classic of the 1920s by Elmer Rice.
’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.
‘You have to admire a creative response to this Coronavirus bullsh*t’: SEEDS / At YOUR PERIL (Online review)
A rare foray into the world of podcasts sees Ian Foster listening to the Nina Sosanya-starring Seeds and getting properly freaked out by horror anthology At Your Peril.
‘Piece after piece remains with you after the performance’: THE NEW TOMORROW – Young Vic (Online review)
Although a rather more muted celebration than originally planned, The New Tomorrow is a powerful acknowledgment of the theatre’s ongoing mission to be a real centre for the community.
‘Expect to be surprised & unnerved’: Zoe Seaton opens up about Big Telly Theatre Company’s digital staging of Macbeth
Later this month the Big Telly Theatre Company’s atmospheric digital production of Macbeth will open at the 58th edition of the Belfast International Arts Festival (BIAF), Ireland’s leading contemporary international arts festival. I caught up with the theatre company’s founder Zoe Seaton to find out more.