Alarum Theatre – Idle Women of the Wartime Waterways
. Kate Saffin & Heather Wastie commemorate the lives of women recruited to work on Britain’s canals during World War 2
performance
Project Polunin, Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Review by Primrose MacFay.
There were three pieces to the evening but the climax that everyone was waiting for was Narcissus & Echo. This is comeback-kid Sergei Polunin’s own world première, choreographed, conceived and starred in by the bad lad himself.
Tree of Codes, Sadler’s Wells. Review by Primrose MacFay.
The gig is billed as Wayne McGregor’s but the evening belongs to one of the biggest names in the contemporary art world, Olafur Eliasson, and to musician Jamie XX. That said, it is McGregor’s gifts as a director and as a charismatic strategist that made this impressive show happen in the first place. Sadler’s Wells has brought to London an outstanding collaboration of choreographer, artist and musician.
Promises, Promises. Southwark Playhouse, London. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Even in times when rehash is more common than originality, the risk with a revival of Burt Bacharach’s late 1960s musical Promises, Promises, in turn based on Billy Wilder’s 1960 film The Apartment, is that it feels doubly derivative.
Ashes, Plexus Polaire, Jacksons Lane. Review by Rachel Lowe.
I assumed I would be bored witless but I wasn’t for one second. Quite early on we were reassured it wasn’t just a Punch and Judy show.
Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, The Vaults Theatre. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Adaptations of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol began around 30 years after his death and proliferated during the 1930s and 40s with a wealth of radio productions, notably one featuring Orson Welles and sponsored by Campbell’s Soup.
Licensed to Ill, Southwark Playhouse. Review by Barbara Lewis.
For the non-initiate, The Beastie Boys were a group of white New Yorkers who made the leap from punk rock to hip hop. The result was the number 1 hit Licensed to Ill and an opening up to the white suburbs of a previously black musical phenomenon.
Swan Lake/Loch na hEala, by Michael Keegan-Dolan. Sadlers Wells Theatre. Review by Julia Pascal.
This is an ambitious reinterpretation of Swan Lake from a modern Irish perspective. Embedded in this ‘ballet’ is an acute critique of the Irish clergy.
Grown Up by Gameshow and Emily Lim, co-produced by CPT.
Grown Up explores the gap between what we teach our children and what they really want to know. We meet five young performers on a mission to understand the world around them.
The Pianist of Willesden Lane, St. James Theatre, London. Review by Barbara Lewis.
After the trauma of Kristallnacht in November 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was persuaded to agree that thousands of Jewish children come to Britain through a rescue effort that became known as the Kindertransport.
NewsRevue, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Review by Barbara Lewis.
In the confusing explosion of activity that is the Edinburgh Fringe, NewsRevue has the huge advantage of being a known brand whose appeal is all the greater when a torrent of unsettling news leaves us craving comic relief and the decades-old formula of satire set to music is still the best of tonics.
Mithkal Alzghair Displacement, Sadlers Wells. Review by Julia Pascal.
Mithkal Alzghair’s 55 minute performance, Displacement, is both a simple and highly complex dance work. Alzghair is a Syrian artist who has studied in Damascus and in Montpellier and the work reflects traditional Arab and modern European cultural influences.