Thursday 23 August 2012

Project X

London Transport Museum

Start here, in a circle
just as mystified as you, a brain-flushed
roll-call, a meeting of sorts.

Here is your history: a passport
with your face but not your name,
a past you don’t recall at all.

Here is your task: a mission
for your own unravelling, clues to examine,
secrets to swallow.

Follow your instincts out there,
watch your back amongst a strange parade
of characters, riff raff of an unfamiliar universe;

but for all that they’re all you have: talk to them,
barter, charm, get what you need and go
before your time runs out.
 

Project X runs at the London Transport Museum until 4 November 2012


Tuesday 14 August 2012

The Economist (Edfringe collection)


Taut and tense, one man
obsessed and we are looking
straight into his mind,

his madness, wound up
tight, pushed to the edge, dreadful
and terrifying.


MKA: Theatre of New Writing (Australia)
C-nova, until 27 August


George’s Marvellous Medicine (Edfringe collection)

Hideous grandma
deserves all she gets –
even a mixture

so wild it turns her
into a monster, and then
a pea-sized nothing.


Rubber Duck Theatre
Gryphon Venues at the Point Hotel, until 11 August

The Loves I Haven’t Known (Edfringe collection)


With a smile you sing
of all the girls you never
quite kissed. But nearly.

All the girls you loved
but didn’t tell. Brilliant, sweet,
left us all smiling.


Bush and McClusky
C-nova, until 18 August

The Election – a silent comedy (Edfringe collection)


Purple party: ties,
crisps, booze, mistakes and slip ups –
who would vote for you?


Awkward Cough Theatre Company
Bedlam, until 18 August

As of 1.52pm GMT on Friday April 27th 2012, This Show Has No Title (Edfringe collection)


Kitson reads his script
aloud, ad libs, and delights
us all, and himself. 


Daniel Kitson
Traverse, until 26 August

The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart (Edfringe collection)


Ringmaster, oily
and ingratiating, greets
and tells the story

of a boy whose heart
is kept going with clock parts
and will soon run out.


Jimmy Grimes
Pleasance Courtyard, until 27 August

The Velveteen Rabbit (Edfringe collection)


A sweet, sad story
of one rabbit’s way: journey
from velvet to ‘real’.


Backhand Theatre with C theatre
C eca, until 27 August

A Strange Wild Song (Edfringe collection)


Three boys, pyjamas,
wooden swords – a story told
in heartfelt fragments;

each movement precise
and perfect, funny and sweet,
beautiful and sad.


Rhum and Clay Theatre Company
Bedlam, until 25 August

A Little Princess (Edfringe collection)


Lovely, tragic tale;
in the face of cruelty,
the magic of dreams.


Belt Up
C-nova, until 27 August

After the Rainfall (Edfringe collection)


In the darkness, tracks
are washed away. In real life
that never happens.


curious directive
Pleasance Dome, until 27 August

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Timon of Athens


Suited and starched,
encircled by leopard friends
and champagne waiters.

From slick to hobo
he plumbs the depths, the bombsite
of his assumptions.
 
 
Timon of Athens plays at the National Theatre until 31 October

Tuesday 7 August 2012

Jack the Ripper’s London


5 July
Crow Theatre

I’m not the tourist type, I don’t like crowds
or sharing my adventures with a mob,
but this is different. Victoria, our guide,
leads us astray down alleyways,
her black umbrella bobbing up ahead.
Quickly we leave the sun and crowds
of London Bridge behind and slip
into a darker place beneath a railway arch,
black and uneven, dank and dripping.
There’s something here to see, a space,
a wall he might have written on,
but then, before we half expect, like Alice
falling headlong in another world,
we step into another century. Another city.
Poor and fetid, rancid and rat-ridden, urchins
and inn keepers on every side, street hawks
and prostitutes. There’s a woman in threadbare velvet
on my arm, a boy under my feet, a man
leading my boyfriend off into the dark.
And now a street brawl, yells and punches,
a girl getting pushed around, a man in grubby overalls
breathing gin down our necks.
Into the pub. A sing song. A bit rowdy
but what d’you expect. They’re petrified.
These murders, see. Them girls. Those bodies.
Enough to make you faint, or scream, or down your drink
and run away into the dark, dark night.
Another gin. A speech. A song. Where did she go?
She’s gone. Who was that man with hair and eyes so black
he could have stepped straight out of hell,
a grim Tim Burton fantasy if ever there was one.
At last, sated with murder and an age old story,
fingers black with dirt and coal dust,
ears full of old music hall songs
and eyes fresh with a glimpse of another age,
we stumble out, delighted
with our escape, our survival, our luck.
 

Jack the Ripper's London, by Crow Theatre, 
performed in the tunnels underneath London Bridge Station

Various performance dates in 2012:

Saturday 4 August 2012

home:scape

Tara Arts
02 July

Dancing, music, space;
darkness and suitcases.
Beautiful and on the brink
of something deep.
I wish I knew those words
and what it might all mean.
 

home:scape runs at Tara Arts until 4 July 
Further tour dates to be announced