Last year a critic described a dramatic response to the Black Lives Matter protests, to which Benedict Lombe contributed, as ‘more lecture than theatre’. The quote is projected onto the set of her debut play, Lava, at the Bush Theatre.
‘Passionate, powerful & challenging’: LAVA – Bush Theatre
Benedict Lombe’s new play Lava is semi-autobiographical and full of activism and difficult moments, alongside a story railing against Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
‘A smart & sassy study of loneliness & obsession’: HARM – Bush Theatre
Harm, which has already been screened on BBC Four with Leanne Best, is a new monologue by Bruntwood Prize-winning playwright Phoebe Eclair-Powell and now the one-woman show stars Kelly Gough, familiar most recently from the BBC’s Casualty.
‘Rich, multi-layered play that is clever in its storytelling’: OVERFLOW – Bush Theatre (Online review) ★★★★
Travis Alabanza’s play Overflow is set in the toilet of a club from where transgirl Rosie (Reece Lyons) has locked herself in.
‘Open, thought-provoking, funny & heartbreaking’: OVERFLOW – Bush Theatre (Online review)
New play Overflow by Travis Alabanza returns as a digital stream and proves to be an intriguing hour about the politics of women’s bathrooms and who is allowed in them.
‘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.
NEWS: Winners of the Black British Theatre Awards 2020 are announced
The first televised Black British Theatre Awards 2020 were a vibrant affair hosted by presenter and comedic actor Eddie Nestor, filmed at London’s Young Vic Theatre and broadcast on Sky Arts.
NEWS: Three prizes each for & Juliet, Dear Evan Hansen & Emilia as Olivier Awards 2020 winners are announced
The winners of the Olivier Awards 2020 with Mastercard were announced in a special ITV programme filmed at The London Palladium, and on Official London Theatre’s YouTube channel.
NEWS: Winners announced for The Stage Debut Awards 2020
Newcomer Sam Tutty scooped two awards for his star-making performance in the hit West End musical Dear Evan Hansen at The Stage Debut Awards 2020. The awards were presented as a virtual ceremony filmed at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.
‘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.
‘This is our humanity. And sheer genius’ – Andrew Scott in SEA WALL
Lockdown occasionally spawns some real delights. Like the surprise appearance of a strange creature from the profoundest depths. One of these must be Andrew Scott’s superb performance in Simon Stephens’s Sea Wall.
‘Delivered with an unrelenting energy’: COLLAPSIBLE – Bush Theatre
Breffni Holahan delivers Margaret Perry’s script for Collapsible with an unrelenting energy that starts high and reaches stratospheric levels.
‘Smart & completely absorbing’: COLLAPSIBLE – Bush Theatre ★★★★
Collapsible is a one woman monologue by Margaret Perry exploring anxiety and mental health in the face of a modern and overwhelming world.
NEWS: Bush Theatre celebrates the transfer of Baby Reindeer to the West End & New York
The award-winning Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit Baby Reindeer follows a sold-out season at the Bush last year by transferring to the West End’s Ambassadors Theatre from 2 April 2020 (press night is 6 April). The production then moves to BAM’s Fishman Space in New York from 21 May.
‘An excellent debut play brought flawlessly to life’: I WANNA BE YOURS – Bush Theatre
I Wanna Be Yours at the Bush Theatre speaks to younger and older people navigating an unjust world, and reminds the privileged among us of the constant learning we have to do.
‘Great stuff excellently performed’: THE ARRIVAL – Bush Theatre
Director Bijan Sheibani turns playwright in a fine two-hander about family and the crisis of masculinity in The Arrival at the Bush Theatre.
Text of the Day: Baby Reindeer
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
Best of the Blogs: The Mates give their verdicts on Noises Off, Translations, [Blank], The Girl Who Fell, Tickle The Musical & more
In our continuing series, our editor Lisa Martland picks out some of her Top Picks from the last week of theatre (to 20 October 2019), ranging from Olivia Mitchell’s thigh-slapping joy on seeing Noises Off to Libby Purves’ plea that we listen to the story being told in [Blank] at the Donmar Warehouse.
‘Writes with poetic vigour & concision’: A HISTORY OF WATER IN THE MIDDLE EAST – Royal Court Theatre
Sabrina Mahfouz’s feminist account of British imperialism in A History of Water in the Middle East is energetic and passionate but also turns out to be a very slender piece of theatre.
‘Enormous passion & frightening intensity’: BABY REINDEER – Bush Theatre
Baby Reindeer at the Bush Theatre, stand-up comedian Richard Gadd’s provocative one-man show about a stalker and complicit victimhood, is darkly exciting.