39 stories by "Tom Shore"
It's a busy old place is London, with its dangers and its shelters. One of the key questions at the heart of REMOTE LONDONÂ is whether we're most at home as individuals, or as a group " as…
Under his moniker, The Queer Historian, performance artist Tommy is here to show us the scars that homophobia leaves, physical and emotional. When Tommy was 15, a group of boys he knew assau…
It's always a risk when you try to universally capture the very personal experience of being young, even in a youth production. The Fall by the National Youth Theatre takes it one great hubr…
It all starts at breakneck speed with two lovers clashing fencing foils. Cassandra wants only to marry, move in together and nest. But don't confuse her for a gentle flower; her temperament …
The preset for OPIA Theatre Company's Unnatural Selection makes a rather accurate observational comment on a doctor's waiting room. Two smartly dressed women sit bored, one picking lint off …
It’s difficult to critique plays that are in any way autobiographical, especially when they're about grief and loss. But Happiness is a Cup of Tea left me pondering the difficulty. In …
Edmond Rostand's 1897 comedy may be over a century old, but there is nothing aged about it. The lyrical sparring and mockery throughout made for a fully rousing press night at Southwark Play…
Run by Poleroid Theatre, this scratch night is well worth catching. It runs more regularly at the Hackney Attic, Castle Hotel Manchester and the Edinburgh Festival, but Vault Festival hosts …
We start with instructions about our headphones. Each audience member has a pair. And then with a clunk, we're enveloped into the pitch black. "It's a normal reaction to an abnormal situatio…
Lyle Kessler's most famous play received critical praise from the off when it premiered in 1983. A 2013 Broadway revival starring Tom Sturridge, Ben Foster, and Alec Baldwin received two Ton…
It's a lingering peaty smell that unsettles me as we enter the space. Jennifer Swingler, Sacha Plaige and Charles Adrian form a contorted tableaux less than a meter from the front row. They …
joue le genre's one-woman show pitches to us that Shakespeare wrote no decent roles for women. But to make matters worse, theatre institutions " from the powerhouses in the West End to our l…
When the box office assistant tells you that the show you've been sent to review is actually a rehearsed reading, I hope I'm not the only theatre fanboy to hope they are about to witness an …
The Puppet Theatre Barge, currently on a summer tour of the Thames but usually found in Little Venice, was established in the late 1970s with the intention of promoting marionette theatre. W…
We begin at 1,000,000 BC, with a set of scattered household furniture and timer starting at 1,000,000 projected onto the back wall. This begins to drop through the years at pace advancing to…
As a play and as a performance there are elements of Splendour that I have not seen bettered this year. At the curtain call, I found myself with a reflex-like conviction in its quality. My r…
Having just been put through the grind of flat hunting myself, Ross Hatt's skit as the zealous estate agent in We Know Where You Live's first scene is a real treat. Ben (Matt Whitchurch) and…
Buckets is a play about making the most of time, and dealing with the fact that one day we're all going to run out of it. What's great about Adam Barnard's script is that it's an antidote re…
Entering the cavernous studio space within The Roundhouse, I didn't quite notice Sophie Rose at first " talking easily with audience members in a front row of soft sofas " until I noticed th…
The Yard’s NOW ’15 festival plays a double bill each night, the acts changing with the weeks. The night's more experienced second act mentors the fledgling first, and you get twi…
It is Max Newman's (Alan Cox) finest hour. Despite a flighty political past and dubious tabloid reputation " very consciously modelled on Boris Johnson " he is the darling of the voting publ…
We enter straight into the dance floor of a lively gay bar in the year 2000, around about the time that this musical by Jonathan Harvey and the Pet Shop Boys was written and originally stage…
There is a moment in The Heart of Adrian Lovett where the actors decide to do away with the fourth wall, pull up a couple of chairs and begin a conversation with the audience about how to fi…
Choreographed by the late great monolith of contemporary dance, Pina Bausch, Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei gehört (On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard) is an unusual spectacle. At times …
Now I would never label myself a sci-fi nut, but Pioneer was one of the best things that I have seen in the last twelve months. It is an outstanding show, both in concept and execution that …
