Cindy Marcolina - Page 51

Peter Darney brings back his highly acclaimed and disturbingly honest 5 Guys Chillin' to King's Head Theatre. After an original run in 2005, the show has touched audiences at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, and the SoHo Playhouse in New York. The play challenges the uncomfortable implications that come with  the practice of ChemSex, the sexualised drug use largely spread among gay men. By interviewing real consumers and transposing their words verbatim, the playwright and director is effective and straight to the point.

Five people face the shame that comes with being exposed in the digital age: a woman dealing with her younger sister's sex tape being published; a father coming to terms with his daughter's sexuality and his relationship with porn; a scorned woman's revenge on an ex-boyfriend; an app developer's faux pas; and a young woman's self-love discovery that turns against her. The tales are joined by a thread consisting of sex, porn, and the impulsiveness and appeal of new media.

Lettice Douffet (Felicity Kendal), a tour guide at Fustian House, has inherited her mother's penchant for theatricality. This inclination leads her to filling the gaps in the boring history of the stately home with embellishments and imaginative stories. Her dismissal by her supervisor Lotte Schoen (Maureen Lipman) oddly marks the start of a timid friendship that will develop into a fascinating adventure for the two lonely women.

In a zombie-raided Scotland, best friends Paul (Paul Thirkell) and Rob (Finlay Bain) have found refuge in an abandoned flat. Out of luck, they managed to surround themselves with all kinds of comforts, so they've accustomed to a shielded, secure life in their sanctuary away from the horrors of the real world. Their lives turn upside down with the arrival of Penelope (Pearl Appleby), a young woman who survived a lot more than just zombies.

At the end of World War Two, Annie (Ruth Gemmell) and Isabella (Emma Paetz) are being interviewed in Poland by the Allied forces. The two women tell two sides of the same story: the former - a Commander's wife whose biggest dream when she was younger was to become a dancer but is forced into marriage - recalls her married life with her husband Frederick, the latter - a ballet dancer - explains how she was picked from a concentration camp because the Commander wanted a ballet dancer for his party.

The Last Five Years recounts Cathy and Jamie's five-year long relationship. With music, lyrics, and book by Jason Robert Brown, it's an intricate work: while Jamie narrates his side of the tale in chronological order, Cathy's is flipped, going from the end to the start of their happiness together. The characters interact only once in the middle of the show, when their timelines converge for the span of their wedding song ("The Next Ten Minutes").

Dennis Potter's 1976 work finds new life with Matthew Parker. Written as a television play but never broadcasted due to its disturbing plot, it was finally produced at the Sheffield Crucible in 1977. Now, 40 years later, its revival is unsettling and relevant as then.

Even the toughest heart of stone will turn into a paper heart with Liam O'Rafferty's new musical. After winning over audiences in 2016 during Edinburgh Fringe Festival with its 75-minute version, the show has now grown in a two-act, fully developed, heartwarming, and uplifting piece of theatre directed by Tania Azevedo.

Andy Bewley directs Joe Mackenzie's mostly disappointing but highly energetic adaptation of Shakespeare's tragic tale. Set in a universe where football is almost considered a religion, Romeo and Juliet are young men whose forbidden love threatens the foundation of their two families.

Set in a Nazi-dominated Germany in 1941, Stephen Unwin's debut play is an affecting examination of humanity, hypocrisy, and morality.

The inaugural production in the refurbished Bush Theatre's new studio space is the latest play from Barney Norris. Directed by Alice Hamilton, it's a searching exploration of loneliness and reunion set against a sympathetically drawn south-of-England backdrop.

During its celebrations for Canada's 150th birthday, Finborough Theatre sees the premiere of Late Company. Jordan Tennahill's play is a poignant reflection tackling bullying, sexuality, and teenage suicide from the point of view of the ones who survive the victim.

After breaking up five years prior, Charlie (Samuel Lawrence) writes a quite melodramatic letter to Vic (Katharine Davenport), his ex-girlfriend, confessing how he is dead inside, and how he almost feels as if he were rotting away. He is a medical mystery, his heart is not pumping any blood and his organs are de facto dead.

Bill Rosenfield premieres his play 46 Beacon in the United Kingdom with director Alexander Lass at the helm. His tale of identity, pride, and becoming is warm and viciously funny at Trafalgar Studios.

In the Barbican's vast space, Cheek by Jowl presents their formidable, modern-dress take on Shakespeare's account of blind jealousy, suspicion, abandonment, loss, and young love. The company is back for the first time since their 2015 Measure for Measure, as part of a new global tour.

Written and directed by Adura Onashile, Expensive Shit is not afraid to show an uncomfortable truth. Going back and forth between Lagos in 1994 and Glasgow in 2013, the play revolves around Tolu, a toilet attendant, and her relationship to women and men around her.

Celebrating the 150th year from its first production, Caste at Finborough Theatre is an underwhelming classist act with a polyester feel.

Music is the centrepiece at Hadley Fraser and Will Butterworth's show at Zedel. During the evening, they revisit classics - ranging from Broadway's beloved Stephen Sondheim, and touching Paul Simon, Harry Connick Jr, Nat King Cole, and Stevie Wonder - as if Tony Bennett and Bill Evans were to produce the arrangements.

Premiering in the United Kingdom at Southwark Playhouse, Glenn Waldron's Natives is a brilliant view onto what it means to grow up as a millennial, and it shows the perils precluded to anyone who isn't one.

Directed by Phil Willmott on the ever-changing Finborough Theatre's stage, Incident At Vichy is impactful and thought provoking.