Blog | Sets and The City

By James Hadley in London

Investigating foreshadowings of the financial recession may be timely, but the stuff of great theatre? I was sceptical. But the five star reviews which 'Enron' by Lucy Prebble has received were clearly justified. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Jeanne Mordoj is one of those performers with striking stage presence. Perhaps her background as a circus performer helped her to command our attention so. Perhaps the way she makes a self-conscious spectacle of herself as a bearded lady leads to an ambition to keep every eye in the room focussed on her. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

The Young Vic Theatre received mixed reviews for its recent revival of Irving Berlin's musical Annie Get Your Gun, but it had me grinning throughout - for its pure entertainment value but also the freshness of its tone. Read More »

James Hadley says one of the delights of being a regular theatre-goer in London is the unexpected spaces that the pursuit leads you to, including a men's prison and a sack-cloth labyrinth within a warehouse. Read More »

By James Hadley in London
 
I recently attended a showing of work-in-progress at a big, airy rehearsal space in South West London called The Playground Studios. It's run by a collective of theatre practitioners as a creation space. Read More »

By James Hadley in London
 
Do you ever think wistfully of games of make-believe you played with friends as a child? Such imaginative long-format improvisations - it seems a shame that adults aren't generally expected to play in this manner too. Thanks to the continuing rise of immersive and participatory theatre, such experiences are now being offered to audiences again. Read More »

James Hadley talks about Shaky Isles Theatre, a New Zealand theatre company based in London, and its main production this year Skin Tight.

Hadley says the distinctive New Zealand tone and physical directness of the work surely prompted a few homesick pangs from Kiwis in the audience. Read More »

James Hadley in London visits Pop Life - Art in a Material World at Tate Modern and describes how the art was so challenging it created a ‘self conscious spectatorship’ experience similar to immersive theatre.

Hadley says it highlights how art forms are merging in interdisciplinary ways “to intensify the viewer’s engagement in a creative experience.” Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Jericho House is a theatre company specialising in 'groundbreaking alliances between theatre, music and installation art'. Read More »

The Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 had more shows and ticket sales than any previous Fringe. When you're already talking about the biggest arts festival in the world, that's no small feat in the middle of an economic recession!

James Hadley shares his personal highlights from 23 show samplings in four days. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, North London, has one of the most current events engaged programmes of any London venue, under its longterm artistic director Nicholas Kent. An appropriate venue then for the first London run of Simon Stephens' play 'Pornography' - the first major script to deal with the 7/7 bombings. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Director Michael Grandage's fourth and final production in the Donmar Theatre's West End season is very much a star vehicle: Jude Law as a both casually playful and intense 'Hamlet'. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Spare Tyre are one of the leading community theatre companies in London, with a track record of over thirty years' practice. That's almost as long as community theatre's been around as a recognised genre of theatre, and it's impressive longevity for any theatre company. Read More »

By James Hadley in London
 
Alecky Blythe's company Recorded Delivery have made a name for themself through bringing a new verbatim theatre technique to prominence. The actual recordings of real people speaking are played in the actors' ears via headphones and the actors echo the voices seconds later, repeating every little idiosyncratic speech pattern. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

I'd heard of Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre as the city's preeminent venue for professional theatre, and in particular for new writing. What I hadn't been told was that the theatre space itself is worth a visit. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

If I told you I'd recently been chased down dark alleys by a macabre figure wielding a chainsaw, you'd probably think I'd had a nightmare rather than been to the theatre. But theatre it was; albeit closer to a living nightmare than anything else I've experienced. Read More »

By James Hadley in London
 
A West End transfer is what almost every theatre artist or producer in the wider London industry hopes for. Walking down Shaftesbury Avenue it's easy to dream of seeing the name of the show you're involved in in lights above a big Victorian theatre's entrance. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

One of the most prolific theatre directors working in London currently is Rupert Goold, and at the age of 36 his rise to prominence has been meteoric. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

In my last blog I talked about a site-specific, promenade theatre production which was staged outside in a cemetery. This week I want to tell you about two further immersive theatre experiences, both just as unique despite being staged indoors. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Stage a gothic fairytale about a wife-killer in an atmospheric London graveyard, with a brooding approaching thunderstorm adding that priceless serendipity factor, and you know you're onto a memorable theatre experience... Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Despite the resurgent popularity of cabaret and burlesque, it’s generally felt that their older sister music hall is long dead. It’s a genre which peaked in popularity during the late Victorian era, so most of its performers and trappings are long forgotten and its venues demolished. Read More »

By James Hadley in London
 
On a recent trip to the Royal Court Theatre there was a film star on either side of me in the audience as well as three on stage. Some feel that the West End has become too reliant on celebrity names to draw audience, including the kind of TV celebrity who has found fame through being a contestant in a reality TV talent show. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Is the cutting edge of theatre moving closer and closer to creating lived/life experiences? That's the impression I got from attending works in the BURST Festival at Battersea Arts Centre recently. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Like an enigmatic waking dream, the performance installations of Lundahl & Seitl completely transport you into an immersive, participatory theatre experience. Read More »

By James Hadley in London
 
Interesting that not one but three of the big West End musical spectaculars doing great business despite the recession centre on drag performance. Read More »

James Hadley in London talks about “contenders for the most shocking thing I've seen on a theatre stage so far this year” from Orgy of Tolerance by Jan Fabre. 

“Was this what I came to London to experience? Well, it was certainly horizon expanding." Read More »

By James Hadley in London

Forced Entertainment have a reputation for being one of the UK's leading experimental theatre companies. This year marks their 25th anniversary. Appropriate then that I finally get round to experiencing their work. Read More »

By James Hadley in London

London's burlesque performers are staging a 'pastie protest' in response to the London borough of Camden allegedly attempting to ban burlesque performance in their region, or at least force venues hosting burlesque shows to get the same adult entertainment licence required for strip clubs. Read More »

Improbable are the theatre company who regularly use the Open Space format (a democratic forum derived from the coffee breaks where all the useful discussions take place at a traditional conference) which NZ creative producer Briar Munro introduced to Wellington's independent theatre practitioners in 2007 (and Auckland's in 2008). Read More »

By James Hadley in London

In a previous blog, I wrote about Kenneth Branagh's performance in the Donmar Warehouse West End Season production of 'Ivanov' by Chekhov - it was unanimously praised as a stand-out performance of 2009 in London. Read More »