Katie Kirkpatrick - Page 3

Ella Lovelady’s debut play End of the World really does include everything but the kitchen sink. There’s a fridge, a kettle, plenty of cupboards, a dining table, and more. This could be said of not only the set but the writing too - with everything from being a young carer to climate change to periods, this is a broad, ambitious new play tackling big ideas.

Kit Sinclair’s 30 and Out takes a more adult approach to coming out narratives - a real life story of discovering yourself aged thirty, the show dives headfirst into queer sex, the club scene, homophobia, and relationships in a high energy hour of cabaret-style theatre.

As bass blasts through the speakers of the cave-like intimate theatre, Elle Dillon-Reams bursts onstage in a sequined jumpsuit, limbs pulsing in time to the rhythms. HoneyBEE, a solo performance combining spoken word, dance, gig theatre, physical theatre, and storytelling maintains this electric festival energy throughout. 

With rolling around on the floor, confetti, a paddling pool, and a toothbrush, The Last Show Before We Die is one of the most bizarre shows of this year’s festival. At the same time however, it’s one of the most moving. At its core, this is a show about endings. Last Show is formed around interviews with people from palliative care nurses to the cast’s grandparents about their experiences of all the endings we experience, from death to running out of toilet paper.

In Sophie Swithinbank's award-winning Bacon, friendship and love are inextricable from danger, anger, and hurt. It's a play that lives on the boundaries, the scales constantly tipping - literally, as the set takes the form of an oversized seesaw. 

In new British musical Ride, what begins as an small-scale story set in a small office expands into an adventure around the world. With only two women onstage and an intimate theatre space, we are taken on a vast journey encompassing themes of truth and identity.

Filled with gay panic and teenage crushes, Rachael Mailer’s new Doc Martin-wearing, U-Hauling, ex-girlfriend-dating new musical is a whole lot of fun. Coming in at under an hour, the show is packed with kick-ass performances, tongue-in-cheek jokes, and candid honesty, giving some much needed representation in musical theatre to queer women.

In their Fringe hit Godot is a Woman, Silent Faces theatre company explore Beckett and his estate’s refusal to allow women or non-binary people to perform his most famous play through a series of skits and spoofs on the play itself. The show is initially framed through a phone call to the estate which never goes through, leaving the characters in an all-too-familiar state of waiting.

Sugar Coat is a piece of gig theatre, telling a story of growing up, trauma, and sex through pop punk music. A kind of rock concert meets musical, it’s performed by an all female and non-binary band, playing and singing live for the duration of the show. From the very beginning, this doesn’t feel like a traditional theatre experience: the audience are whooping and clapping along, and it’s clear that everyone both onstage and off is having a great time. 

In Colossal, Patrick McPherson presents us with what initially seems to be a love story. As the show develops however, we gradually discover what it really is: a twisting, tricky tale of morality. McPherson has been on the Fringe circuit for a few years now, finding success in Edinburgh and in Perth.  Soho Theatre have developed a reputation for bringing the best of Fringe theatre to central London, and Colossal is yet another success.

After the Act is entirely different to any other musical currently running in London. Worlds away from the glitz and the glamour of the West End, theatre company Breach have tackled an era of British queer history through the form of a verbatim musical, and the result is a raw, creative performance like nothing else.

Sleepova is a lovingly told story of female friendship, and one that’s specifically - and proudly - Black and queer. Writer Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini introduces us to four best friends: Rey, Elle, Shan and Funmi.

Taking us from age 25 to death, this is a feat of theatre that captures the full human experience, presenting the highs and lows with remarkable honesty and warmth. You’ll feel joy, grief, sorrow, nostalgia, and every other emotion in Haley McGee’s magical solo show.

Akedah won the 2019 Bruntwood Prize Original New Voices Award, and is Michael John O’Neill’s first full length play. It’s a tricky show in every sense of the word: the themes are very heavy, with little levity, and the plot is often hard to keep track of, as new details about the characters’ past are gradually added. The result is a very bleak, emotionally fraught production that’s difficult to unpick.

It’s been a strong few months for Edinburgh Fringe transfers at Soho Theatre, and Fringe First winner Breathless is no exception. Written by Laura Horton based on her own experience, the show shines a light on the real life consequences of hoarding through a touching, warm-hearted one-woman show.

Willy Hudson’s Welcome Home is described on the theatre website as a 'queer sci-fi epic' - and epic it truly is, in every sense of the word. In a neon green fever dream of a one man show, Hudson tackles gay coming of age and religious shame, all while creating a rock concert meets gay club atmosphere on the Soho Theatre main stage.

Zak Zarafshan’s debut play dives into playground politics and marital disputes, but with a touch of divine intervention, and some Britney Spears for good measure. The show follows two sets of parents meeting to discuss a kiss between their two nine-year-olds sons, and the glittery queer guardian angels that help them figure it out.

Sound of the Underground, co-created by Travis Alabanza and Debbie Hannan, unleashes queer chaos on the historic Royal Court. Over the course of three acts, a cast of real London drag performers use every weapon in their arsenal to shed light on the realities of the city’s dying queer nightlife scene, the commercialisation of drag, the persistence of homophobia and transphobia, and the lack of money in the arts… but they have a lot of fun in doing so.

Any one of us could die at any time, with no warning and no reason behind it. This is the heartbreaking truth we grapple with in Tom Ratcliffe’s Wreckage, now running at the Turbine Theatre.

On the Ropes is a play about fighting - in more ways than one. In the first act, it’s about fighting in a very literal sense, tracking the boxing career of Vernon Vanriel. After the interval, however, Vanriel faces a new opponent: the Home Office’s new Windrush legislation. Combining a story that spans over fifty years with live singing and choreography, this is an expansive, ambitious production with a real life story at its core.