RIBENA (Press Play Here/Theatre Royal Stratford East)****

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76LvjmmXPW8&t=0s

Link with captions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPdlVD2MdwU&t=0s

Link with audio description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8cKICP64Yk&t=0s

Available until: Unknown

Age guidance: 12+

I can’t even remember the last time I had a Ribena. That’s bad. Of course, you can’t just wander into a shop like you used to. It all has to be carefully calculated. I mean, there’s usually drinks at home. Even if it’s not Ribena class. Do you risk the coronavirus for the Ribena? Or let the Ribena go and protect each other and the NHS? Put it like that and you can see how some people are living without Ribena.

NEMETON (Place Prints/New Perspectives)*****

 

By Emma

Link: https://www.newperspectives.co.uk/?idno=1168&s=82

Available until: Unknown

This is amazing! It’s the story of a walk in Cornwall, following a path, past trees and bushes. It sounds quite boring when I say it like that but it isn’t boring at all.

It’s different from the others, it doesn’t have the creepy, supernatural feel but it’s so powerful. I closed my eyes for this and maybe you should too. David Rudkin has written this so clearly and so well, it felt like I could see everything that was described. It was an unbelievable experience, the voice says what you see and you kind of see it but then you hear more details and whatever you were imagining kind of twists and changes in your head till it really looks like what is being described. It’s told in the second person (which can be really annoying in books but it works with something like this) so you literally are being told what you can see.

HINDLE WAKES (U.K. Actors Support Network)*****

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0lzCMVclgc

Available until: Unknown

Hindle Wakes was written in 1910, but it makes some interesting observations about gender and class. We might like to think we have moved away from some of the conventions and beliefs of the early twentieth century, but I think the issues explored in this play do exist today and that makes this play not just very enjoyable but very relevant.

THE BEAR (International Actors Ensemble/Circle in the Sand/Alex Theatre)*****

 

By Cal

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

Available until: Unknown

At just over thirty-three minutes long, The Bear is much shorter than most of the International Actors Ensemble’s projects, but it is no less brilliant. Anton Chekhov is known for his miserable plays, which tend to feature a fair amount of crying and dying, but this one is absolutely hilarious.

MESSIAH (Bristol Old Vic/English Concert/Erebus Ensemble)*****

 

By Megan

Link: https://bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/messiah

Available until: If you buy a Season Pass you’ll have access until 28^th February. Or you can rent it for 48 hours.

I love the Messiah. My mum sang it at the Royal Albert Hall and my uncle sang it at the Barbican but I didn’t go because I wasn’t born yet. It is a really beautiful piece of music by George Frideric Handel and this production is especially magical.

The Messiah isn’t a theatrical work. It is an oratorio which is written for a choir and four soloists – a soprano, a contralto or mezzo-soprano (or sometimes a counter tenor), a tenor and a bass or baritone, though sometimes there are extra soloists like having a counter tenor as well as a contralto. Something else that sometimes happens is that a boy treble will sing some of the soprano music and that happened in the Bristol Old Vic’s production.

LOVE IN A WOOD (Jermyn Street Theatre)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KMk54jMPCk

Available until: February 14th

Love in a Wood; or St James’s Park is the first play by William Wycherley. He says he wrote it when he was nineteen, but some people disagree as the play refers to things which didn’t exist when he was nineteen. I think maybe he wrote his first draft when he was nineteen and then edited it later and included some of the latest modern things to make the play seem more current? I might be wrong, but I think it’s possible. (It’s not the same as the 1915 film called Love in a Wood, which is based on As You Like It.)

PETER PAN (Chickenshed Theatre)****

 

By Lottie & Ricky

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?dm_i=4HI8%2C104DF%2C6FYIO0%2C4J2R2%2C1&v=OPfgd0YWcsE&feature=youtu.be

Available until: Unknown