ROSEWATER (Tramp)*****

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UnHq07HDm4

Available until: Unknown

I love seeing the one-word titles of Philip Ridley’s The Beast Will Rise series and trying to guess what it might be about. It could be about anything. There’s a flavoured water called rosewater. It can be used in recipes or on your skin or hair or it can be used for a perfume or aromatherapy. Google says you can also buy it in Waterstones, but I think google is lying. It’s always lying. Unless there’s a book called Rosewater, I suppose.

A LIVE STREAM WITH LEE MEAD: ON WITH THE SHOW (Brasserie Zedel/Crazy Coqs)*****

By Louise

Link: https://www.brasseriezedel.com/events/lee-mead

Available until: 6^th November at 9pm

Lee Mead is best-known for winning Any Dream Will Do when I was eighteen months old, but he has also had a very wide-ranging career in musicals, concerts, pantomimes and plays. I really enjoyed his ‘A carppella’ concerts in his car on Instagram Live earlier in lockdown, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen him in a full-length concert with accompanists. I really hope it won’t be the last time because he is very good.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT (Coronavirus Theatre Club)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyI1nqMMC90

Available until: Unknown

This is another monologue from the Coronavirus Theatre Club, one of the first. It was uploaded in April, which seems like a very long time ago. This story cuts off before the end, which is sad because I was really enjoying it, but I liked the six minutes I was able to watch.

BEING SHAKESPEARE (The Shows Must Go On/Trafalgar Studios)*****

 

By Megan

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=megvDyy3Wsk

Available until: Monday 9^th November 2020

Shakespeare has told lots of stories (exactly how many depends on who you talk to but he wrote somewhere between 36 and 44 plays) but one story I didn’t know much about is the story of Shakespeare. I knew who he married and what his twins were called. I knew he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. I knew he’d worked as an actor. I knew Queen Elizabeth I liked him and he liked her. And of course I knew he was a very very good writer. But I didn’t know very much else.

I WISH TO DIE SINGING (Finborough Theatre)****

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROwZ8Ql6sZc

Link with subtitles: https://www.scenesaver.co.uk/production/i-wish-to-die-singing-subtitled/

Available until: 31 December 2020

Warning: 18+ Descriptions of violence, mutilation, sexual assault, murder, race hatred

In many ways, this feels more like a documentary than a play. There are positives and negatives which I’ll discuss later, but it led me to wonder why there are so few documentary plays. There are obviously a lot of documentaries on TV and a few documentary films, but plays seem to be almost exclusively telling stories. Some are true stories, but all are presented as a sort of fiction.

THE WITCH (Shakespeare Happy Hours/Rude Grooms/Seven Stages Shakespeare Company)***

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veSOknIgBf0

Available until: Unknown

Warnings: 16+ Love, loss and desire. Rape, incest, child sexual abuse, anorexia, drug addiction, mental instability, murder, suicide.

This is a bit crazy but definitely fun. It’s written by Thomas Middleton, who was a contemporary of Shakespeare’s (Middleton is younger, but there is an overlap), and there are similarities in the language, though I don’t feel it’s on Shakespeare’s level. Nothing really jumped out at me in the way Shakespeare’s language does. But it’s fun.

CRAVE (Chichester Festival Theatre)***

 

By Sophie

Link: https://www.cft.org.uk/whats-on/event/crave £10

Available until: The play will be livestreamed every night until Saturday 7^th November, though performances from Thursday onwards will not have a live audience. There will also be a Saturday matinee.

It’s difficult to say exactly what this play is about or even what happens in the play. There are four characters who are onstage the whole time. They talk and sometimes they respond to each other, but a lot of the time, they’re saying what they’re thinking and feeling and remembering. Sometimes they characters are speaking out loud. Sometimes they give us an internal monologue. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Even when they are speaking out loud, the other characters don’t necessarily hear them. They all have their own pain.