The Oval House Theatre’s annual festival of new work by young London talent is an undeniably rough-cut affair: Time Out was asked to refrain from attending flagship theatre show ‘Suffocation’ – by rising star Arinze Kene – on grounds of more work being needed on the production.
A shame (especially for ticket-holders), but made up for by the lo-fi fun of the festival’s regular ‘Around the House’ programme of site specific short plays. Performed in a stairwell, Rich Thornton’s wry ‘Circular Doorways’ makes for an excellent start. In it, an actor posing as an oleaginous member of Oval House staff squirms in discomfort as a wheelchair-bound ‘audience member’ harangues him over the theatre’s lack of disabled access.
Ruth Hawkins’s thoughtful poetry piece ‘Julie’s Laundrette’ – performed outside in a cordon of police tape by Ben Cawley – also stands out and if too many scripts are hackneyed relationship dramas, their directors generally rose to the challenge of the space. The seven pieces mesh into a fun, fluid, unforced evening that speaks well of a generation already unshackling itself from the ubiquity of the black box theatre.