Theatre through the eyes of a Manc
Remember those painfully embarrassing sex education lessons in school? The ones where boys went in one room, and girls went into another to be taught about "girly stuff". Remember how unbelievably useless they were? Most people end up learning about puberty and sex through trial and error. Thankfully, Ugly Bucket Theatre are here to put... Continue Reading →
Ugly Bucket Theatre are a company of physical theatre performers that take the guise of clowns. These are not demonic, phobia-inducing clowns, like Pennywise, they are purely a group of highly skilled comics with painted faces. Their unique branch of physical comedy combines slapstick humour with techno dancing, to deliver an explosive examination of Bost-Uni Plues. No,... Continue Reading →
Wolf Hours is an audio-visual performance from Ben McGarvey, known artistically as Minute Taker. Performing his superb live music soundtrack alongside filmed videos, the show explores the psyches of gay men at different points in time. I first watched Wolf Hours at Sale Waterside Arts last year, as part of their Refract Festival, and it... Continue Reading →
Tania Camara's Oreo is named after the racial term and challenges the idea of whitening oneself to achieve success. It explores what it means to be authentic to yourself, expressed through the medium of performance art. For the duration of the piece, Camara doesn't utter a single word, yet skilfully manages to convey a profound... Continue Reading →
We live in an age of media globalisation, instantly bringing news from around the world to your fingertips. Sadly, the side effect of this overload of information is a sense of detachment and deniability. It is possible to be confronted with statistics that, globally, over 200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation (FGM) and... Continue Reading →
It's not very often that a piece of theatre has had such an impact on me that I end up watching it three times*. Danny and the Deep Blue Sea is one of these. It was one of the best shows I watched in 2019. Its characters moved me so much that they became seared into... Continue Reading →
Meet Kate. She’s a skank. Stuck in a job she hates, Kate dreams of being a writer. Anything to get away from her irritating co-workers; Anal Annie, Linda (who has the world’s most awful laugh), and her woefully dull manager, Chris. As relief from her mind-numbingly boring job, she investigates which of her colleagues have... Continue Reading →
"Divorced, Beheaded, Died. Divorced, Beheaded, Survived." Everybody is taught the rhyme in school. The fate of Henry VIII's wives is drilled into us at a young age. "Remember us from your GCSEs?". History teaches us about the tyrant king's six notorious marriages. We all know how they ended, but how much do we actually know... Continue Reading →
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2020! Despite the world seeming stuck in a perpetual purgatory of Brexit, Donald Trump and global warming, there is still cause to celebrate. Manchester's theatre scene continues to thrive. Whether you go regularly, or have made a resolution to see more theatre, there is always plenty to watch. Here are... Continue Reading →
I didn't want to end the year without shining a spotlight on the theatre companies that I discovered in 2019 who have really excited me. They have all produced outstanding, innovative work, which has pushed boundaries and showcased incredible talent. It has been a pleasure to discover these theatre companies, so I wanted to write... Continue Reading →
