‘Who? What? When? Why?’ Voilà! Festival ships over a tale of sisterhood, sacrifice and gentrification, in the shifting patter of Greek from Athens to London. The social drama should translate fairly easily, considering the common ground and universal themes. Konstantinos Avramis and his theatre company Dispositif. are a nomadic, experimental outfit, mixing physical and ritualistic theatre to deliver a political ...

‘More man than Pan’ So, Christmas is undeniably here, isn’t it? Halloween held it off for half a month, and then the igniting of an alleged 16th-century traitor slowed it some more. But those sleigh bells were always tingling through the month of October, rather menacingly in the background. Of course, it is the Barbican that confirms it. J.M. Barrie’s ...

‘Can I ever forgive Fisher?’ Have you ever been swimming with eels? A nightmare for some, a strange fascination for my friend and me. We spent last night sampling treats and tipples in the “Buckingham Palace of pie shops”. The year is 1862: the Cooke family built a temple to pies and eels just down from the newly built railway ...

‘Claustrophobic tables, admirable agility and warmth’ A forgotten London is glimpsed as you dip away from Liverpool Street and into the warren of snaking streets. Rain and a light fog add to the medievalism, although our destination is far from archaic. Or perhaps it is, in this fast-moving world of London restaurants? In 2014, Harneet Baweja and his wife Devina ...

‘A bubbling smoothie of the weird, the wacky, and the wonderful’ “And it was all a dream” is a universally acknowledged cop-out ending, yet that doesn’t deter Hollywood from trotting it out again and again. Conversely, choreographers regularly view somnambulation as carte blanche-an opportunity to break free of the already largely ignored narrative rigidity and let their freak flag fly. ...

‘We feel a little left out as spectators’ Dam Van Huynh’s Van Huynh Company dominates The Place, following on from their 2023 piece Re:birth. Exquisite Noise is an exploration of rebellion and sound, the question is: does the noise make sense? I think of my experience of this show as pre-blurb and post-blurb. Let’s start, contrary-wise, with my understanding after ...

‘A tale of two cities, and a story of two shows’ Something that has been flashing around in my skull for a couple of weeks refusing to fit neatly into a review format, but will now be expunged into a feature that will encompass two. I sit here, gazing into one larger screen, with a smaller one clamped to my ...

‘If we’re going to save this life-giving world we’re squatting on, we need radical, grassroots change’ The future is uncertain with not only war, but environmental chaos, looming. It’s easy to give up or become desensitised, to cocoon or simply despair. But there is another option, and there’s a couple who seemingly have the answer, which they document in their ...

‘Fantastic weaving of culture, fun and fandom’ You think you know Mexican food? And Dalston’s culinary attractions? Wrong on both counts, I’m afraid! I have a little gem you’ve most likely missed, but without which your life would be poorer. Let me explain. All Good (and their sister venue, Hackney Downs’ All Good Beer) is a bottle shop/bar just around ...

‘Back in the blistering heat of Kingston’ 140 years ago Charles Dillon built the Theatre Royal Stratford East. 88 years later, Perry Henzell and Trevor Rhone brought reggae and a proudly independent Jamaica to the world with their feature film. 34 more full rotations and the musical premiered at Stratford East. Now Pulitzer Prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks brings over her New ...