Originally published on Exeunt Magazine. The central metaphor of Martin Crimp and Katie Mitchell’s When we have sufficiently tortured each other is penetration. Sexual, of course. Woman reports Man saying, ‘All I think about is being inside your body – to penetrate your body, that’s all that counts’. Also textual. Woman tells Man, ‘you hold words to … Continue reading Review: When we have sufficiently tortured each other, National Theatre

Dr Who, Soho and neoliberalism. Unicorns and the rise of the far right. Nick Field’s theatre work channels juxtapositions through strong visual images to explore massive ideological concepts. ‘I’m really interested in playing with ideas of things that might seem really disposable and kitsch as a way of exploring something that goes very very deep,’ … Continue reading Feature: Nick Field interview

A woman wearing a hijab walks onto the stage, cradling a baby, singing an old song from Pakistan. She puts the baby on a metal table and wraps it in a shroud (kafan). The baby is dead. Ayesha is the funeral director. Such a reversal of expectations is typical of Hannah Hauer-King’s production of Iman … Continue reading Review: The Funeral Director

‘It’s very childish, this need to know everything’, Maureen tells her daughter Anna in Mark Ravenhill’s new play, The Cane. She believes that some things are better left unspoken, some skeletons are better left in the closet. Anna, on the other hand, disowned by her teacher parents for taking up the cause of academisation, talks the … Continue reading Review: The Cane

Posting some of my Edinburgh reviews, originally published by Exeunt. I loved Revelations. The friend I saw it with did not. “Don’t you think it’s quite manipulative? Also, what gives him the right to share Sarah and Emma’s story of their pregnancy?” These are both fair criticisms. (Though, the way James Rowland tells it, he was … Continue reading Review: Revelations