So bizarre and unlikely is the story behind the creation of this play that one wonders whether writer Jonathan Holloway has time-travelled himself!
‘Philip Ridley’s masterly monologue explores the anxieties of our current culture of fear’: GATORS (Online review)
Gloriously surreal monologue about everyday anxieties in extraordinary circumstances: welcome back the glittering dark!
‘There’s no denying the play’s relevance’: THE PHLEBOTOMIST – Hampstead Theatre
Ella Road’s resonant new play about genetics, The Phlebotomist, is mostly well-written and gets an exciting staging.
‘All futuristic dystopias are commentaries on the present’: #TheDivide @oldvictheatre
Alan Ayckbourn’s epic, very, very long satire on religion and sexual segregation prefers comedy to tragedy.
DISCONNECT – Ugly Duck
Imagine a production of Waiting for Godot with more characters, set in space, where the audience chooses the outcome of the story. What you are picturing is probably gloriously weird and kitschy.
KILLER – Shoreditch Town Hall
One of the reasons that Philip Ridley is the crown prince of imaginative playwriting is that he came at theatre from leftfield. In the 1980s, he didn’t go to drama school — he went to art college instead. This freed his mind from following established theatre conventions, and so anything was possible.
KILLER – Shoreditch Town Hall
Latest trio of monologues from Philip Ridley are performed in the dark: both chilling and humorous.
SPACE PLAY – Vault Festival
In recent years, tales of space travel have been making more of an appearance in theatre. Space Play looks at the aftermath of orbital collision with space debris, inspired by the events of the film Gravity.
Text of the Day: Shopping & F***ing
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD – Battersea Arts Centre
Jim Walters is the first person sent to colonise Mars. But when a global apocalypse occurs, trapping him in the Earth’s orbit and running out of oxygen, he and his guitar are left to broadcast music to the devastation below. Can anyone hear him? Are there any survivors? Will he ever know?
Text of the Day: Karagula
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
KARAGULA – Styx
Philip Ridley’s latest is an ambitious fantasy epic whose scope and majesty will blow you clean away.
Text of the Day: X
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
ELEGY – Donmar Warehouse
New one from Nick Payne explores brain science and female relationships, but is just a bit too superficial.
X – Royal Court Theatre
Alistair McDowall’s follow up to his big 2014 hit Pomona is less dazzling, but more emotionally desolate and ambiguous.