Friday 30 November 2012

Arab Nights

Soho Theatre
28 November

Shahrazad, bright as a lamp 
and full of fire, nightly tells a story 
for her life: filling the dark 
with dreams and danger, 
love, adventure and the quick 
of golden flickering matchlight.



Arab Nights is on tour until 13 December
http://www.mettatheatre.co.uk/productions/arab-nights/ 

Monday 26 November 2012

The Cat's Mother

Hoxton Courtyard
22 November

Windowless, we lose our way
where strange reality
meets blacked-out dream;
and stumble headlong into stories
blacker than they seem.

The Cat’s Mother plays at the Courtyard Theatre until 8 December
http://www.thecourtyard.org.uk/whatson/281/the-cats-mother

Tuesday 20 November 2012

NSFW

Royal Court
19 November

They do not deal in love -
only in sex and skin, bodily flaws
and imperfections. They are safe

behind their slick demands
and steely walls – the palaces
they build for glamour scum.

NSFW runs at the Royal Court until 24 November


Thursday 15 November 2012

Constellations

Duke of York's Theatre
14 November

Beautiful white balloons and galaxies
where couples meet 
as though they were the first
to live this way – each word a choice, 
unseen, but now a fragment
of a new reality. Like bees they fly 
above the city – so intent,
although they cannot see their way
or which of all these worlds
will be their destiny.

Constellations plays at the Duke of York's Theatre until 5 January 2013

Monday 12 November 2012

Quills

White Rabbit Cocktail Club
10 November

White-faced and wigged
and robed (or not) in silk 
the Marquis sits,elegant 
in his strange small cell of sin;
his fantasies played out in ink
upon his bed sheets: 
stories that slither 
in the ears of madmen.
 

Quills was presented by Second Skin Theatre, 
17 October - 11 November 2012

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Matilda the Musical

Cambridge Theatre
6 November

They erupt, these children,
naughty little newts and bookworms,
daring to defy both cake and school,
playing with superglue and telling stories
you would weep to hear.

They are as loud and bright
as fireworks onstage, exploding
in the face of huge, mad Trunchbull
and those odious Wormwoods.
I adored it all – 
especially the scooter curtain call.


Matilda the Musical plays at the Cambridge Theatre

Sunday 4 November 2012

The President and the Pakistani



Waterloo East Theatre
3 November

Here, in a square of cardboard boxes
and the lull of leaving, fighting,
losing a dog, dancing and drugs
and 80s breakbeat, Moby Dick
and pained surprise and loss
and new ways out and on and up at last;
here are the seeds of a new president
emerging in a flat in Harlem,
and the rest is history.
 

The President and the Pakistani played at the Waterloo East Theatre, 3 October - 4 November

Saturday 3 November 2012

La Fille a la Mode


Theatre Royal Haymarket
2 November


Follow the girl in red foyer to bar,
up stairs and down,
down labyrinthine passageways
and in and out of plush plum velvet chairs.

They like a drink, these girls
who know too well the price of fame,
perfume and sex.  Their stories linger
like a bitter aftertaste to their success.
 

La Fille a la Mode runs at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until 9 November


Thursday 1 November 2012

Shelf-Life



Theatre Delicatessen
 29 October

Balloon in hand you bowl along
the grimy corridors of birth
and school, uni mistakes
and cheap satiny weddings;
then emerge onto a rooftop
in the rain, above a city gleaming stars,
streetlamps below, and all about you
white balloons are letting go.
 

Shelf-Life runs at Theatre Delicatessen until 10 November