BOOKED OUT (Future Voices/Southwark Playhouse)

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA6qkQhiQf8

Available until: Unknown

Future Voices is an annual project run by Southwark Playhouse. Playwrights spend eight months working with students aged 14-18, with the aim of each student writing a short play. Usually, these plays are performed at the Southwark Playhouse. This year, a certain virus had other ideas so the actors filmed the plays at home, using Zoom and iPhones. The plays have been put on youtube and on the Southwark Playhouse website (and I’m sure the last thing they want is some actor/writer giving his opinion, but you just can’t shut me up sometimes).

This first play is by Aimee Brown. The central character is Francesca Rosa Brown, played by Jessica Hardwick. She’s at the local library and she has a job to do. The lovely librarian (Eva Fontaine) wants to keep the library quiet so everyone can concentrate, but that’s not always possible when Francesca is there.

THE SPACE BETWEEN US (Compacts)*****

 

By Dave

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0y_T-Bet8&feature=youtu.be

Available until: Unknown

This is a really sad play but it’s so good. It’s a conversation between a father and his son. The mum has decided to leave the dad and take their little boy with her. It doesn’t say why or what’s happened, but the implication is they’re leaving for good and the dad won’t have access. It’s likely to be a very long time before they meet again.

JOIE DE VIVRE (A Light in Dark Places)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBX2mxOy4zo

Available until: Unknown

I think these plays are a really good idea. Some of my adopted siblings have had or still have mental health problems and I think it helps them to know people are writing plays about people like them. These plays raise awareness and provide hope and they also show that although mental health problems can have a really big impact on people’s lives, there is more to each person than their mental health. They all have their own personalities, their own likes and dislikes, their own ambitions, their own lives. The characters I have seen in these plays are all complete people- and really nice people. Their mental health is only a part of who they are.

WEST END UNPLUGGED EPISODE 2****

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkxwINEu7_g

Available until: How am I meant to know?

The singing in this show is obviously great. I mean, Aisha Jawando and Mazz Murray. OBVIOUSLY it’s going to be good.

But one thing I liked about this episode is how positive it is. I completely hear all the people who are having a tough time in lockdown. Of course you are. It’s horrible. It’s scary. And… what if we Thespians end up having to get a REAL job? There are so many terrifying things going on and we don’t know when it’s going to be good again. Every time it looks like things might be getting better, it all goes to you-know-what again. I say it’s a DISASTER and no-one tells me I’m exaggerating. Everyone always tells me I’m exaggerating. Until now.

ROMEO & JULIET (Globe Theatre)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFBWXRqa7Gs

Link to audio-described version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=806Br_XIqAo

Available until: February half-term 2021

This production is an introduction to the play for young people. I might not be the best person to review it because I already know the play, but I am probably the right sort of age.

The play has been cut down to one hour, thirty-seven minutes. I think it works really well. It tells every part of the story which it needs to tell and I didn’t notice anything which was missed out that I thought should have been left in. Director Michael Oakley has set this production in the present day. The language and a lot of the laws and conventions in the play (for example, Juliet is legally allowed to marry at fourteen) stay the same, but the characters wear really nice modern clothes designed by Alex Lowde and look like modern people. It might help people to identify with the characters if they look like us. The production has done really well with emphasising the ways Romeo, Juliet and the other characters aren’t very different from us and feel things like we do.

THE MURDERER (Clown Funeral)***

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yALJvqK59QU

Available until: Unknown

There are a lot of plays on the subject of therapists and patients, some of them extremely good and some… not so good. This play looks at the subject from an angle which I haven’t seen before. A female Murderer is in a rehabilitation programme. She has already completed part of it and is now at the stage where she is given a carer. Once she has passed this part of the treatment, she’ll move on to the next stage.

IMAGINARY FRIEND (360/365 Film Festival)****

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://vimeo.com/24354145

Available until: Unknown

This isn’t a play and it wasn’t filmed in lockdown, but I’m reviewing it anyway because it’s written by Reece Dinsdale and I adore him as Albert in Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime (the old series from the 80s which is really good, not the David Walliams monstrosity). Well worth a watch. After you’ve watched Imaginary Friend.