Dance & Physical Festivals Musicals Opera Spoken Word Theatre ThisWeek In London

Threes To See 9-15 Apr: Opening This Week, Ending Soon, Short Runs, Three Comedy Shows

By | Published on Friday 5 April 2019

THREE OPENING THIS WEEK

Funeral Flowers | The Bunker Theatre | 15 Apr-4 May (pictured)
This multi award winning play focuses on 17-year old Angelique, who dreams of being a florist, and whose story is told through a mixture of lyrical spoken word and ‘live floristry’. Evoking the vulnerability of a young woman navigating the care system because her mother is in prison, the piece explores perseverance and hope, exploring trauma, relationships, and our human instincts to survive. See this page here for more.

Queen Of The Mist | Jack Studio | 9-27 Apr
A European premiere for this Michael John LaChiusa musical that won nominations and awards when it was first staged off broadway in 2011. It tells the true story of Anna Edson Taylor, an American schoolteacher who in 1901became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel, having designed her own specific barrel to take on the task. For more information and to book tickets, click here.

Sitting | Arcola Theatre | 10 Apr-11 May
“Mary, Luke and Cassandra are three very different people, living three very different lives. But when they meet John, a portrait painter, all of their fortunes are changed forever. While sitting for their paintings in the same attic studio, a picture emerges that none of them could ever have imagined.” The debut play from TV face Katherine Parkinson, which won much acclaim when it was on at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Head this way for details.


THREE ENDING SOON

Blood Knot | Orange Tree Theatre | 8 Mar-20 Apr (pictured)
“It’s been a year since Morrie returned to Port Elizabeth to live with his brother Zach. They share childhood memories of their mother, yet have wildly contrasting life experiences due to their different fathers. As things get complicated, the stakes rise: can they free themselves from the enduring prejudices provoked by the different shades of their skin?” An acclaimed staging of Athol Fugard’s 1961 play, directed by Matthew Xia. See the venue website here for more.

Killymuck and Box Clever | The Bunker Theatre | 26 Mar-13 Apr
“We are not all born equal. If you’re born into a working-class or benefits-class family, you have less: less money, less support and crucially, less opportunity. These two plays explore the political cause and effect of what being born with less means.” I have heard great things about this double bill of plays: ‘Killymuck’ is set on a housing estate in Ireland, and is about Niamh, who deals with the difficulties of being a child in the benefit system; ‘Box Clever’ is about “one woman’s experience of a refuge and a Mother’s commitment to do the best for her daughter”. You can buy a tickets to see either or both, but be quick, they end this week. See this page for ‘Killymuck’, this page for ‘Box Clever’.

Wolfie | Theatre503 | 20 Mar-13 Apr
A fairytale following twins separated at birth, which explores who is responsible for society’s most vulnerable children as it takes a look at life in and after the care system. “Something’s not right. Children are being raised by animals. A mother is slowly sinking in the bath. The trees are left doing the paperwork. The air is filled with screams of children howling for help. And some twins want to tell you a story about how everything got so f*cked up.” Info right about here.


THREE SHORT RUNS

Shaw Goes Wilde | Susie Sainsbury Theatre | 12-14 Apr
The brilliant Pegasus Opera Company present this excellent looking double bill of two one act operas by Philip Hageman: the first is based on ‘The Music Cure’ by George Bernard Shaw, a witty play about love, desire, and being investigated for insider trading; the second is based on ‘The Nightingale And The Rose’ by Oscar Wilde, in which a student falls in love with a young woman who demands he shows his feelings by giving her a red rose. See the venue website here for more info and to book.

Tara Poetry – The Cruellest Month | Tara Theatre | 14 Apr
Presumably you all know why this is the cruellest month (or at the least what a highly regarded poet thinks it is) but if you don’t, google it and read that poem. That caught my eye because it’s a reference to something I love, but we should really concentrate on the content of this Spring edition of Tara Theatre’s poetry series: four renowned poets – Rishi Dastidar, Maria Jastrzębska, Nick Drake and Mimi Khalvati – will read from their recently published collections. See this page here for details.

Luke Wright – Poet Laureate | Soho Theatre | 10-13 Apr (pictured)
And speaking of poets… here’s another. We first discovered him through the Edinburgh festival around the turn of the century, and so to us he’s basically a big Fringe favourite, but he’s frankly a favourite all over the place. This show did as well as all his other Edinburgh shows (brilliantly) so don’t miss it at Soho. “With a new Poet Laureate due to be announced in 2019, Wrighty’s chucking his hat in the ring. He’s on a mission to write poems to unite a nation divided by austerity and Brexit. Can it be done? Can one poet ever really represent an entire nation?” Click here.

Photo: Idil Sukan


THREE COMEDY SHOWS

The Jerry Hall Show | Museum Of Comedy | 12 Apr
Developed at Soho Theatre and performed at the Brighton Fringe in 2018, and I am interested. Gonna let the blurb do the rest of the talking: “The Jerry Hall Show’ is a bizarre narrative comedy, based loosely on the life of celebrity Jerry Hall. Expect 50 minutes of original songs, footage and satirical sketches. Performers play a range of cabaret characters such as Mick Dragger, Rupert Murder and Bryan Ferry. The takeaway message is about sisterhood and supporting your fellow woman.” Head this way for more.

Egg – Richard Pictures | Soho Theatre | 12-13 Apr (pictured)
And talking of festival fringes, we first discovered Egg in Edinburgh in the summer of 2018, when they turned up there with this, a character led sketch show promising to tackle “toxic masculinity and female friendship” with plenty of “high energy silliness and unexpected twists”, though we’d previously been aware of the work of the duo – Anna Leong Brophy and Emily Lloyd-Saini – when they were players in improv outfit BattleActs. Anyway, they are great, definitely worth your time, so get ye hence to get a ticket before they all disappear.

Angus Dunican – Nice Bit Of Kit | 2Northdown | 9 Apr
“A while back, things became too awful for Angus to cope with. So he got a massive dog, took up gardening, hid in suburbia and gave ‘being normal’ the ol’ college try. However, fixing yourself requires all the pieces and so he then had to go around looking for all the bits… like The Veetacore in ‘Through the Dragon’s Eye’.” An award winning and much acclaimed comedian, at a venue possibly near you, with a new show in which he deals with “masquerading as a functional person, tie-in novelisations and finding out that you were quite sexy all along.” Hurrah, more info here.


THREE, ER, MORE SHORT RUNS

Om Shanti F*ck/Doll Face | Battersea Arts Centre | 9-11 Apr (pictured)
A double bill of two South Asian female led shows dealing with sex, periods, abortion, feminism in British-Indian culture, and the challenges faced by South Asian women from different generations. ‘Om Shanti F*ck’ is about Ambika, who “finds herself in bloody-embarrassing hell, when she gets up to find she’s left a period stain on the carpet of a sacred Hindu temple”, while ‘Doll Face’ explores the impact of cultural identity and stigma around mental health in the Indian community through the media of music and dance. See the venue website here for more.

Tensile Strength (Or How To Survive At Your Wit’s End) | Camden People’s Theatre | 9-10 Apr
“Tensile Strength (or How to Survive at Your Wit’s End) is a performance about Stress. And figuring out why so many of us feel it to an unhealthy degree. It’s about fear, pressure, uncertainty. It’s about sadness and mental health and how we help ourselves. It’s about feeling like things are all A Bit Too Much and then the cat goes missing. This is a show about the world we live in now, and will prove essential viewing in a society that just can’t seem to relax anymore.” Um, yeah, no surprise that this one leapt out at me. Details here.

Dark Matter | Tristan Bates Theatre | 9-13 Apr
An acclaimed piece by Vertebra Theatre that did really well at the old edfringe a couple of years back, and is now on ahead of a European tour as part of A Piece Of The Continent, a festival presented by The Actors Centre and Voila! Europe, which features multilingual, multicultural, and multidisciplinary performance. “People say your whole life flashes in front of your eyes before you die but what happens when you have dementia? Where does the brain go before we die?” See the venue website here for more info about this show, and here for a list of all events on during the festival.



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