In Lita Doolan’s new play The Wyre Lady of Fleetwood, the Wyre Lady refers to a real-life pleasure boat in the seaside fishing port of Fleetwood, just down the promenade from the holiday resort of Blackpool.
‘Farcical fun all the way’: The Three Musketeers… attempted by Foolhardy (Online review)
Heavily promoted on the strength of Robert Lindsay’s involvement in the cast, this audio-animated adaptation of The Three Musketeers owes more to parody and pastiche than any serious attempt to translate the story into digital form.
‘Disturbing & edgy’: JERK – Brighton Fringe (Online review) ★★★★
Jerk is Nick Edgeworth’s curious and original sci-fi-influenced drama from Mudlarks Theatre, a company based in Hampshire. It’s currently showing in the Brighton Fringe and is written by Nick Edgeworth.
‘Genuinely funny & fairly caustic’: HALF-BAKED ALASKAN – Brighton Fringe (Online review)
There’s serious material in Sally Ann Hall’s Half-Baked Alaskan, but delivered with a wry, confessional, style which makes its point without getting too heavy.
‘Smashing piece of family entertainment’: AIDY THE AWESOME – artsdepot (Online review)
Commissioned by Curve Leicester, produced by the Gramophones Theatre Company and directed by Hannah Stone, Aidy the Awesome is currently part-way through a digital tour.
‘Goes for the jugular in a fascinating & visual way’: QUIET LITTLE THINGS – Brighton Fringe (Online review) ★★★★
Quiet Little Things, a very clever, well-crafted and moving non-verbal piece from OddHouse Theatre Company (an emerging feminist collective), is currently available to stream at the Brighton Fringe.
‘Friendly, open & honest’: SUNRISE – Soho Theatre (Online review)
Jessie Cave’s show Sunrise was recorded in the empty venue in April, but still retains the comedy of a professional mum navigating the thorny paths of a postpartum love life.
‘Has an other-worldly feel’: ECHO / CHAMBER – Brighton Fringe (Online review) ★★★★
Echo/Chamber is a clever, creative and thought-provoking work with high production values and strong performances from Oliver McFadden and Isaac Hesketh.
‘Listen, taste, watch, smell & touch the world around you’: The You Play: small acts – Written on the Waves (Online review)
Audio drama small acts is part of 45North’s Written on the Waves series, and the first of the two You Plays.
‘We feel the increasing tension’: CUNCH – Written on the Waves (Online review)
45North’s first series of audio dramas, collated as Written on the Waves, ends with Marika McKennell’s Cunch, a story of two teenage girls who get themselves involved in drug pushing and gangland culture.
‘Lovely, lively celebration’: The Theatre Channel – Episode 6 The Showstoppers (Online review)
Showstoppers, the most recent episode of the Theatre Channel’s web series is a lovely, lively celebration of the reopening of the West End this week.
‘Pulses with music, energy & intrigue’: ROMEO & JULIET Creation Theatre (Online review)
The unstoppable Creation Theatre has been one of the highlights of digital theatre production during this 14 months of uncertainty, and for their new show they return to the works of William Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet.
‘Takes affectionate aim at its targets’: THE SHOWSTOPPERS’ ALTERNATIVE EUROVISION (Online review)
Free to view on YouTube, this edition of The Showstoppers’ Alternative Eurovision for 2021, a week in advance of the main event, proves to be a dramatic sequel to last year’s shenanigans, but with stronger production values.
‘Shifts into a place of great strength & power’: PHEROMONE – LipZinc (Online review)
A pheromone is a chemical reaction affecting behaviour, which appears in LipZinc’s Pheromone in the person of a woman who causes a revolution at number 19, the home of David and Eva.
‘Part dream, part hallucination, part creativity’: Unquiet Slumbers: The Haunting of Emily Brontë – Different Theatre (Online review)
Currently available to rent on Sweetstream, Different Theatre’s Unquiet Slumbers: The Haunting of Emily Brontë returns to the topic of women of literature in this meeting of minds between the author and her creation from Wuthering Heights, Catherine Earnshaw Linton.
‘Stretches what a theatre piece at home can achieve’: AN ACORN – Impel Theatre / Oldham Coliseum (Online review)
An Acorn by Caridad Svich is a cross-channel co-production between Impel Theatre and the Oldham Coliseum; first performed in 2017 in North America and now reimagined for the digital space.
‘It’s all appealingly bonkers’: CHATEAU GHOUL – LipService / Oldham Coliseum (Online review)
Very end of Blackpool Pier or Phoenix Nights, and if you appreciate either you’ll love Lip Service’s clever characterisations, sly digs at the supernatural, and the way Château Ghoul is deliberately made to look ghastly in its construction.
‘A richly crafted work in its own right’: NORTH WEST – Camden People’s Theatre (Online review)
North West, created by Anna Morrissey and Tristan Kajanus, is available in two versions; one online and one a self-guided audio tour with which you can wander the former North Westminster School, now the posh flats and commercial units of the Paddington Basin.
‘The wordplay whizzes along’: THE SORROWS OF SATAN (Online review)
Directed by Adam Lenson, with Molly Lynch as The Woman and Stefan Bednarczyk as the mute accompanist, The Sorrows of Satan takes inspiration from Marie Corelli’s 1895 novel, but moves the action to a freer age in 1924.
‘It keeps you immersed at all times’: HOUSE MOTHER NORMAL – New Perspectives (Online review)
New Perspectives and Tim Crouch have transformed novel House Mother Normal into a digital installation for the Brighton Festival which you can explore either in person or on your screens.