Society’s obsession with the true crime genre knows no bounds, so Pillow Talk Theatre have capitalised upon this by creating Criminally Untrue, a completely improvised and never before seen true crime documentary.
Upon entering the space, a projection of a board of sticky notes immediately grabs your attention. The notes display: people, suspects, locations, clues, and dates, Dru Cripps on the sound desk fills in the details as we progress, with all elements taken from audience suggestions. We ended up with Problem With The Pool(try) – a food crime committed at an underground swimming pool in Manchester. Someone has tampered with the chicken nuggets!
In keeping with a documentary, during some sections of the show, a hot seat is used with the cast taking turns speaking to the imaginary camera. Each cast member taps the shoulder of the person sitting in the seat to take over from them, and hilarious, outlandish characters are created in front of us. This is quite a chaotic moment within the show, as it’s filled with the ideas of five people, bouncing off of suggestions from the audience and each other, thus being slightly convoluted with ideas and difficult to follow, although Dru Cripps’ notes help us here.
The cast is formed of Jonathan Oldfield, Lorna Rose Treen, Steve Duffy, Orla Newmark, and Will Hughes, all of them prove effortlessly funny, you can tell that an hour spent with them offstage would also be hilarious. They work incredibly well together, to the point that they seem able to predict what the other is going to do at times, joining in immediately, building on ideas, and heightening the comedic effect.
Will Hughes is hysterical throughout, displaying excellent comedic timing by allowing jokes to properly land before progressing. He brilliantly incorporates the sound of the train’s overhead into a bit, by announcing that the scene is taking place at Heathrow airport. Jonathan Oldfield has an impressive stage presence, commanding attention and working the crowd splendidly. Each character he creates, he fully embodies, creating mannerisms which mean we know exactly who he has become each time he morphs into them. The cast take on a wide variety of accents and dialects during the performance, and I had no idea which voices were actually their own by the end of the show.
As if the show couldn’t get more random, when someone is chosen from the audience to be the lawyer, it turns out he genuinely is one!
Criminally Untrue has a winning formula, the segments included are a stroke of genius, from a bit where conspiracy theories play out in front of us, to the ending in which the cast interacts with the audience, answering our questions on what we’ve just seen, in character.
Every member of this cast gives a stellar performance, all highly energetic, and hysterically funny. This is one of the best improv shows I’ve seen, it is incredibly well thought out and structured. Side-splittingly funny from beginning to end, this is a show that lovers of comedy and true crime will adore, Netflix is seriously missing a trick here, as this is a show I could binge-watch!
VAULT Festival has been left without a venue for 2024’s festival and beyond
• VAULT Festival have launched a #SaveVAULT campaign
• The campaign aims are to raise £150,000 by 19th March to support the festival’s survival AND to secure a new home for the festival to continue.
• You can help by donating, helping access funding networks, and helping then find a venue.
• You are officially implored to make the most of 2023’s Festival while it lasts!
{🎟 AD – PR invite – Tickets were gifted in exchange for an honest review}
2 Star Review 3 Star Review 4 Star Review 5 Star Review 2022 2023 Adaptation Almeida Cabaret Camden Fringe Cast Announcement Christmas Comedy Dance Drag Edinburgh Fringe Edinburgh Fringe Interviews Fringe Immersive Interviews Jukebox Musical LGBTQIA+ Lyric Hammersmith Manchester Musical New Musical News New Wimbledon Theatre North West Off West End Park Theatre Play Review Revival Richmond Theatre Round Up Royal Court Theatre Shakespeare Show Announcement Show Recommendations Soho Theatre Southwark Playhouse Touring Production VAULT Festival West End
- A PISSEDMAS CAROL – REVIEW – LEICESTER SQUARE
The infamous Sh!t Faced Showtime are back in London with a festive edition, they have taken Dickens’ classic and put a drunken spin on it. The formula is the same as other iterations of the Shi!t Faced shows, one member of the cast has been boozing, and this time it is John Milton who plays Scrooge. Before the show, half a bottle of Jim Beam, some wine, and beer have been consumed in the previous 4 hours. The rest of the cast, try to keep the show on track, also aided by James Murfitt as the compere, Charles Dickens. The … More A PISSEDMAS CAROL – REVIEW – LEICESTER SQUARE - A CHRISTMAS CAROL – REVIEW – ALEXANDRA PALACE
Spine-tingling yet heart-warming, Mark Gatiss’s retelling of A Christmas Carol truly encapsulates the haunting atmosphere of a Victorian ghost story, balanced out with enough humour so as to capture the festive season. Led by Keith Allen as Scrooge, with Peter Forbes as Marley, this show is perfect for Christmas viewing. The set design by Paul Wills is instantly captivating, containing stacks of metal cabinets towering over the theatre, moveable by the cast to allow space for other central props like doors, beds and tables. In addition to this, the puppetry design by Matthew Forbes is incredibly clever, adding creepy elements to the show such … More A CHRISTMAS CAROL – REVIEW – ALEXANDRA PALACE - A WOMAN WALKS INTO A BANK – REVIEW – THEATRE503
The title of this winner of Theatre 503’s 2023 International Playwriting Award by Roxy Cook may seem like the set-up to a joke, but the narrative that unspools is instead an affectionate, gently barbed and at base quite sobering portrait of three ordinary souls (and one restless feline) adrift in modern Moscow. There is much affable, satirical back-and-forth commentary on the accepted myths & stereotypes of the Russian spirit & soul. Beset by the indignities of age, opportunism, graft, fatigue, the characters orbit one another, doomed to play out their roles in an unjust, predatory and saturnine universe. The play opens … More A WOMAN WALKS INTO A BANK – REVIEW – THEATRE503 - PETER PAN GOES WRONG – REVIEW – LYRIC THEATRE
Peter Pan Goes Wrong first premiered in London at the Pleasance Theatre in 2013, and earlier this year the show made its Broadway debut. Now the production is back in the West End for the Christmas season. Following on from The Play That Goes Wrong, in this production, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is staged by the fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society and goes awry, disastrously so. The meta-comedy is filled with slapstick comedy, sometimes the humour may be predictable and silly, but it’s universally funny throughout – there is something for everyone here, and the laughs come thick and fast … More PETER PAN GOES WRONG – REVIEW – LYRIC THEATRE - GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT – REVIEW – SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE
Drawing heavily from the classic canon of the British supernatural, HighTide’s trio of contemporary Gothic narratives uses traditional storytelling formats to address contemporary themes. Directed by Elayce Ismail, reverent musical interludes accompany tales of apparitions and nighttime conjurings that speak of women from the East of England. Unfortunately, the effect is less chilling and more lightweight, with conventional structures, predictable plot twists and an over-reliance on external forces to drive narrative shoring up some of the less relatable aspects of the genre. Nicola Werenowska’s The Beach House, perhaps the cleanest of the three tales, tells of a mother and daughter’s … More GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT – REVIEW – SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE