Anya Ryan

There’s been a frenzy of hype around Sam Grabiner’s debut play ‘Boys on the Verge of Tears’. It was the recipient of the prestigious Verity Bargate Award last year, and has found vocal support from big name playwrights Lucy Kirkwood and April de Angelis. But, the real attraction comes in the form of the director James Macdonald: a real industry legend, known for his work with the likes of Sarah Kane and Annie Baker. It is pretty remarkable that he’s take on what is in effect a fringe play – everything seems set for Grabiner to be something special. Short answer – he is. Set exclusively in a public toilet, with five main actors and over 50 characters, Grabiner has created an intimate study of men and boys, their potential for violence and pain. Following a rough chronology from boyhood to old age, with no break between the changing scenes, men from all walks of life flow in and out of the cubicles – sometimes pausing for conversation, to assess their appearance or for a second of solitude to take a breath. Although open to the world, the toilets feel like a place of private sanctuary: a home for lost, lonely children at birthday parties or a place for teenagers to get ready for the school disco. The door to the outside has the potential to swing open in an instant, but inside there is the sense of everything stopping. This is a space of confession, connection and frustration, somehow cut off from the rest of life. Yet, the potential for danger and cruelty is ever present. Fig

British theatre loves a backstage drama: in the last month alone we’ve said hello to Ivo van Hove’s divisive ‘Opening Night’ and waved goodbye to Jack Thorne’s ‘The Motive and the Cue’, both set behind the scenes of Broadway plays. Now here comes April de Angelis’s new comedy ‘The Divine Mrs S’, which goes behind the curtain of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, circa 1800. Here, De Angelis trains her lens on Sarah Siddons (Rachael Stirling), the actor known as the Queen of Drury Lane and something of an archetype for the modern celebrity. But though she was probably the greatest female actor of her day, there is still no contemporary biography of her.  ‘The Divine Mrs S’ paints a picture of what Siddons’s world might have looked like – performing on stage every evening, adored by critics and fans. But the brilliance in De Angelis’s script comes in balancing Siddons’s influence with her impotence. Despite being a ticket-selling machine, she is shown as having little to no agency offstage. Her life is ruled by her brother Kemble (Dominic Rowan) – the manager of Drury Lane – and her husband, who spends his days off with a mistress. Together, they sign her contracts, decide what roles she plays and keep control of her finances. It is very meta: Siddons’s inner frustrations and wishes are said aloud in the form of stage directions that she reads to the audience. The play looks inwards on the stage profession and the construction of theatre: ‘the best way to survive in this business is

Luckily for Mischief Theatre, the public’s enthusiasm for watching things go wrong doesn’t seem to be waning. As ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ celebrates ten years in the West End – and ‘Peter Pan Goes Wrong’ having recently played a winter season – here comes the company’s latest: ‘Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle’. It is a sequel of sorts to 2020’s ‘Magic Goes Wrong’, with Henry Lewis returning as the eponymous inept mentalist. As is customary in the plays created by Lewis and his co-writers Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, there’s mess and slapstick aplenty. But, is two hours-plus of slip-ups and mistakes enough to keep our attention? Well, most of the audience seems to love it. The Mind Mangler tries and fails to predict our names, gets accidentally trapped inside a guillotine and has the questionable assistance of a hapless ‘audience member’ (Sayer). But things start to feel very repetitive. Long sections of audience participation are dragged out. There’s some tired attempts to ‘smell’ people’s professions. As the first act comes to a close, you can’t shake the feeling that there’s not much more we can get from an evening of jokes about failed magic. Eventually, the show pulls the rug from underneath us. Shockingly, the Mind Mangler’s tricks start to go right. His successful and genuinely very impressive mind reading sends ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ around the audience, while the big finale is would surely make Derren Brown impressed.  But it’s a little too late to compens

Quirky, sardonic, all-female performance troupe Figs in Wigs have been performing together for 15 years. But with the theatre industry on the brink of collapse and the end of the world nigh, now might finally be the time for them to hang up their headgear for good. At least, that’s what they’re telling us.  ‘Big Finish’ is a show of two halves. The mischievous and interminably creative company starts with the tale of the world’s undoing - and it is as absurd and mind-boggling as their previous work. ‘Nothing lasts forever,’ they tell us as they take us through a series of chapters that lead to their final goodbye. They arrive onstage as a pack of dinosaur mask-wearing golfers on a buggy. Then, they perform a synchronized dance number as a group of scarlet puffer-jacketed crabs. Foam drips out slowly from a pipe at the back to resemble an iceberg, while the five Figs form a string orchestra to play ‘My Heart Will Go On’. They read out a will where they give away their remaining belongings: their studio’s tarpaulin roof gets gifted to the Globe – ‘it really needs it’, after all. A life-sized skeleton prop is left to the London Dungeons. Some of the imagery is so farcical, you’re never quite sure what is happening. But somehow 'Big Finish' still manages to feel like a fluorescent horror show and glaring warning about the impending environmental disaster. When the bizarreness breaks into a satirical ‘post-show talk’, it takes a while for us to realise the Figs are still in perfor

Four London teenagers sit, bored and trapped inside on a Saturday. They’ve been robbed of their free time, but worst of all they have been subjected to the company of their fellow troublemakers. Taking inspiration from John Hughes’s seminal 1985 film ‘The Breakfast Club’ – about a motley crew of American high school students punished with a weekend detention – Sabrina Ali sets her play in a dugsi: a term British Somalis use to describe a religious school. They turn up frustrated, brash and full of secrets: they are each reluctant to reveal the real reason why they’re here to their peers. Usually, they wouldn’t give each other the time of day but in detention, the only thing they’ve got to do is talk. As the hour ticks on and their elusive teacher still hasn’t shown his face, the girls start to bond by sharing horror stories based on Somalian fables and passing gossip round like its breaking news. At the play’s centre is a mystery. Where did the aloof, angry Hani disappear to for two years? The remaining trio – Munira, Yasmin and Salma, all have their own beliefs. Did she become a drug dealer? Get pregnant and had a baby in Year 9? The big reveal is held back until the play’s final moments which means the pacing feels off throughout. Often, it feels like we’re waiting for the script to kick into action. The structure can be forgiven though because Ali’s play seeps with realism, relatability and endless charm. This is a picture of adolescence in 2024: phones are clutched tightl

In ‘Shifters’, Benedicte Lombe’s follow-up to her Susan Blackburn Prize-winning play ‘Lava’, sparks fly and past emotions weave their way into the present. Why is the feeling of falling in love for the first time so profound?, it asks. Will we remember it forever? In this bittersweet, woozy rom-com the imprint of big, wild adolescent infatuation can’t be forgotten. Dre and Des met at school, joined the debating society and danced awkwardly around their romantic feelings for one another, until one day everything changed. It has been eight years since they last were together, but all their history comes rushing back. Dre’s beloved ‘nana’ has died and Des has flown over for the funeral. But in the years they’ve spent apart things have started to look a little different. They are 32 now and Des has fulfilled her dream of becoming a successful artist in America, while Dre has worked hard on realising his culinary ambitions closer to home. And yet still, their old electricity finds a way to climb back to the surface. The wonder of Lombe’s writing is that it leaves you longing for the story of what could have and should have been. Instead, we watch a poetic tale about two perfectly matched souls excruciatingly separated. The beginning of Lynette Linton’s production is a deliberate slow burn. The romance between the duo creeps in slowly, but once it lands it tugs on your heartstrings tight. Tosin Cole and Heather Agyepong are entirely adorable and subtle as the couple: they balan

In 2004, as his swansong at Stratford East after a 25-year tenure as artistic director, Philip Hedley programmed ‘The Big Life’. It is bittersweet then, that the hit musical returns to the venue to celebrate its 20-year anniversary in the year of his death – Hedley passed away in January. His memory lives on in this belter of a musical revival and time has done little to age its story. Today it is as infectious, heart-rendering and as achingly resonant as ever. Paul Sirett and Tameka Empson’s script takes the convoluted comedy of Shakespeare’s ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ and enriches it to tell a battle of the sexes story from the Windrush generation. Dennis, Ferdy, Bernie and Lennie arrive by boat to Britain full of aspirations and big dreams. ‘The sky’s the limit,’ they sing, wide-eyed and determined to make something of themselves. Nothing will hold them back. And so, after Bernie and his wife-to-be Sybil have a spat on the ship over, the men all reluctantly promise to abjure women and booze for three years. The music is the lifeblood of this tale of suspended satisfaction: the cocktail of blues, jazz, calypso and soul is a gesture to what the Windrush generation left and lost when they travelled across the waters. The men’s bright futures soon turn cloudy. They are turned away from every B&B in the city, can’t get the jobs they’re qualified for, and are subjected to endless racist taunts. With each knockback, the sparkle in their eyes dwindles just a little bit more.  Somehow

Jade Anouka’s autobiographical play ‘Heart’ begins as a perfect love story. She’s 24, wedding bells are ringing and she’s found her soulmate. ‘All the boxes have been ticked,’ she says. But spoiler alert: this is not the dream romance. Soon, the fantasy curdles and by 28, she’s divorced, sofa surfing and trying to write the next chapter of her life as she realises she’s bisexual. But, while her play is braided with sincerity and heartache, it’s rocky as a finished theatrical package. It soon becomes obvious that the story is secondary to the form. Accompanist Grace Savage – who (another spoiler) we eventually learn is Anouka’s now wife – provides a near-constant beatbox and electro-inspired soundtrack. Anouka speaks in rhyme over the top, and while some of her poetry is marvellous, other parts are deeply forgettable. There is plenty of tired imagery too. Depression is described as a ‘beast’ that emerges from the shadows and eats away at life’s joy – it might be a strong visual painting but it is unoriginal. Often the two performers look out of balance with one another: the focus is on the play’s sound; we need a richer narrative. Anouka’s performance is electrifyingly raw. But this disjointed hybrid doesn’t feel like the right form for her story.

You might have heard of ‘Kim’s Convenience’ as a Netflix sitcom. But, before the five-season run of the show about a Korean Canadian family who run a convenience store, there was Ins Choi’s original stage drama, which took the Toronto Fringe by storm when it premiered there in 2011. Now at the Park Theatre for its European premiere with Choi himself starring as shop owner Appa, it is produced with a glossy, if slightly odd cinematic quality, almost as if were made to be performed to a laughing live studio audience. Partly this is down to Mona Camille’s forensic corner shop set design, which stacks the shelves of the eponymous shop with ramen packets, Korean crisps and containers of kimchi. Drink fridges glow with a luminescent buzz and the walls are accessorised with phone sim posters and brand advert stickers: it is such a graphic replica you almost feel like you could wander in and buy something. The shop is the beating heart of Choi’s family comedy which offers a slice of a life of generational conflict between a father and his two children, as well as issues surrounding the immigrant experience and subtle cultural clashes. More than simply being a means to make money, the store is a base that roots this family into its community. Both of Appa’s grown-up children – Janet (Jennifer Kim) and Jung (Brioan Law) – worked there during their youths, spending summers pricing snacks and covering shifts for their parents. As adults though, it is a push-and-pull struggle to find thei

If you fancy some fantasy this Christmas, then Sophie Anderson’s much-loved YA novel ‘The House with Chicken Legs’ has been given exhilarating new life in Les Enfants Terribles’ production. A medley of grotesque, weird and wonderful twists and turns, the story which follows a young girl who lives in a house with chicken legs with her magical grandmother enchantingly jumps out from the pages and onto the stage. Co-directed by Oliver Lansley and James Seager and adapted by Lansley, it is based on the Baba Yaga myth of Slavic folklore, and is made with all the quintessential witchery of Les Enfants”’ previous shows. The fantastical elements are rich and mystical – there are delightful puppets and a set designed by Jasmine Swan that looks like something from another world. And yet, while the sense of mythology is ever present, it is ultimately a deeper meditation on death and loss for all ages. Lansley’s adaptation takes a while to cast its spell, but once the narrative starts rolling, it is hard not to be charmed. Twelve-year-old Marinka (Eve de Leon Allen) is desperate for a friend, human connection and a normal life, but has the responsibility of inheriting the family business of leading the dead through a gateway onto the next realm. She meets a young girl who may or may not be dead called Nina (Elouise Warboys) and they play together at the seaside. But although initially enticing, their time together proves to be dangerous, and leads to Marinka’s grandmother sacrificing her

If Neverland is supposed to be a place of wonder and fairy dust, then this production of ‘Peter Pan’ does a stellar job at bringing its twinkling spirit to the stage. Through the direction of Lucy Morrell, it is a collage of imagination, spun together with the most delightful puppets, weaving bedtime stories and a dash of enchantment. Of course, you know the plot. Adapted by Evan Placey, this version cleaves close to JM Barrie’s beloved original. A boy flies in through the window of a London home and befriends 14-year-old Wendy who, after an argument, has decided she despises her mother. So, with her two younger brothers in tow, they decide to take to the skies and head to Neverland - where parents are not around to bother them and growing up is impossible. Here, our Peter Pan is played with giddy mischievousness by Kaine Ruddach: he giggles with the lost boys, unaffected by real-life worries – even the possibility of a battle with the evil pirate Hook seems somewhat comical. And yet, this childlikeness makes him all the more endearing: it’s hard not to match his perma-grin that stretches from ear to ear. Though Ruddach is a bewitching Peter Pan, there is no doubt that it is the Rose Youth Theatre Company that have this production’s heart, serving fun, games and entertainment in bucketful. Wearing patchwork costumes designed by Oli Townsend, the Lost Boys band together in movement- their dances are as good as any on the West End and there is not one cast member who lets the t

‘I hope I’m making a good impression,’ says Tienne Simon as English literature first-year student Malachi – the subject of Kwame Owusu’s arresting, songlike monologue ‘Dreaming and Drowning’. But, he need not worry. In a mere 60 minutes, both he and Owusu have cemented themselves as some of the best, freshest and most agile talents of the year.  It is a story of mental health, hope and the joy of finding your people that begins on Malachi’s first night at Bristol University. With all the jitters and excitement that come with a new start, he bounds into his grey box room, ready to study his favourite Black fantasy authors and find ‘his people’. But below his cheery exterior, internal demons rise. Dark cracks of anxiety start to break through into seminar rooms. An oceanic, mythical beast dominates his thoughts. The horrors Malachi has read about in books mutate into tangible, earthly fears. Holly Khan’s sound design transforms hums into endless thumping – there’s the sense that something is trying to break Malachi apart. He’s dreaming. He’s drowning. He’s scrambling to stay afloat. Owusu’s script fluidly moves between reality and nightmare – he is a writer so dexterous we never feel jolted. As he journeys across campus, through friendship groups and sticky-floored, ‘Mr Brightside’-blasting clubs, Malachi works hard to fit in and find a place he can comfortably call home. It is a lesson in self-discovery: encounters with racist fellow students who love the sound of their own v