55 stories by "Amy Merrigan"
Can an idea truly be original? Is the meaning of art determined by the artist or the viewer? Can monkeys produce art? These questions and more are chewed over in Some Thing New, a coll…
I didn’t really know much about Ada Lovelace, but probably should have.  Born in 1815,  she wrote the first ever program (or algorithm) for a computer. Devised by Edinburgh…
When originally performed in 1920, La Ronde was vehemently controversial, even prompting personal and anti-Semitic attacks towards playwright Arthur Schnitzler. The play is a series of…
 First performed in 2001, and numerous times since, Jason Robert Brown’s acclaimed musical The Last Five Years is the story of one relationship told over its five year duration, wit…
Close Up is a dance, physical theater and Circus show from award winning company, Circa. It’s chock full of amazing acrobatics, dance and circus tricks " things to make you laugh, thin…
So here's the deal: you've got a troop of actors and an energetic compere. The audience shouts out what they want to see in terms of location, a couple of characters, opening number and name…
Barely two minutes into Mancunian Rhapsondy, a “true-ish, jew-ish musical comedy” and BAM, there's the Hitler joke. Not the most subtle reference, but best to get it out the way …
Here's a confession: any hint of puppets in plays tends to make me pretty cynical. Maybe it's the awful image of sock puppets that jumps to mind, maybe it's some traumatic experience I've bl…
About a third of the way into Girl From Nowhere, Jeannie (Victoria Rigby) picks up her guitar, and finally lets rip that bluesy rock and roll she loves. From her box filled attic we are tran…
The time is 1650 and revolution is in the air. Caryl Churchill's play is about Ranters, Levellers, Diggers and the gentry. Or in other words, the English Civil War, seen through snapshots of…
For one week only at Battersea Arts Centre, spoken word artist Polarbear, aka Steven Camden , is reviving his original show with If I Cover My Nose You Can't See Me. It is, as I learnt fr…
As part of their second season of ‘Into the Mire’, Boireannach theatre presents Dealanach at the Vault Festival in Waterloo for a run of just two nights. A devised piece of verba…
Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone is a co-production of five short plays from Les Foules and the MKA theatre of new writing. As part of the Vault Festival, the show is here for a shor…
If you are after a jolly, rousing Christmas show "Â one that might make you walk out filled with the joys of the festive season and ready to sing 'Step into Christmas' at the top of your l…
On walking into the rebranded spanking new Dorfman Theatre, you would be forgiven for thinking that the National had paid the wrong developers. The Dorfman doesn't look like a theatre, it lo…
Immersive theatre is a certainly a strange world, but it is one that I've found increasingly enjoyable the more I encounter. My latest experience of it was CoLab's Fifth Column, a spy thr…
Oh, the Humanity and Other Good Intentions is the maiden outing from End of Moving Walkway, a newly formed production company founded by a group of students. You tend to be inclined to e…
So Hostage Song, now on at the Finborough Theatre, is described as 'an indie rock musical' about two American hostages held captive in an unspecific time and place. No, I didn't really know …
A Simple Space is rather like watching up close the kind of amazing acrobatics you see on Britain's Got Talent, but with all the cheesy 'I Have a Dream' nonsense firmly removed, and a great …
Aristotle talks a lot about the importance of plot. He considers plot the most important ingredient of drama. Sadly that plot was missing from Belka Production's A Dashing Fellow. This pr…
Secret Cinema events are, as my friend commented “quite the strangest evening” you can imagine. This is the second Secret Cinema event I have been to, and I have to say they do k…
Have you ever seen a jazz clarinet playing Hades? Or a mincing French Hermes? No? Funnily enough, I thought not. To fill that almighty hole in your life, you should get along to the Batterse…
If you haven't already, watch The Grand Budapest Hotel trailer. Imagine what it might be like if that came to life in a large warehouse-like building in the middle of London. That is more or…
So, it's 9pm on a Wednesday and I find myself hiding behind a curtain from some security guards with my nose pressed against a window, looking out over Marylebone High Street with a guy I kn…
I am a frequent visitor to Peckham but I never realised it had a theatre in in, and certainly not one so vast " but here I am at The Bussey Building, and right now it is housing the Whist…
