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/theatre BLOG POSTS

Fringe theatre openings: Oct 9 - 16

Posted 5.12 pm Fri Oct 9 by Tamara Gausi

It’s a good week for Jewish musicals on the fringe with ‘Hetty Feinstein’s Wedding Anniversary’ playing at the New End until December 6 and a scratch performance of Giles Howe and Katy Lipson’s new musical about the struggle for a Jewish homeland (‘Soviet Zion’) playing at the Rosemary Branch on Monday 19. Come to think of it, it’s a pretty good week for multicultural theatre in general. There are a number of shows on to mark Black History Month (which we will be dedicating an entire blog to next week, so watch this space) including Paul Morris’s ‘The Meeting’ at the Warehouse Theatre, The Tricycle’s ‘Not Black and White’ season, ‘Misterioso’ over at the Riverside Studios, ‘Love, Sax and All That Jazz’ at the Albany and the launch of the Black Theatre Archive at the National Theatre on Friday 16.

'Sasuage and Samosa' at Rich Mix 'Sasuage and Samosa' at Rich Mix
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Angry young men, 'Macbeth' and 'Julius Caesar': this week on the fringe

Posted 1.01 pm Wed Oct 7 by Tamara Gausi

Festival season ended, what, a month ago, but like the partygoer who just ain’t ready to go home, the Old Red Lion valiantly dances on with the ‘Off Cut Festival’. Its a season of 24 original short plays (15 minutes each), chosen by and performed to an audience who then whittle them down to eight finalists, with the winner to be chosen by a panel that includes playwright Moira Buffini and TV and theatre director Nigel Douglas.

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The National Theatre celebrates Ken Campbell's eccentric genius

Posted 12.01 pm Wed Oct 7 by Jane Edwardes

The anarchic enthusiast Ken Campbell took very little interest in ‘proper theatre’. Even so it is entirely fitting that the National Theatre should be  paying tribute to his eccentric talent on October 12 in the Olivier Theatre with a line-up that includes Nina Conti, Christopher Fairbank, Toby Jones, Sylvester McCoy and John Sessions. His link with the National goes back to 1977 when his nine hour epic ‘Illuminatus!’ was the first production in the Cottesloe Theatre. Peter Hall, then the artistic director, strangely turned down the offer to appear for three minutes as the man who wants to run the world. Later, Hall’s successor Richard Eyre, who is directing the National’s tribute, regularly invited Ken to bring his one man shows to the Cottesloe including ‘Recollections of a Furtive Nudist’, ‘Jamais Vu’ and ‘Pigspurt’. When David Hare’s trilogy was playing next door, Campbell mischievously gathered his three shows together under the heading of ‘The Bald Trilogy’. They grew out of Ken’s extraordinary range of interests, from his hero, Jackie Chan, to the Cathars, from trepanning to the fact that, according to Ken, the South Pacific people of Vanuatu worship Prince Philip. ‘I’m not mad: I’ve just read different books!’ was the spot on title for a later piece.

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'Annie Get Your Gun' and go 'Shooting Rats': it's this week's fringe openings blog

Posted 1.41 pm Fri Sep 25 by Tamara Gausi

The kids are back in school, the summer that never was is over and theatreland is once again incandescent with the bright lights of new shows. But while the spotlight may be on the big West End openings at the moment, we at Time Out always have one eye elsewhere.

'Annie Get Your Gun' 'Annie Get Your Gun' - Dan Burn-Forti

It’s a busy week Off-West End, with at least half of the 20 or so venues wheeling out new shows over the next seven days. Jane Horrocks returns to the Young Vic with ‘Annie Get Your Gun’. Considering its previous track record for brave and brilliantly staged musicals (it won an Olivier Award for ‘The Magic Flute’ presented by the same team behind ‘The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso’ at the Garrick until Saturday), this is full of promise. Over at the Lyric Hammersmith, the astonishing resurrection of Matthew Kelly’s career continues unabated in Trevor Griffiths’ 1970 drama ‘Comedians’, directed by Sean Holmes.

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/PROFILES

CAROLINE McGINN
/THEATRE EDITOR

Caroline is currently Theatre editor of Time Out, and has previously written about theatre, books and contemporary culture for Time Out, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times and the Times Literary Supplement.

ANDREW HAYDON

Andrew Haydon is a freelance theatre critic. He writes regularly for Time Out, the Guardian online and has his own blog Postcards from the Gods. He has also had reviews published in German, Polish, Lithuanian and Czech.