REVIEW - SO YOU'VE FOUND ME - LION AND UNICORN THEATRE -

Written by Sam Moore, this monologue is a spirited, sharp (and brief!) identity manifesto from Blue Bar Productions. As Nemo, Luis Donegan-Brown blazes onstage for the 45-minute length with unflagging, skilfully modulated energy.

Donegan-Brown sustains a playful and vibrant interaction with the audience throughout the show. His performance as Nemo embraces humour, heartbreak, confusion, and defiance as he drives through the mire of the coming out process. As the world shifts and adjusts to new possibilities in sexual identity, parameters push wider. Coming out stories don’t necessarily fit the patterns that the gay population has embedded within their consciousness from across the decades. Stereotypes are torn apart. Labels relax. Awareness invites more scrutiny, well-intentioned or not. Nemo adopts a revolutionary strategy in his struggles against the insistence of people to categorise himself (“What are you?,” they demand) by refusing to offer easy explanation. Against the limitations of even the mighty, long-accepted power mantra of “I am what I am,” Nemo rises to the new level of “I am what I am becoming,” an individual in perpetual progress.

From early fumblings with girls through to the crude beginnings of the internet, Nemo has experienced all available connection. Early cyberspace offered a safe realm of textual fantasy where all manner of desire was indulged. The expectation was not so much to meet up realistically but to plug in to a sudden giddy surfeit of global community. The advent of dating apps and online porn bring new dimension, immediacy, and trepidation to sexual pursuits. There is a great comic moment when Nemo explains his utter bemusement in trying to negotiate porn websites, not ever quite resolving from which perspective he should be enjoying it. Inevitably, Nemo transitions to less abstract experiences. His recounting of an early pivotal relationship with a footballer takes the audience on a thrilling, perilous journey from the heights of ecstasy to the devastating blast of breakdown. Donegan-Brown communicates exquisitely the pain that lingers from never quite being able to comprehend just what went wrong. It brought a cruelly abrupt, shattering end that will define and set standards.

Nemo’s confessional is occasioned by his “outing” of a friend’s brother on a social app which leads to all sorts of self-justification and soul-searching. This brother is about to be married although he is offering himself online. Initially, Donegan-Brown is at manic pitch as he navigates this triggering event, showing his character is not quite comfortable with what he has done. The onus of explanation bears heavily on Nemo, inflicted by self and society. Whereas his straight brethren are able to grow into their sexuality with an ease of account, Nemo feels pressured to always clarify. Unexpectedly, it is his brother’s friend who is the ultimate agent of epiphany. At his wedding, asked point-blank how he can be such a contradiction, the man says he is honest and comfortable in the schism and can be all things at once. This shocks Nemo into the new realm of prospect, all restraint discarded. He has found himself. And the audience has found an intriguing, sympathetic, messy, flawed protagonist to embrace.

{🎟 AD – PR invite – Tickets were gifted in exchange for an honest review}

A PISSEDMAS CAROL – REVIEW – LEICESTER SQUARE
by Amy Rye
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
by Ellie Preston
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
by Tom Carrao
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
by Amy Rye
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
by George Rennie
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