By Danielle Farrow Dr Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman is worth seeing simply as an unexpected experience. In a small theatre with a predominantly female audience, a male photographer at work on this occasion, women move boldly with blood (real or otherwise) and their often fully shown bodies, exploring menstruation and associated longings, lackings and judgements. […]
By Danielle Farrow Alan Bissett, with his own short crop and lack of any ‘feminine’ makeup, gives us Moira Bell – a woman fae Falkirk – through invisible cigarettes and weed, swearing, some crude attitude and anger issues that have instilled fear in the neighbourhood, and Moira Bell is beautiful. This show is […]
By Danielle Farrow The Power Behind the Crone is well acted, written and directed. Alison Skilbeck and director Tim Hardy present seven of Shakespeare’s older female characters in the framework of a University of the Third Age lecture – a very amusing one. Lecturer Artemis Turret had arranged for her friend from Oxford days, Bunti […]
By Danielle Farrow Thomas Ostermeier directs Berlin’s Schaubühne Theatre in a magnificently presented, forceful ‘Richard III’, that rests squarely on the shoulders of Lars Eidinger as Richard. These are strong shoulders, bent over before being corseted and neck braced into straightness, and complete with hump. Energetically shuffling through dry clay, kneeling naked beside a coffin, […]
By Danielle Farrow ‘Shakespeare Tonight’ interviews William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon as arch-rivals on a tv chat show hosted by a minor celebrity who is under pressure as this is – according to the producer – her last chance to book a second series. There are questions put to Shakespeare about his writing […]
By Danielle Farrow ‘Blood Will Have Blood’, from ImmerCity, is interactive, immersive theatre, where a story told via headphones includes instructions – not necessarily the same for everyone, we are informed (a good way to encourage individual participation) – and there are items with which to interact. In a forest setting, with twigs […]
By Danielle Farrow In ‘Droll’, the Owle Schreame theatre company presents three brief entertainments drawn from the 16th & 17th centuries: play sketches that are bawdy and fun, and here given some historical introduction. Drolls were performed, generally illegally, during the England’s Commonwealth interregnum era (1649-1660), when Puritan values led to the banning […]
By Danielle Farrow An ensemble moves through the space, creating hotspots – directing focus by all staring at the same point – and creating an atmosphere of togetherness that turns into pressure directed at one man; dozens of hanging lamps light a stage bare save for 5 huge red boxes which turn finally to […]
‘The Female Question’ works as a student theatre piece, where Shakespeare – along with a younger version of himself – meets with some of the female characters he created, hearing from them what they think of his depiction of women. As Juliet, Lady Macbeth, Kate and Ophelia present their woes, arguments and questions, […]
By Danielle Farrow Telling the tale of women – un-named on publication – who provided many of the stories for which the Brothers Grimm are famous, Fiercely Spun’s ‘Grimm: An Untold Tale’ uses a few changes of lighting colours, simple yet well-executed rhythmic moves and some apt props to illustrate their storytelling, which combines […]
