The Yard When playing nurse and patient gets out of hand. Sami Ibrahim (of Royal Court Two Palestinians Go Dogging fame) explores the culture of aid, grief, and international culpability, all over Tesco meal deal sandwiches. I will explain the latter one, don’t worry. Rosie Elnile’s set is like a cake slice of a training room. Think of the drab ...

Soho Theatre As spring ripens into summer fringe theatre becomes a dangerous activity, temperature-wise. Either the fiery gates of hell or over Aircon ’ed frozen tundra. Emily Woof’s show Blizzard should be the cool blast of air needed in this concrete microwave we call London. Accomplished theatre marker and actor, this show is Woof’s return to the lonely-play-genre. We meet ...

Proud City A Neo-burlesque evening of naughty delight, high on talent but heavy on price. Burlesque’s breadth and variety are commercialised with some success at Proud City, in the bowels of a Neo-gothic temple: The Minster Building: fitting that an architectural revival should be the home of this Neo-burlesque evening of naughty delight. Building from comic shows and musical hall, Burlesque was ...

Sadler’s Wells Everyone has their own specific May bank holiday rituals. Some go for a bracing hike around the Chilterns, some down tinned cocktails on the sin-wagon to Brighton, and some (Including me) pack into the already packed Sadler’s Wells for the yearly hip hop festival Breakin’ Convention. This time the festival is celebrating 21 years. Bounding along, forgetting names, ...

Morning Lane ‘Fun, funky and fascinating’ I am partial to a big night. I should probably be growing out of them at the great age of 30, but in reality they have become less frequent, and certainly altered in style. I maintain that painting the town a garish colour is a human right. Hackney as a borough has become synonymous ...

Almeida Theatr ‘Emotional guts and gore’ In the age of Facebook and Instagram, the whammy of a school reunion is lessened to a certain point. But reuniting with an older version of yourself trapped in the memories of other people is an utterly jarring experience. It is an experience that Branden Jacobs Jenkins tackles with a spectral touch in the ...

Stone Nest Everyone’s favourite 1888 Welsh church-cum-hedonistic-nightclub-cum-theatre-space-cum-downstairs jazz venue plays host to what should be a pertinent evening of theatrical nuptials. “Should be” being the operative statement. In 2015 two convicted criminals, Mikhail Gallatinov and Marc Goodwin married in a civil ceremony in Full Sutton prison in East Yorkshire. Despite bringing no practical change to their prison life, their past ...

Stratford East 2004 was 20 years ago, apparently. I only found this out (and was left aghast) when writing this review. My melted millennial mind still thinks that surely that must be the 90s, and I bet there are those of you out there thinking it’s the 60s. Putting aside the passing of time (as if we could) one positive is that it ...

Proud City A Neo-burlesque evening of naughty delight, high on talent but heavy on price.   Burlesque’s breadth and variety are commercialised with some success at Proud City, in the bowels of a Neo-gothic temple: The Minster Building: fitting that an architectural revival should be the home of this Neo-burlesque evening of naughty delight. Building from comic shows and musical hall, Burlesque ...

Kingsland Road, ‘The meat outdances the veg’ We are always told in the city history lies beneath us, that daily we are traipsing over the Victorian and Roman ruins mouldering away. But we never think that it might be above us, and no, I am not talking about the steel rooftop pleasure gardens of the 1980’s. I am talking about ...