Katie Kirkpatrick

Bedazzled with sequins and bouncing with 90s pop, Bright Places is a technicolour journey through a Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis. Heaps of educational fun, it imbues what is at its core a tough, life-altering experience with energy and creativity.

A film that’s all one shot of one colour may not sound like much, but Derek Jarman’s Blue is a rich, intricate tapestry, and a landmark piece of queer filmmaking. For World Aids Day 2024, the film has been reimagined as a live performance, with the voices of queer actors and poets, and a new live score.

Expendable, written by Emteaz Hussain, all takes place in a family kitchen. As the play begins, we meet Zara (Avita Jay) – a Pakistani mother living in northern England – as she chops onions. This environment of domestic familiarity is quickly disturbed by a knock on the door, and a buzz of tension and fear descends on the scene. From this starting point, the show develops into a morally complex examination of the intersection of sexism and racism in British Muslim communities. 

Colourful and full of detail, Eleanor Tindall’s Tender is an engrossing evening of theatre. Combining the sweetness of a contemporary queer rom-com with the dark underbelly of body horror, the play showcases two excellent performances and some stunning design work.

There’s no shortage of shows about death in the London theatre scene. None, however, reach the same level of raw vulnerability, honesty, and heart as Sh!t Theatre, Or What’s Left Of Us. Laying themselves bare, amid a rousing repertoire of folk songs, duo Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole deliver a show that’s hard to forget. 

Now this is how you do historical theatre. Eccentrically re-imagined yet alarmingly real, James Fritz's The Flea is masterfully made. The show is a quirky retelling of a forgotten piece of queer British history: in an unlikely chain of events, the secrets of a gay brothel threaten to bring down some of the country’s best-known politicians and royals.

Based on Ali Smith’s novel, Autumn is a curious blur of images and ideas, which weave in and out of each other with varying success. At the centre of it all, however, is an unlikely friendship, originally formed between an eight-year-old girl and the elderly man next door.

Digging deep into human nature, Oli Forsyth’s Brace Brace combines the pace and excitement of a thriller with an unexpectedly perceptive intelligence. Ambitiously designed and skillfully directed, it’s a deeply engrossing piece of theatre writes our critic.

On the press night for My English Persian Kitchen, the smell of chopped onion, mint, and garlic wafts down the stairs of Soho Theatre. Hannah Khalil’s atmospheric play, combining true storytelling and live cooking, turns these scents into stories rooted in real life. Fresh from the Traverse programme at Edinburgh Fringe, the show comes to Soho for its London run.

At once intimate and expansive, The Real Ones follows the friendship of Zaid and Neelam from age nineteen to thirty-six. Once kindred spirits, moving in sync, they fall out of step when the harsh reality of adult life sends them in different directions. Waleed Akhtar (Olivier winner for The P Word) pens a sharply observed look into whether platonic love can last.

The friendship at the heart of Knives and Forks is almost as vivid and messy as the show's backdrop. As the story of Iris and Thalia unfolds, their body doubles decorate the back wall with paint, ink, spray cans, chalk, paper, and more. Written by Danielle James, this abstract, expressive piece explores female friendship with a bold new approach.

Combining a tender romance with a sci-fi twist, Conversations We Never Had, offers a new take on the girl-meets-girl rom-com, throwing its characters into an unthinkable scenario. After an awkward meeting in line for the loo at a house party, Gina and Frankie fall in love. Six years later, following a tumultuous breakup, Gina finds a way to erase their relationship entirely. With one little pill from the internet, she explains to her ex, it’ll be as though they never met.

“Being queer is the best, right?” In Kathrine Payne’s debut solo show plewds, all is not as it seems.  Slowly, the show’s sparkly pink facade begins to splinter and crack, and a darker truth makes its way to the surface. Told through character comedy, clowning, audience interaction, and movement, this is a feat of queer theatre.

As slick and suave as its performers’ suits, The Mosinee Project is a curious little piece of documentary theatre. It takes as its subject an experiment carried out in the American midwest in 1950: to demonstrate the threat of communism, agents staged a faux communist takeover of the small town of Mosinee. It’s a fascinating set-up, but unfortunately the show doesn’t quite live up to its intrigue. 

Katie Arnstein’s new show The Long Run manages to make a tricky topic into something heartfelt, warm, and even, at times, funny. Much of this is due to Arnstein’s welcoming, accessible style of storytelling – as an audience member, it feels like she’s speaking to you directly, with the perfect balance of confidence and vulnerability. Her distinct writing style features plenty of quips, puns, and self-aware nods, making it feel real as opposed to hidden behind theatrical artifice.

Ugly Sisters is one of those shows that leave you wondering what on earth you just watched – and then stays stuck in the back of your mind for days to follow. This follow-up to 52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals features a leafblower, a ballgown, nudity, dirt, and controversial feminist Germaine Greer. It’s a lot, sure, but in this bold, ambitious production, the result is a piece of theatre like no other.

Penthesilea is the queen of the Amazons, a race of warrior women who can only sleep with men they’ve defeated in battle. When she falls for the Greek warrior Achilles, an inevitable tragedy is set in motion. Arbo and the ITA Ensemble bring their version of the myth to the Edinburgh International Festival for its premiere, following her hit EIF production of The End of Eddy in 2022.  

Australian smash hit Fangirls encapsulates everything it is to be a mega fan of something. A sequin-embellished crusade of obsession and desperation, Yve Blake’s musical stretches from euphoric highs to gutting lows, without ever losing its sense of fun.

Intricately weaving together a tapestry of different times and places, Nassim Soleimanpour’s ECHO is a feat of creative technology. Performed by a different celebrated actor each night, the performance offers a sharply intelligent take on immigration and national identity. 

Sarah Power’s Grud is a show about space – in more ways than one. When Bo joins an after school club mission to send a model robot into the stars, it causes the space between her home life and the rest of the world to narrow until it disappears completely. Grud follows sixth form student Bo (Catherine Ashdown), who’s whip-smart but something of a loner.