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NYT Announces 2013 Season
Paul Roseby announces plans for the future of the National Youth Theatre
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North London’s newest theatre opens doors.
The Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, North London, opens to the public for the first time.
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Surviving Actors returns to Manchester for new event
The convention will take place on Saturday 18th May and will feature loads of industry professionals.
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Fourthwall launches NEW internet radio podcast
A new performing arts podcast show, The Download, features interviews with playwright Philip Ridley and West End leading man Simon Thomas.
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Blog: Postcard from the One Man, Two Guvnors tour
We catch up with former First Word writer Rosie Wyatt, somewhere between New Zealand and Australia.
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Blog: Interactive theatre/cinema
Peter Hinton, a regular performer with Future/Secret Cinema shares his experience of a truly audience interactive experience.
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Blog: Taking on an iconic role
Nadim Naaman writes about taking on the iconic role of Anatoly in the first UK Revival of Chess
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Into Training: Starting Out
Ed Theakston continues his journey through his first year of training.
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Review: Liza on an E, Vaudeville Theatre ✭✭✭✭
Jeffrey Jones is enthralled by Trevor Ashley’s two-hour homage to Liza Minnelli.
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Review: The Play That Goes Wrong, Trafalgar Studios 2 ✭✭✭
There’s much to enjoy in this West End Transfer, yet Phil Matthews wonders whether this play matches the talented cast and direction.
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Review: Merrily We Roll Along, Harold Pinter ✭✭✭✭✭
Emily Hardy follows the Menier’s transfer of Merrily We Roll Along to the Pinter, and finds its impact has increased, along with its capacity.
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Review: Bare, Union ✭✭✭
Overhyped, overwrought, and finally over here, Bare is best enjoyed solely for the fantastic cast, writes Emily Hardy.
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Interview: Phil Matthews – Stepping through the Fourth Wall.
Creative Director Phil Matthews talks to Stephen Milner about the company that now publishes Fourthwall and how they will support emerging artists.
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Interview: Declan Donnellan
“Is there a little bit of Ubu Roi in all of us?” Emily Hardy asks acclaimed theatre director Declan Donnellan.
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Interview: Bruce Robert Harris, Broadway Producer
Video: On a recent business trip to London, the Tony award-winning producer dropped in to talk to Fourthwall.
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Interview: Felicity Jackson, Surviving Actors Event
Surviving Actors makes a return to London this Friday and Saturday (8th & 9th February) with a spectacular event that rivals its previous ones.
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Review: Before Your Very Eyes, Unicorn ★★★
Catherine Love reviews Before Your Very Eyes, Gob Squad’s take on youth, aging and self-identity, as part of LIFT 2012 at the Unicorn.
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In their latest show, Gob Squad present a rare exhibit: “a live show with real children”, offering us a glimpse into a mirror-lined container where their assorted kids are pushed into fast forward. Like reverse Peter Pans, these seven children grow up all too fast, graduating from childhood to adolescence to motorbike-buying mid-life crisis in the space of an hour. Instructed by an eerily clinical overhead voice, the compelling youngsters smear on lipstick, don fake beards and pencil on wrinkles in an unsettling take on the childish tradition of dressing up, occasionally pausing in their accelerated growth to fix us with piercing stares.
The mirrors of Gob Squad’s arresting design are everything. Pointing to the natural human impulse for vanity and self-reflection, they allow the young performers to pose and preen, to look forwards and backwards at their younger and older selves, to reflect on the meaning of “I” and how that changes as we age. The ambition of Gob Squad’s creation becomes clear as video footage of the children at earlier stages of their lives is projected onto screens at the side of the stage, generating poignant moments as they each confront their younger selves with amusement and discomfort. As one boy sadly says, “this is not me”.
But as even the emotionless voice of authority melts away, the possibility arises that there might be nothing more than the mirror
Together with playful interrogations of youth, aging and self-identity, not to mention a knowing if sometimes irritatingly smug awareness of the theatrical conventions they rip up, Gob Squad attempt to nudge at even bigger concerns. With the knowledge that we are all, as the kids bluntly put it, “speeding towards death”, the question of who if anyone is watching becomes an urgent one. But as even the emotionless voice of authority melts away, the possibility arises that there might be nothing more than the mirror – no more meaning to life than our own reflection staring back at us. Despite a concluding hint of optimism, it is this emptiness that dully persists as the lights come up.
*** (3 stars)
Runs until 30th June
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