When I found out that The Worst Witch was coming to Birmingham Hippodrome I was absolutely over the moon, as I used to love the TV programme as a child and would always watch it with my sister after school. In this play within a play Mildred Hubble, a young and naïve girl who stumbles into the wrong school by accident, finds herself learning magic for the first and making friends and enemies along the way. As she encounters difficulties, the school bully and Miss Cackle’s deepest darkest secret, she is tasked with growing up fast and finding a way to help her friends and the whole school before it’s too late.

This fun-filled show is jam-packed with excitement, with a thrilling plot and a fantastic soundtrack to go along with it. It’s a great way to get kids seeing theatre, as it is family friendly, a brilliant night out, and the story has recently been re-made for Netflix so has had a sudden surge in popularity again. With a live band onstage featuring one of the students and Miss Drill herself, the show is littered with catchy tunes and thumping beats to get you boogying in your seat. The audience clearly loved the show as they were cheering, singing along and even booing when needed, which I dare say speaks for itself.

This thoroughly enjoyable show is overflowing with mischief and mayhem which lead to catastrophic consequences, and audience participation is heavily encouraged. Consuela Rolle as Enid is hilarious, as her character adds excitement to the classroom, and Rosie Abraham as Ethel is astonishing – her performance is spot on – and as a Worst Witch fan from the 1990s I think I can say that with some confidence. This show is a treat to watch, full of dramatic moments, a moral message, and a shed load of laughs along the way!

The Worst Witch is on at the Birmingham Hippodrome until Sunday 26^th May 2019, so hop on your broomsticks and fly over there before it’s too late!

 

 

Rosie Kay’s 10 SOLDIERS is an enlightening piece of dance theatre, looking into the life of the military. As the show begins we are introduced to the ten soldiers as they begin their training with numerous gruelling and tiresome tasks. The choreography stresses the repetitive, almost monotonous nature of the training, and how it begins to institutionalise the recruits. This then makes it all the more noticeable when someone breaks away from the formation, as we remember that they are in fact individuals.

While watching this show, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Foucault’s discussion of surveillance and institutionalisation in the army in Surveiller et Punir (Discipline and Punish), and how prisons and schools have similar techniques. We see this manifest in the piece as the soldiers resort to juvenile pranks and immature humour, a direct consequence of their lack of freedom and agency.

Although I felt that the first half of the show was somewhat superfluous, the second half was hugely moving and beautifully performed by the company. Harriet Ellis’ performance where we see her for the first time with her hair down and out of her uniform is astonishing, forcing us to reflect on what it must be like for a woman in the army and how her experience differs from the others. Her and the rest of the company possess an incredible technical ability which was a joy to witness, and Kay’s choreography did a wonderful job at juxtaposing the two sides of the soldiers that often seem diametrically opposed.

Having not seen 5 SOLDIERS I cannot compare this piece to its predecessor, however, it was a powerful examination of what people in the military experience on a daily basis, something that I for one rarely think about. This show makes us take stock of our own lives and reminds us not to take for granted things like our own health and limbs – it’s a performance that reminds us of our own mortality and of life’s fragility. Although in need of a little more development, 10 SOLDIERS is a hard-hitting and impactful show that I am very glad to have seen.

 

 

 

 

As a cis heterosexual woman, I cannot pretend to know what it is like to go through what the characters go through in this play, however I can write this review from my own personal standpoint and explain how my experience of it was. Rotterdam follows a lesbian couple, Alice who is struggling to come out to her parents, and Fiona who admits that she identifies as a man. As the play unfolds, their relationship becomes more and more strained as they both struggle to become accustomed to Fiona transitioning. This hard-hitting and thought-provoking play made me think about my own relationship, asking myself what I would do in their shoes and how I would cope. This is something I really loved about the show as it makes us ask ourselves questions that we have not asked before, and it shows us through the characters how people can react differently to someone transitioning, regardless of whether are part of the LGBT+ community or not.

As naïve as it may sound, something I was not very aware of was transphobia within the LGBT+ community, and how just because somebody may be lesbian, for example, that does not mean that they cannot be transphobic. Being transgender and the process of transitioning from one gender to another can be a minefield, and it is something that we as a society are still in the early stages of understanding, discussing and accepting. This piece asks philosophical questions about love, morality, loss and acceptance, and whether they are clear-cut concepts or open to interpretation.

Brittain’s writing poses poignant questions about relationships and what happens in them when there is a communication breakdown, but the play also explores the idea of homesickness and the isolation one can feel when living abroad. This is something that resonated with me as I have lived abroad before (although I did speak the language which helped) and I remember times when I just didn’t want to be there anymore; I wanted to be with people who thought like me and spoke like me and laughed at the same things as me. Living abroad is not always as glamorous as it looks, however Alice is essentially isolating herself in Holland due to her crippling fear of coming out to her parents; Rotterdam is her prison. This provocative piece takes the audience on a journey and taps into current affairs and debates going on right now, and has given me new insight into a marginalised community.

As a teenager, I read and studied The Kite Runner at school, and this is where I first fell in love with Hosseini’s writing. We follow Laila, a young and energetic girl from Kabul, through her life and the events that unfold as the war in Afghanistan develops and the Taliban take hold of the city she calls home. Hosseini’s enchanting novel adapted for the stage by Ursula Rani Sarma is an agonising exploration of womanhood, abuse and oppression. As we move through Laila’s life, under the supervision of men, we learn the horrors of women had to endure during this war and how women are all too often singled out and used as objects and possessions to serve the needs of men.

A significant trope within the piece is education, and how women are often denied it as a means to maintain power and control over them and their bodies. Education for women should not be a luxury anymore, and seeing it denied to the women onstage is painful to watch. The fact that this piece has premiered in Birmingham is of great importance as Malala Yousafzai was treated at Birmingham’s very own Queen Elizabeth Hospital when she was brutally shot by the Taliban for insisting on going to school to get an education. When recovered, she then famously opened the new Library of Birmingham – the largest library in Europe – stressing the importance of education for women and the freedom and power it gives to a person when they can think for themselves.

The gender relations we see in the show demonstrate how relationships between men and women can be toxic, but that they can also be healthy and beautiful, it is dependent on the man and on the society in which he is raised. At one point in the play a man even goes as far as to describe his two wives as different cars – one functional and reliable but not particularly pleasing to the eye, the other a brand new shiny saloon car – showing how marriage and love (or the lack thereof) can mean very different things to different people. We see women endure; we see women suffer; we see the injustice that plagues the lives of women during wartime all over the world, and how lines become blurred between right and wrong, between husband and jailer, as the women’s freedoms become more and more restricted as time goes on. The music in this piece brought the scenes to life onstage and was tremendously emotive, and it is the story rather than the performances that I shall remember: it genuinely moved me to tears.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is on at the REP until 18^th May 2019, where it then moves on to Hackney Empire.

 

Shylock is a one-man show based around Shakespeare’s infamous protagonist in The Merchant of Venice from the perspective of Tubal (the only other Jewish character in Shakespeare’s play). This piece, performed by Rhodri Miles, is an analysis of not only the caricature that is Shylock, but of all that he represents and of what that says about our society. Tubal acts as a mouthpiece for all the Jewish characters in theatre that have been made out to be money-grabbing, vacuous and inferior. Armstrong has given Tubal back his voice, and in doing so has given a voice to so many voiceless Jews throughout history. With this new-found agency and power, Tubal talks the audience through all the things he would have done or said, had he been given more lines in the play.

Tubal explains some of the historical context that is important in The Merchant of Venice: the prejudice, persecution, violence and murder that the Jewish community have suffered for hundreds of years across Europe. Being forced out of nations and made to wear badges and caps to identify them is something we associate with the Nazis, however Tubal enlightens the audience and explains how antisemitism and these acts of hatred have been long-standing traditions across Europe. This piece highlights the hypocrisy in prejudice and humanises not just Shylock but the stock character that is Pantalone, freeing him from the shackles of being nothing but a loathed and misunderstood usurer. Tubal helps us explore the lack of choice and options that were available to someone like Shylock, and draws parallels between the antisemitism of Shakespeare’s time, and the xenophobia we now see in our society.

While critiquing Shakespeare’s problematic work, this play picks out some of the most poignant moments of the play. Tubal’s ninety-minute monologue is like a poetic essay picking apart the role of “the Jew” in not just British theatre but in theatre all across Europe, showing us where these legends and characters derive from. This clever and witty piece of theatre is refreshingly informative and makes a vital social comment. Rhodri Miles is fantastic at bringing each and every character to life with subtly, so if your heart already broke watching The Merchant of Venice, this show will be sure to break it all over again!

“What do you think of when you hear the word ‘woman’?” This show is a poignant and extremely moving exploration of womanhood, following the true story of Ana Daud and how her experiences have affected her during her life. This brave show is an insight into abuse, loss and exploitation within a patriarchal society where women are not always given the opportunities and freedom that their male compatriots receive.

The piece raises questions around abortion, abuse, sex work, and mental health – all issues that we as a society should be talking about more and which are often still taboo. Daud takes the audience on a journey, showing us her psychological struggles and enabling us to understand her better: to understand Ana means to understand women. Although a personal story, this piece relates to all women one way or another, irrespective of their life experience as Daud examines gender relations and the institution that is marriage. The use of music and sound were highly affecting, although the transitions from one track to the next could’ve been smoother. The pre-recorded voice-over and video footage complemented Ana’s live performance well, changing the tone of the piece, and painting pictures in our minds of the traumatic experiences women have to go through.

One moment I found particularly touching was when Daud invited someone to join her on stage to talk to them about ageing, becoming a mother and then a grandmother, and the obstacles that can arise over time due to personality clashes and biological deterioration.  This performance aims to encourage us to have a better understanding of each other, and reminds us that as human beings we need one another. With the rise of capitalism, and an obsession with the self as we post endless selfies online to show how amazing we are, we ought not to forget that needing others is not a weakness, but a strength, and we all need others to be able to cope with life and get through tough times. This powerful one-woman show exploring the pressures on men and women and the shame that comes with them is a triumph, and I hope to see it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer!

 

Emilia has been kicking up a storm thanks to its all-female cast and team, and also because of all of the wonderful women paying for other women to see the show – something that I was lucky enough to be a beneficiary of and something that we need more of. This laugh-out-loud play is unashamedly feminist and heart-breaking, poking fun at the patriarchy and those who maintain it while simultaneously analysing it in depth. The performance is interactive, surprising and quirky, keeping you on the edge of your seat at all times; passivity is not an option. The actors were phenomenal, making me forget at times that it was an all-female cast as I was so enthralled by their performance.

As the young Emilia is labelled ‘exotic’ (something I have been called countless times) and is seen as a sexual object rather than a human being, it was in these moments that I saw my own experiences as woman of colour. As women of colour, how often is it that we see ourselves reflected in a character from the 1500s? For me, never. This is the first time I have seen something set so long ago and have still felt like “that could’ve been me”. Emilia is neither English nor foreign, neither black nor white, and her being mixed is a constant negotiation between what she looks like and what she feels like. As a mixed-race woman, it was so refreshing to see a character going through the same difficulties as I have, and still do.

When I found myself looking around at sobbing audience members during tragic moments in the plot wondering why I wasn’t crying, I began to wonder whether I was being heartless. However, it wasn’t until I found myself in floods of tears as Clare Perkins releases a deluge of anger and pain in the final moments of the piece that I realised that the anger Emilia felt resonated with me far more than her despair. Everyone’s experience of this play will be so different from the person next to them, but for me Perkins’ begging for change touched me the most. Emilia is every woman, and this is why her being played by three different actors is so powerful – she is in all of us.

Not just as a woman, but as a person who wishes the women of my generation and of generations to come to be able to thrive and live as men can and do, this show occupies a special place in my heart. As a lover of strong female characters and writers (I have a passage from an Aphra Behn play tattooed on my leg) I believe we need more shows like this, where previously silenced women are given back their voice so that we can hear their stories and can be inspired by their bravery. Why had I not heard of Emilia Bassano before? This play is truly like nothing you have ever seen before, so if you see one show this year, let it be this.

Emilia is on at the Vaudeville Theatre, London until June 2019.

Being a huge Inua Ellams fan, I was over the moon to find out that he had a new show coming to Birmingham. After seeing his game-changing piece, ‘The Barber Shop Chronicles’, at the National Theatre last year, I was intrigued to witness his genius first-hand again. The show begins with some great African music to get you in the mood and to set the scene. As the wonderful cast, Rakie Ayola and Kwami Odoom, set the scene for us, we begin to learn of the conflicts between the Yoruba and Greek Gods, as Ellams challenges our assumptions about the legends we learn about in school and the one that we do not. This epic tale of love, pain, exploitation and violence was definitely not what I was expecting… in a good way. If you’re a Greek mythology and legend buff, this show is the perfect piece to challenge your knowledge and bring something new to the table. Growing up in the West, I had never even heard of the Yoruba Gods before, and during the performance I found myself questioning why I had never bothered to look into it, and why I assumed that Greek legends and West African legends were mutually exclusive.

The stripped-down set allows Ayola and Odoom to create the most magnificently vivid images in our minds, making us use our often-neglected imagination to see the worlds that Ellams so beautifully creates. At one point in the piece, we even travel to the furthest limits of outer-space and back, reminding us of our insignificance and how unimportant our small squabbles and rivalries are. In a world where it is all too easy to get caught up in the magic that is modern technology, and the capitalist consumerist ideology that can often become overwhelming, the space travel in this piece and what it shows us is rather refreshing.

Despite the multitude of characters in the piece – all of which we get to know – the two actors onstage manage to make multi-roling look like child’s play. Odoom is enthralling to watch and comical at all the right times, while Ayola is spell-binding, particularly as Modupe, as her characters’ pain and suffering come to a climax at the end of the performance. Ellams’ poetic prose is a joy to witness, and his writing cleverly critiques the long-standing gender and racial inequalities that have been continuing for too long in our world. Ellams’ cleverly parallels the tensions and battles between the Gods with our own history between the West and Africa. Exploitation and abuse of the African continent is something that still remains a huge part of our history in the UK and beyond, and confronting it head-on, as Modupe does, is the only way to move forward and create a better future for our children.

‘The Half God of Rainfall’ is on at the Birmingham REP until 20^th April and then moves to the Kiln Theatre, London from 25^th April – 17^th May.

 

I have to admit, I was slightly apprehensive to see this show due to the fact that I didn’t know a lot of the songs on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, but this piece surpassed my expectations. The fact that I didn’t know the music didn’t make it any less impactful and enjoyable, so if you’re not a huge Beatles fan, you will still be blown away by the original musical score and the remarkably expressive choreography. With its mixture of dance styles and a heavily jazz-influenced score, this performance is a wonderful melting pot of jazz and classical, both musically and choreographically. The dancers are all dressed in dazzling brightly-coloured outfits harking back to the era in which this Beatles album was made, creating an exquisite explosion of colour onstage as if a rainbow were leaping and swaying in the space.

The stripped-back yet innovative staging was so cleverly used to reflect and change the tone of the piece, with just a simple alteration in light and colour, that it was almost unnoticeable. Mark Morris’ choreography and Ethan Iverson’s arrangements beautifully mirror one another, and they are brilliantly witty and humorous while simultaneously and subtly raising important questions about gender binaries and challenging societal roles attributed to different genders.

Something else that was stripped back was the orchestra, visible to the audience during the whole performance, the music was challenging but still easy to listen to and understand. The unique ensemble, including a theremin (an instrument that is played without being touched… I kid you not, google it!) which was spectacularly haunting to listen to and definitely one of my favourite aspects of the show, was an amazing group of incredibly talented musicians, and Ethan Iverson’s work is pure genius. As a world-renowned pianist and founding member of The Bad Plus trio, it was truly a treat to see someone of his stature in the pit. His contrapuntal melodies were enthralling to listen to, where the band were playing one song in two different tempos, and both the musicians and dancers were able to land back on the beat effortlessly. This piece really is a unique experience, and is so visually and aurally captivating for the audience that it is a must-see show for anyone of any age.

Having studied French as an undergraduate, I was excited to see this play and to revel in the celebration of one of France’s most famous pieces of theatre. As we step into a time where Paris was at the centre of fashion, culture and thinking; and when electricity and motor vehicles were revolutionary; and when the inventions of the Lumière brothers were taking the world by storm; this play sheds light on the often-forgotten author of Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand, who has in fact been overshadowed by his own masterpiece.

As we follow Edmond on his quest to write a hit for the Parisian stage, we encounter classic and much-loved theatrical devices such as the love triangle and brilliantly funny balcony scenes, however the play also raises questions around racism and discrimination, and patriarchy in this so-called belle époque. Although the first half of the show was not as humorous as I expected, it laid the foundations perfectly for a second half that had the entire audience roaring with laughter in every scene. Simon Gregor’s performance is side-splitting; he truly makes the show a night to remember and I am still replaying his caricature French accent in my head! Chizzy Akudolu and Henry Goodman also gave fantastic performances, and Cavaliere and Gregor’s double act was as clever as it was entertaining to watch.

As the performance progresses, the line between fantasy and reality become blurred and Edmond becomes more and more absorbed in his writing. We see him become consumed by his poetry, which then begins to spill over into his life with dire consequences. This play within a play is a brilliant night out that is guaranteed to make you laugh, as Edmond struggles to write a comedy while keeping to a number of ludicrous restrictions and conditions. Congratulations to Alexis Michalik for writing such a witty and entertaining piece of theatre while also paying homage to a great French talent that ought not to be forgotten.