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

http://secondskintheatre.com/pages/

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

http://uk.matildathemusical.com/

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

www.waterlooeast.co.uk/

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

www.trh.co.uk/whatson/la-fille-a-la-mode/

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

www.theatredelicatessen.co.uk/productions/shelf-life/

Childsplay

Normand Park

13 October

We follow them around the park 

recalling games of children past,

and look how clothes and music changed

and children don’t play all the games 

they used to play – 

or is that what they always say?

Childsplay runs until Sunday 14 October

http://spidtheatre.com/wordpress/productions/whats-on/

The Most Gorgeous Lady Blessington

The Wallace Collection

12 October

Within the house there lies a gallery

of red brocade and gilt; and here she sits,

happy in silk, as in her portrait.

Here she travels time and continent,

recalling friends and creditors, husbands

and lovers, paintings and poetry;

and here her life unfurls and floats away, 

thinner and sadder now, as might a leaf 

from some grand old oak tree.

 

The Most Gorgeous Lady Blessington, by Tangent Theatre 

in association with The Wallace Collection

www.tangenttheatre.co.uk/