LONDON CITY NIGHTS

Much as I try not to be a sap for franchise nostalgia, Jurassic Park still tugs at my heartstrings. I vividly remember being an incredibly excited dinosaur obsessed ten year old in 1993, astonished and thrilled by what I saw on screen. Time has proved Jurassic Park to be a genuinely great film; a weird mixed-up science fiction monster movie that switches gears from adventure movie, to disaster movie, to slasher movie and finally back to adventure as the T-Rex boomingly roars and "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" fluttersdown around it. God-damn it's good.

Now, 22 years later, we're heading back. Jurassic World is essentially a direct sequel to the first film, paying little attention to the mediocre The Lost World and the godawful Jurassic Park III. The conceit is that while the original Jurassic Park may have ended in menaced children, severed arms and chewed up lawyers, the basic concept was sound. Now (with beefed up security) we have Jurassic World: John Hammond's dream fully realised.

Jurassic World is established, popular and successful; boasting thousands of visitors each day who're in thrall to a process now known as de-extinction. Cheering visitors sit in Seaworld-a-like auditoriums as a colossal mosasaur munches down great white sharks whole, children ride baby triceratops about in a petting zoo and visitors can roll between the legs of sauropods in transparent gyrospheres.

Though the visitors are happy, the shareholders aren't. Growth has begun to stagnate, so the board decides to cook up a new excitingly dangerous dinosaur. Working from a T-Rex base, the fiendish Dr Wu (BD Wong) stirs up a genetic soup and creates the I-Rex. Or, to give it its full name: the Verizon Wireless Indominus Rex. The park's manager, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) has mixed feelings about this; on one hand the corporate sponsors are ecstatic, on the other she's now responsible for a psychotic murder monster that really, really, really wants to escape and start eating people.

No prizes for guessing what happens next. Fortunately Claire has the services of animal trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) who's gained the trust of the velociraptor pack. As chaos snowballs it's down to Owen to corral the raptors and hunt down the escaped I-Rex, and maybe save Claire's nephews if he's got a minute

Jurassic World is roughly half dumb and half perceptive. According to the director, the genesis of the film is "What people were kind of over seeing dinosaurs? We imagined a teenager texting his girlfriend with his back to a T-Rex behind protective glass." It's a clever way of looking at the Jurassic Park metatext; while realistic computer generated dinosaurs were astonishing in 1993, after 22 years of ever more clanging CGI we take these things for granted.

This makes Jurassic World a battleground between old and new; the bombastic and cynical modern blockbuster versus the sincere, nostalgic classic. The forces of the new are represented in part by omnipresent (and for once thematically appropriate) product placement, security Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio), who wants to militarise the dinosaurs to use as living drones and; most obviously, the I-Rex itself.

Whereas the 'classic' Jurassic Park dinosaurs have a weird dignity; the I-Rex is a complete asshole. It indiscriminately kills the other dinosaurs, behaves in a straightforwardly villainous way (they should have engineered a moustache for it to twirl) and, most egregiously, isn't even a real dinosaur. Within the text it's an abomination, bloodily tearing its way through our nostalgia, dragging the film away from Spielbergian wonder to everything-exploding Bay-hem maximalism.

And boy oh boy does Jurassic World ever get silly. There's a tonne of ultra-cheesy dialogue throughout, though it becomes weirdly palatable when delivered by one-man charisma machine Chris Pratt. The idea of repurposing killer dinosaurs for military use is Saturday morning cartoon stupid - the highlight being Vincent D'Onofrio staring admiringly at the velociraptors and saying "can you imagine if we'd have had these things in Tora Bora?"You know what Vince, I actually can't.

Everything climaxes in a pro-wrestling match where the goodie dinosaur dukes it out with the baddie dinosaur. I could forgive anyone who's thrown up their hands in disbelief by this point - the dinosaurs are now less animals ripped from time and more toothy, leathery superheroes. But well, despite all this dumbness, I kinda enjoyed it.

Jurassic World wears its heart on its sleeve - it's a B-movie where a massive genetic dinosaur monster eats lots of people. It achieves the goals of the B-movie with aplomb; providing laughs, scares, excitement and lots of action. There's also the commentary on franchise-rot bubbling away in the background, which makes it just aware enough that it squeaks into 'good film' territory.

This is obviously nowhere near as good as Jurassic Park, but it's certainly better than the previous sequels. It's forgettable and perversely moronic, but at least it's fun.

★★★

Jurassic World is on wide release now.

For cosmopolitan British theatregoers small town America may as well be the surface of the moon. These are places only really familiar to us from movies, television and literature: the last fifty years of pop culture congealing into crappy diners manned by cheery middle-aged waitresses, gas stations with men in greasy overalls, painfully sincere Christians, bored-as-hell teenagers and pudgily overbearing cops - all blissfully skating over dark undercurrents. This is Springfield. It's Twin Peaks. Smallville. Hill Valley. Stepford. Amity Island. South Park.

In I and the Village it's Van Vechten, a nowheresville in Michigan studded with equal amounts of fast food restaurants and churches of all denominations. The town ticks every box that you'd expect, right down to its disaffected outsider heroine. This is Aimee Stright (Chloe Harris), rebellious graffiti artist, wannabe-intellectual rebel, sharp-tongued alternagirl and very much a square peg trying to be forced through a round hole.

In the opening sequence we learn that Aimee has gone on some kind of murderous rampage, shooting her mother dead at their church. A documentary crew has arrived to try and make sense of this, quizzing the town on their opinions of Aimee in an effort to unveil some answers. Along the way we learn about her tempestuous relationship with her mother (Stephanie Schonfield), her mother's creepy boyfriend (David Michaels) and the various judgmental residents of the town that she hates so much.

Named for Mark Chagall's modernist painting of the same name, Silva Semerciyan's play takes a similar approach to reality, truth and humanity - portraying it as a shifting, amorphous sea of ideas, imagery and actions. A non-linear narrative, combined with a small cast playing many roles and a minimalist jigsaw of a set add up to an experience that's tricky to pin down. Though at its core this is a rather straightforward story of teenage rebellion, the approach layers on the mystery - the more we learn about Van Vechten and its residents, the less we realise we know.

That elevates it from merely understanding a troubled teen to trying to understand what makes small town America tick. In 2008, Barack Obama candidly explained that "it's not surprising that [small town Americans] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations". Naturally he was pilloried for this, as politicians who inadvertently speak the truth often are.

It's this bitterness, frustration and vague dissatisfaction with life that powers I and the Village. Throughout we see various characters seeking enlightenment; be it straightforward Christian delusions of a just cosmos, financial success through pyramid marketing schemes, the feeling of power that comes from firing a really big gun or expressing yourself through art. Though these methods vary in their effectiveness, they all result in failure. What I and the Village eventually concludes is that individual emancipation is all but impossible within a overbearingly consumer-capitalist society. At best you'd have to completely remove yourself from everything you know and love; or strike out in a futile, doomed gesture of defiance.

That I and the Village aims for such a big target could mean it ignores the smaller picture. Fortunately, the excellent lead performance by Chloe Harris ensures that, despite the sociological bent, we genuinely care about Aimee's plight. She's perceptibly different from the people around her; more colourful, smarter and possessed of a unique inner spark. Both Semerciyan and Harris aren't afraid to play up her less attractive features; a short temper, her literary pretensions and her emotional volatility. But despite this she's an easy character to empathise with, giving the play a solid emotional core.

That said, there are moments where the play is a bit too enigmatic for its own good, the minimalist staging aesthetically pleasing, but mannered. There's a sense that we're gazing into these people's lives from above, examining them like scientists peering over a Petri dish rather than empathising with them. It's more of a quibble than a criticism, but to evaluate these people's lives from a cosy London theatre seat felt a tiny bit judgmental and patronising.

Still, it's a consistently well performed, well staged and above all, interesting piece of theatre - successfully dissecting small town American psychology. Serious thought has gone into dramatic structure and it's relation to scenery, costume, lighting and even props, putting it ahead of the pack on the London stage. You can generally be sure that a trip to Theatre503 will be worthwhile, and fortunately I and the Village does nothing to change that.

★★★★

I and the Village is at Theatre 503 until July 4th. Tickets here.

Since the ovary-tickling double impact of Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr, Sherlock Holmes has spent the last half decade or so undergoing a sexy renaissance. Gone is the classical stiff-necked Victorian monologuing to parlours, replaced by a rugged Sherlock who dives into bonfires, infiltrates secret government laboratories and defeats his foes with balletic fist fighting. Enjoyable as these latter day adaptations are, there's a sense that something has been lost in translation.

Paul Condon's1 1947 set Mr Holmes sets out to deduce just what that is. Placing Holmes in an unusual time is far from a new idea; he's been remained as a detective caveman, hung out with Batman (via time travel) and (best of all), been cryogenically defrosted in the 22nd century. But Condon's Holmes (Ian McKellen) is the Victorian original, at 93 years old.

Having retired from detective work, Holmes now lives a secluded life in a Dover cottage, caring for his bees and doing his best to stave off senility. He's aided by his housekeeper, Mrs Munro (Laura Linney) and her young son Roger (Milo Parker). As a man defined by his intelligence, he's frustrated and fearful of his dissipating memory, struggling to come to terms with his obsolescence in the postwar world.

What this adds up to is a curiously meditative narrative. The adverts had led me to expect a straightforward 'one last case': the old gunslinger called out of retirement to prove he's still got it. That doesn't happen - there's no bizarre murder, no lineup of suspects to eliminate and no trail of logic to follow. The central mystery involves Sherlock's fading memory; he can no longer remember the trauma caused him to retreat into seclusion. His final case comes to him in hallucinatory dreams, objects, faces and places seeping into the everyday world.

Though we spend the majority of the film in rural seclusion there's two notable flashbacks. The first is to that mysterious final case; where we see McKellen's Sherlock still in possession of his faculties. This is so fun it's tempting to wish it was the meat of the film, but works beautifully as a contrast between 'then' and 'now. The second is more recent, a trip to Japan post World War II. Sherlock visits Hiroshima, walking through the burnt, blasted city in search of the sap of a 'Prickly Ash', which may aid his memory.

It's this image of the Victorian hero struggling to comprehend nuclear war that must stuck with me. Here is a man who excels at piecing together individual crimes, able to examine a body and reveal myriad hidden details. But when he's confronted with a crime scene containing 140,000 dead, he can't process it - all his skills irrelevant in the face of such a atrocity. It's no surprise that he subsequently dreams of towering, fiery mushroom clouds.

This is marvellously played by McKellen, who with little apparent effort bundles together classic Holmesian arrogance with intense vulnerability. This is a visceral ageing process; all liver spots, saggy skin and jagged teeth. It's a bit depressing to see Holmes shakily navigate his house, looking like the next tumble is going to make him shatter like glass. This is further underlined by the flashbacks to a healthier past; sprightly vitality and surefire dignity reminding us precisely what's been lost.

The supporting case are no slouches either. I've always enjoyed Laura Linney, here touching as the put upon, maternal housekeeper. Even the child actor, Milo Parker, comes out shining - his hero worship of the old man refreshingly underplayed. Shoring up things are a one scene appearance by an always welcome Roger Allam, and flashbacks to the ethereal Ann Kelmot (Hattie Morahan), in whom the detective finds an unexpected chemistry.

Mr Holmes probably isn't for everyone. The most pulse-pounding sequence on offer here involves someone getting stung by a wasp, the rest of the film content to amble along in studied contemplation. But what it sets out to do it achieves perfectly, establishing an appropriate elegiac tone and maintaining it until the credits. Very much a Sunday afternoon kind of movie, but an exceedingly satisfying one.

★★★★

Mr Holmes is on general release from 19 June.

When most people think of opera, they imagine a crowd of white-tied toffs watching a wailing woman who looks as if she's been dragged backwards through a make-up counter. Opera is an artform where emotion is accentuated beyond all reasonable bounds: sadness becomes a grief, anger becomes fury and jealousy is an untamable green-eyed monster. So it's refreshing to see something where, for all the skill and talent, the tone is loose, dumb goofiness.

Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri, here reinterpreted by Pop-Up Opera as a Vegas-set casino sleaze narrative, is jam-packed with silliness. Typically, the company puts on a short classic opera then pokes fun at the more outrageous bits. For example, a long, energetic and adventurous aria might be summarised in the surtitles as "I really miss my girlfriend!". This drains any pomposity, but, well in L'italiana in Algeri there doesn't seem like much pomposity to drain away.

Mostly set backstage at the Algiers Casino, the narrative revolves around battlin' egos and blind lust. Owner Mustafa (Bruno Loxton) is struggling to cope with his aging showgirl star (and wife) Elvira (Catrin Woodruff). In exasperation he decides to be rid of her, scheming to offload her onto luckless gambler Lindoro (Oliver Brignall). Complicating matters is Lindoro's devotion to his long lost girlfriend Isabella (Helen Stanley) and her new (temporary) squeeze Taddeo (Oskar McCarthy).

These larger than life characters are tossed together in all kinds of ways, shifting in status, falling in love, going mad and growing furious - eventually tangling up in one big farcical knot. But though feelings run high and hearts snap like twigs, every development is handled with dead-on comedy timing and a generally upbeat, irreverent atmosphere.

Pop-Up Opera are famed for their choice of performance locations. I've seen them stage operas inside cocktail bars and antique shops, though they're also ventured into castles, vineyards and garlic farms. This production found them ensconced in the stygian depths of The Brunel Museum's Thames Tunnel shaft. I've visited this venue before, when it deeply tickled my history-lover's bone.

It's tricky to imagine a more dramatic entrance to a venue; from street level you climb down into a miniature concrete pit, then duck your head and shuffle forwards through a low concrete tunnel. You emerge about 40 feet in the air, perched atop a scaffold. Gingerly you make your way down to the floor, finding yourself in a huge cylindrical room below which the paradoxically named Overground periodically rumbles past.

Last time I was here it was packed with bizarre audiovisual art, the subterranean location making for an effectively grimy backdrop. So I was eagerly anticipating returning, especially for a company as consistently entertaining as Pop-Up Opera. Sadly, the venue didn't quite live to expectations. My primary problem is that while the shaft is an amazing place to explore, as a static backdrop it's essentially a large grey wall. This made it an austere viewing experience, somewhat at odds with the tasteless Vegas luxury in this adaptation.

But what the venue lacks in glitz it certainly makes up in acoustics. As the talented cast delicately, dynamically and expertly navigate Rossini's beautiful music. Each cast member carves their own niche in the material; be it the bitchy insecurity of Catrin Woodruff's Elvira, the suspicious primadonnaness of Helen Stanley's Isabella or, my favourite, the sheer bonkers eccentricity of Bruno Loxton's Mustafa. Everyone sounds amazing, the space reverberating and amplifying every note, leaving practically able to sense the soundwaves bouncing off the hard, curved walls.

It was about when Mustafa, caught up in the bizarre rhythms of 'pappatacci' fever, removes his trousers, dons a fluffy white fur coat and a Beatle wig, that I decided that this was the most loveably dopey thing I'd seen in a while. As Loxton marched up and down in his pants, uproariously booming his bass parts, I spotted a manic glint in his eye: performing this looks about as fun as it is to watch.

I said in my last review of Pop-Up Opera that it would be difficult to imagine anyone having a bad time at their shows. I stand by that; you could place this company in practically any location and a crowd would walk out smiling. That said, in this instance the location wasn't quite in harmony with the material. But hey, I can't deny that I enjoyed myself.

This much personality and talent assembled in one company means there's a bedrock of quality they cannot sink below. I always look forward to Pop-Up Opera: they haven't disappointed yet, and I don't anticipate them doing so any time soon.

★★★

Pop-Up Opera's L'italiana in Algeri is back at the Thames Tunnel Shaft on 2-3 July 2015, then at various locations around the country. Information and tickets here.

You can't fault Iphigenia for being a bit glum. Her Dad Agamemnon, an A-lister of Greek Mythology, was all set to offer her as a human sacrifice. Escaping by way of divine intervention she now finds herself stuck in Tauris, unhappily working as a Priestess in Diana's temple and being amorously pursued by King Thoas, who she's doing her best to put in the friend-zone.

King Thoas isn't best pleased, threatening to reinstate the old tradition of human sacrifice, and forcing Iphigenia to wield the knife. Things look bad, though a ray of light arrives in the form of Iphiena's long lost brother Orestes and their cousin Pylades. They reveal that everything's gone a bit Jeremy Kyle back home in Mycenae. Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, a bit miffed that he was prepared to murder their daughter, killed her husband. In turn, her children (even more miffed) killed her. Now Orestes is cursed - pursued by the Furies - his only chance to fulfil a challenge of the gods and swipe a statue of Diana from a temple, which is why he's here.

Sounds pretty exciting huh? Well, none of that actually happens in this play. This is Goethe's 1779 adaptation of Euripedes 414BCE play, written with an emphasis on poetic language, emotional intensity and philosophical and moral explorations.

Okay, I've got to get something out of the way. It gives me no great pleasure to say it and it's a criticism that I don't ever like levelling at a piece of theatre. To say it says as much about me as it does about the play, particularly as Goethe is considered a titan of literature. But here we go: Iphigenia in Tauris is boring. Really, really goddamn boring.

I'd never heard of the play before this production, and frankly I can see why. Essentially a series of long-winded, static duologues, the characters go on and on in poetic metre that rapidly approaches incomprehensibility. The language is overwrought, self-indulgent and bulging with self importance. As the characters launch into complex flights of poetic embellishment (full of obscure references to Greek mythology) I felt my eyes glaze over, the dialogue collapsing into a word salad.

It'd take an astonishingly talented creative force to pummel this creaky old thing into anything remotely palatable, and this production just isn't up to the task. Perhaps as if to contrast the florid language, the set and costume design is austere to the point of non-existence. The 'half theatre/half archaeological dig' nature of the Rose resists elaborate stagecraft, but an empty, flatly lit stage decorated only by a white sheet doesn't exactly excite the eye.

Granted, much appreciated efforts are made to exploit the full space. An altar to Diana is set up at the far back of the room, and the characters periodically scamper across the distant earthern floor. This gives rise to one of the few truly successful dramatic moments; the opening in which an ethereal Iphigenia emerges from the shadows and processes towards us, filling the theatre with her atmospheric voice.

I can't really fault the cast too much either, finding myself feeling slightly sorry for them. You can see every dramatic sinew strain as they delve through the soupy dialogue trying to find something - anything - relatable to a modern audience. They're fighting a doomed battle and often, despite their obvious efforts, they end up simply reciting the play. Suzanne Marie as Iphigenia comes out looking best, though even she frequently struggles to locate any glimmer of humanity buried within this mannered poetry.

Maybe if you were a scholar of Greek mythology or a particularly big fan of Goethe you'd enjoy this. Otherwise I wouldn't bother: becoming emotionally involved in Iphigenia in Tauris is next to impossible. Being intellectually involved is a little more achievable, though not without enormous effort. And frankly, it's not worth it.

★★

Iphigenia in Tauris is at the Rose Playhouse until 4th July 2015. Tickets here.

Photos by Lidia Crisafulli

Food is a fantastic dramatic metaphor. The best food and the best art both get under your skin, both bear the fingerprints of its creator and both communicate complex emotions without words. Not to mention the sheer visual dynamism of preparation and presentation, or simply describing it in strings of luscious, saliva-inducing adjectives. Sabrina Mahfouz's Chef uses food as a reflection of its subject's soul: no matter how much shit is heaped on an individual they are still capable of wonderful things.

Chef comes pre-garlanded with praise, nabbing the Fringe Fest Award at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival. It's a scanty 50 minute monologue, presented with minimal stagecraft and little theatrical frippery. There's a sense that the dead wood of theatre has been pared away - allowing us untrammelled access to an interesting person: almost theatre as confessional rather than narrative.

Said interesting person is 'Chef' (Jade Anouka). Going in we know that she was a haute-cuisine head chef and is now a convicted inmate running a prison kitchen. Salacious questions immediately pop to mind - what could have precipitated such a fall from grace? How could someone used to expressing themselves through food work in such a restrictive environment? What on earth did this woman even do?

All these answers are revealed in a chronologically jumbled story that gives us insights into family, victimhood, self expression, guilt, denial and joy. It'd be remiss of me to spoil the revelations in Chef, but I can say that by the time we're applauding we've seen a three-dimensional portrait of a genuine human being, one obviously informed by personal experience.

There's a ragged honesty to Mahfouz's writing style. Her broad technique here is to build to an emotional peak (recounting some grim act of abuse) then undercut that with subversive humour. In less capable hands these opposite forces would undermine one another, spoiling the mood. Yet Mafouz deploys comedy and tragedy with precision timing, playing us like a fiddle.

Aside from these clever rhythms, there's some straight-up beautiful descriptive writing on display. My favourite was a description of an uneaten Chinese takeaway: "noodles gloomily looking through foggy containers / at a scene of all too common domestic distress / chunks of sweet and sour chicken solidifying / under the soundwaves of unextraordinary anger". The text is studded with these wonderful turns of phrase, viscerally constructed, full of satisfying alliteration and harmonic phrasing.

This is all beautifully played by Jade Anouka. The confined upstairs room of the Soho Theatre allows a performer to engage with their audience, something that Anouka instinctively grasps. Throughout she makes eye contact with her audience, peppering us with rhetorical questions and the occasional accusatory glance. The effect is that, as we swerve towards darker themes, we're right there with her - almost implicated in her situation. Similarly, shifts in body language, from confident gesticulations to an inverted stillness, go a long way in accentuating the rhythms of the text.

Throughout we keep returning to food; Chef breathlessly describing a perfect peach, coconut tofu curry or hibiscus sorbet. It sounds delicious, the enthusiasm of the performance and the knowledge in the writing conveying an infectious passion. What I took away is that there are some incorruptible passions in life, and food is one of them. The misery inflicted upon the character cannot damp her enthusiasm and pride in her art; though her life is a shambles her soul remains intact.

I've always held that brevity doesn't indicate a lack of depth. In just 50 minutes this manages to pack in more sincerity, truth and humanity than some pieces manage in a couple of hours. I've always enjoyed seeing monologues performed, and this marks one of the best I've seen this year. It's a complex, troubling piece of work that doesn't offer up any easy answers. It's also warm-hearted, funny and approachable. A definite win all round.

★★★★

Chef is at the Soho Theatre until 4th July. Tickets here.

Something terrible has happened in central London. Shellshocked commuters stumble home, ears ringing from the crash of atrocity, eyes stinging from billowing clouds of disturbed dust. People stare glassily at one another, struggling to process the new world they find themselves in. Precisely what happened remains elusive, but we understand that London has suffered its own 9/11.

Jane Bodie's A Single Act treats the attack like a stone tossed into still waters, ripples reverberating through society. She zeroes in one two relationships: one steadily deteriorating from the moment of the attack, the other told in reverse, showing how a toxic, abusive relationship can stem from once promising beginnings. As the twin tales wind about one another we understand that violence isn't confined to the blast of the bomb or the leaden thump of fist on flesh, but in the lasting impact upon society at large.

Our couples are Michelle and Scott (Lucy Hirst and Tom Myles), and Clea and Neil (Katherine Stevens and Philippe Edwards). All four occupy the same dramatic space, taking turns to occupy a moodily lit Ikea furnished flat. Michelle and Scott are in an obviously poisonous relationship, Scott's affections having warped from romance to possessiveness and violent jealousy; leaving Michelle bruised, battered and with a fractured psyche. Meanwhile Clea and Neil drift inexorably apart, their cosily middle class existence disintegrating piece by piece.

First staged in spring 2005, A Single Act eerily presaged the London terror attacks of that summer - this production coming almost exactly a decade later. This lends it a contemplative mood: while the original text explored the hypothetical effects of such an attack, this production can work from historical perspective, picking at our collective societal scab.

Two particularly strong thematic strands are helplessness and frustration. Neil, a well-to-do artsy middle class photographer, finds himself twisting in the wind. Previously content to merely witness the world around him, his worldview crumbles as he watches the attack to the soundtrack of clicking cameraphones. He's disgusted at the people blithely snapping away, but soon turns that disgust inwards, resolving to do something - anything - to soothe his injured soul. This manifests in emotional distance from his partner and mysterious midnight excursions. Neil is suffering the nihilistic trauma of realising he's a mote of dust caught in the wind, buffeted by forces way beyond his comprehension.

A similar process happens to Scott, but here love has curdled into violence. It's as if the ever-present sight of destroyed buildings drives him towards violence as the solution to his problems. Here a chicken and egg scenario arises - is Scott an intrinsically violent man encouraged by what he sees in front of him, or a kind man infected by omnipresent destruction.

A Single Act never comes down on one side or another, teasing us with implications and gentle nudges. It's refusal to completely explain its argument can get a bit frustrating - especially given the opaque ending, chronologically jumbled ending. Then again, dealing with intense trauma isn't a process with a clearly delineated end, and it's refreshing to see a production that so obviously wants its audience to intellectually evaluate what they've seen.

Though A Single Act is purposefully vague, everything else in the production is honed to razor sharpness. My favourite visual flourish was dousing the actors in a thin layer of talcum powder, resulting in each hug, hit and kiss sending plumes of dust spiralling through the harsh stage lighting. This perfectly feeds into the wider themes of violence having invisible consequences - each interaction literally leaving a residue hanging in the air.

The individual performances are similarly on point, with Tom Myles' Scott drawing most attention. He's a fascinatingly intense actor, both terrifying as he beats and controls Michelle and bashfully sweet as he romances her. Something awful happens in his eyes when he cycles between the two, his gaze deadening like a shark as it moves in for the kill. This accentuates his ramrod straight physicality, imperceptible shifts in the way he holds himself leaving him looking as if he's possessed by some demonic spirit.

It's a damn fine piece of theatre, one that sent shivers up my spine on several occasions. Everyone in Duelling Productions, should be proud of staging a production with this much power and insight. I eagerly await whatever they're cooking up next.

★★★★

A Single Act was at Theatro Technis until the 20th. Production info here.

The psychedelic Western ranks highly in my obscure film genre top ten. In these rare films, agoraphobia inducing scenery stands for the spiritual infinite, and combined with antisocial (usually bearded) men-on-the-edge, usually makes for enjoyably bonkers cinema. Jodorowsky's inestimably grand El Topo is king of the genre and bubbling under are its buddies Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the recent Jauja and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (to name but a few). Slow West can stand proudly alongside them.

The directorial debut of former Beta Band member John MacLean, Slow West is a classic hero's quest. The teenage Jay (Kodi Smith-McPhee) is travelling through the 1870s American wilderness in search of his lost love, Rose (Caren Pistorius). It's his fault that she and her father had to escape from their native Scotland, but with a romantic heart and charming naivety he's braving mile after dangerous mile to track her down.

Unbeknownst to him he's not alone in his pursuit. Both Rose and her father's faces peer from wanted posters across the west, attracting the attention of a gaggle of disreputable bounty hunters. Prime among them is Silas (Michael Fassbender), a rough and tumble Han-Solo-a-like who figures Jay's is his best bet to find them. So he befriends the young Scot, gives him advice on life beneath the stars and guides/follows him towards their mutual goal - never letting on that while Jay is seeking love, Silas is seeking blood.

This sets the stage for a picaresque road western in which the unlikely pair encounter weird characters, along with generous doses of peril, intrigue and danger. By way of an example; our naifish hero meets a trio of Congolese musicians in the middle of nowhere and they exchange philosophical pleasantries on love and life in perfect French, or befriends a suspiciously Werner Herzoggy Bavarian ethnographer, or has a tense confrontation with Native Americans that unexpectedly devolves into slapstick. It might sound a bit twee on paper, but the intention is to contrast mannered symbolism with grubby realpolitik.

Perhaps the closest thematic companion is the above mentioned Dead Man. There, Johnny Depp's innocent 'William Blake' wandered aimlessly through a monochrome landscape, encountering cowboys played by the likes of Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover and Billy Bob Thornton. But where Dead Man shows us how the environment causes the slow disintegration of its heroes psyche, Slow West shows a more submissive landscape. This is, after all, entirely appropriate - we did indeed tame the Wild West - mystical forests "from which no man returns" now strip malls and McDonalds.

This is conveyed in long, intoxicatingly beautiful shots. McLean increasingly emphasises the blue of the sky and the fluffiness of the clouds against dull earth tones, with the contrast increasing the more we progress through the film. The zenith is a goddamn beautiful shoot out set in and around a house in the middle of a corn field. The house is new, white wood, the sky is blue, the corn is a lush yellow - all spattered by gobs of thick crimson blood.

There's time enough for the small things too. Use of tilt shift focus contributes to a hallucinatory effect, often combined with surreal imagery. In the most memorable shots, our hero examines an apparently gigantic mushroom, and later we slowly zoom in on ants swarming around the barrel of a lost revolver (apparently quoting the opening sequence of Lynch's Blue Velvet).

Upon all that sits two marvellous performances by Smit-McPhee and Fassbender. Though each individually impresses, it's when they bounce off one another that they really shine. These interactions are filled with nuance; secret smiles when Jay devises a solution to a problem that impresses Silas; or the myriad ways in which the actors convey their growing trust in one another. Also, and it somewhat goes without saying, but Fassbender looks cool as hell as a cowboy, obviously relishing playing a windbitten, rough-edged outlaw.

The title doesn't lie. Slow West in no particular hurry to get to its conclusion, happy to settle for being gently lyrical rather than propulsive. Though not without the occasional hard edge, it stands out as a curiously optimistic Western, one in which (for once) kindness stands a chance of triumphing over bloody amorality. An excellent directorial debut.

★★★★

Slow West is on general release from 26 June.

The Tribe sounds like a parody of arthouse cinema. It's from the Ukraine. It's shot in bleak government buildings. It's brutally violent and unflinchingly sexual. The characters communicate entirely in sign language - Ukrainian sign language. There is no dialogue. There is no score. There are no subtitles.

Every inch of The Tribe appears designed to baffle, annoy and perplex your average cinemagoer. This makes it an exceedingly unfriendly film in almost all regards, yet, to those with a certain level of cinematic patience and the stomach for the uncomfortable, Slaboshpitsky's film pays dividends.

Now, given that the film's entirely in unsubtitled Ukrainian sign language (which, surprise surprise, I don't know) my plot summary is going to be a bit vague. The Tribe explores the seamy criminal underbelly of a deaf school somewhere in the Ukraine, examining how pupils are exploited by the teachers and each other. The lead is a new pupil (Grigoriy Fesenko), who is soon up to his eyeballs in prostitution, petty theft and casual violence.

Though for the most part we see things from his perspective, this is also the story of two girls (Yana Novikona and Rosa Babiy) who spend their nights as prostitutes to a car park of truckers. The new pupil is soon tasked with acting as their pimp, though complications arise when he falls in love with one of them. Problems begin to mount as two of their teachers make preparations to sell the girls into sex slavery in Italy, causing the new pupil to descend into violent revenge.

Or at least, that's what I think was happening. You spend a lot of The Tribe trying to figure out what's going on at any given time. This isn't the most complicated of plots but the obvious language barrier prevents any complex characterisation and narrative. So you start approaching the film in archetypes, one person's 'the mean one', another's 'the creepy teacher', 'the violent kid' and so on.

Even without language its hard to completely lose the plot, but even if that did happen you could spend a happy two hours wallowing in Slaboshpitsky's awesomely portentous style. This is cinema as sledgehammer; the film composed of long, unblinking shots that follow the characters in and around their environment. For example, in one shot we track four children moving through a park, as we pan right more join them until 20 or 30 are perched on crumbling brick walls. Then vicious beatings break out, complete with the deaf children silently signing their enthusiasm for it.

All this is set within a crumbling, graffiti-covered frozen world entirely devoid of beauty. You can practically smell the rot emanating from the ruined ceilings and stained walls. These locations, hopefully soon earmarked for the wrecking ball, are lit by fluorescent lights that give everyone an unhealthy malnourished pallor. This hellish environment drags the film gently towards horror; especially in The Shining-esque tracking shots that explore the endless corridors of this hell-school.

And y'know, not only does it look nightmarish, but the events in it aren't exactly super happy joy time either. Be prepared for vicious beatings, abuse of a boy with Down syndrome, joyless mechanical sex, bashing in of skulls and one of the most disturbing abortion scenes I've ever seen in a film. Seriously - I've sat through the famous ultra-nasties (120 Days of Sodom, A Serbian Film and so on), but parts of The Tribe made me genuinely nauseous.

Part of it arises from the lack of vocalisation from the cast. The frantic signing feels less like we're watching the children communicate with each other and less like a portal straight to their hearts. There's something very 'off' at watching atrocities happen in dead silence, with just the faint hum of the strip lighting and exhalation of breath after blows functioning soundtrack. Some part of your brain rebels, insisting that something intangible is very wrong with this picture.

So is it a film that I can recommended? Well, it's technically, artistically and performatively outstanding in practically every way - from the precision-tooled elegance of the long tracking shots, the desaturated colour balancing, not to mention the cast of deaf Ukrainian teenagers, all of whom turn in excellent performances. But under all that there's a whiff of sadism, Slaboshpitsky going out of his way to create a viewing experience that crawls under your skin.

It's one hell of a cinematic achievement, but by God it's not for everyone. If you're the kind of person who enjoys viciously 'difficult' cinema you'll be in your element here: Slaboshpitsky turning in a film that meanders into the same bleak stylistic territory as Satantango, Antichrist or the works of Michael Haneke. If you count those among your favourites, by all means dash to The Tribe. If you're more of a Disney kind of person, I'd advise giving it some serious thought before watching this. You might never be the same again.

★★★★

The Tribe is on limited release now.

In which we observe a talented and charismatic woman gradually descend into alcoholism and mental illness, culminating in her skinny corpse being wheeled into the back of a van. This is the story of Amy Winehouse, as told by Senna director Asif Kapadia. The magnificent Senna (maybe the greatest biographical documentary ever) ended with its subject dying in mangled wreckage. Amy ends in much the same way, surrounded by the final shreds of her talent, dignity and sanity.

It's easy to forget just how quickly and brightly Amy Winehouse burned. The release of Back to Black in 2006 made her an immediate icon, her tattoos, beehive hairdo, Camden-style , confessional lyrics and that voice defining her as something new, propelling her to fame and wealth beyond her wildest dreams. Five short years later she was dead.

Working almost entirely from archive footage, Amy traces the singers teenage musical beginnings, ascent through the music industry and eventual drugged out stupor. It's an incredibly bleak film; every pre-fame image of the young, smiling and vivacious artist tainted by our knowledge of what's to come.

Leaving aside the emotion for a moment, it should be emphasised what an outstanding researcher and editor Kapadia is. God only knows how many hours of footage he must have trawled through to construct this film, piecing together a narrative from thousands of disconnected video clips from many different sources. It impresses upon you how thoroughly a contemporary life can be documented; a mosaic assembled from cameraphones, news reports, television shows and family videos.

Context comes from contemporary interviews with key figures in her life. Cleverly Kapadia doesn't use the bog-standard 'talking heads' style, preferring to overlay the interviews onto relevant footage. This draws up a gentle documentary tension; in the interviews with figures the film treats critically, what they're saying and what we're seeing don't quite add up. The overall effect is that, by the time the credits are rolling (with new footage still playing over them), we feel as if we've genuinely gotten to know Amy Winehouse.

This is, of course, an illusion. How can you truly understand someone through two hours of edited clips? But it's an effective illusion, Kapadia manipulating our perceptions of his subject in order to subtly communicate his message. This proves to be a critique on the exploitation of talent, laying out who 'used' Winehouse and why.

But it's less a process of identifying and condemning 'villains' and more a critique on the processes that allowed them to behave in the way they did. For example her father, Mitch Winehouse, doesn't come out of this looking especially amazing, but he's more stupid than malicious. Another potential villain, her ex-husband Blake Fielder winds up as just another victim - a mirror of Amy Winehouse minus both talent and charisma.

The real villain of the piece soon rears its head; a voracious media fuelled by you and I. There's a epilepsy warning before the film that proves entirely warranted when the paparazzi swing into action, jostling the increasingly confused looking singer in a nightmare strobe world of flashes and screaming. If this is what life is public is like, no wonder so many celebrities go bananas. Kapadia reserves most of his venom for the media, condemning the comedians that made light of her condition, the salacious news reports that wallowed in her misery and the intrusive cameramen that jammed lenses in every private moment.

Paradoxically, Kapadia is quite happy to use that stolen footage in his film. In an affecting moment we see a paranoid-looking Winehouse staring through the slats of her bedroom window, shot through a telephoto lens. It's faintly hypocritical to condemn the tabloids then use their footage, but it's hypocrisy with a point. In watching Amy you feel an extreme empathy with her, as if you're on the same side. Yet, in effect, by delving through a jigsaw puzzle of her private moments you're engaging in precisely the same behaviour that drove her to an early death.

By the time we see her body laying under a blanket you should ask yourself exactly what you're getting out of this. "Aw, what a sad story" sentimentality? Smugness in watching someone successful fail? The vicarious thrill of watching a hedonist burn out? We all try to fit Amy Winehouse's biography into a preordained narrative, scratching away at reality until she's less a human being and more a romanticised archetype.

I can't deny Amy's quality: the music is amazing, the subject is fascinating and Kapadia's technique is second-to-none. But the process of watching the film turns us into vultures, greedily stripping the last chunks of meat off her mouldering carcass. Clearly no lessons have been learned from this whole affair; presumably the next talented and troubled hot young musician that comes along will suffer much the same miserable fate. It's for that reason that I found Amy such a profoundly sad experience.

★★★

Amy is released 3 July 2015

Set within fragments of a gigantic picture frame, lit with warm sepia-tinged light and spattered with long-dried paint, the set of Asking Rembrandt believably drags its audience back to well-used studio in 17th century Amsterdam. This is the setting for Steve Gooch's exploration of art vs commerce, told through a year or so in the life of Rembrandt.

We meet Rembrandt (Liam McKenna) at a difficult time. He's an established master craftsman producing a steady stream of work - every well-to-do mokummer wants a Rembrandt hanging above their fireplace. Problem is, they want a portrait as status symbol rather than to appreciate Rembrandt's artistry. As such they pepper him with demands and alterations - his experimental leanings squashed under the popular idea of what a Rembrandt painting is. Now he's got a reputation as difficult, when clients are splurging hundreds of gilders for a portrait, figuring 'the customer is always right'.

His personal situation only adds to his woes. Following the death of his wife Saskia he's taken up with former maid Henni (Esmé Patey-Ford), their unmarried status causing the disapproving church to publicly brand her as a "whore". The rest of his personal relationships are similarly rocky; his son Titus (Loz Keyston) bridling under his father's ego; and John Six (John Gorick) doing his best to keep their friendship sliding too far into business.

Asking Rembrandt's best quality is that it's straightforwardly interesting. Seeing Rembrandt, whose name has become is a byword for 'master painter', as a conflicted, indebted and stressed craftsman instantly humanises him. You might think that you'd struggle to relate to the interpersonal and financial worries of a 17th century Dutch painter, but very quickly we understand and empathise with him.

That's down to skilful writing, backed up with what I assume is an awful lot of careful research. It's also equally due to wonderfully earthy performance from Liam McKenna. This Rembrandt is a fleshy, sturdy, deeply proud character - almost Falstaffian in his body language and behaviour. Some of the finest moments are when he talks dirty, telling Henni that he'd like to "lick her like a bear with its tongue in a honeypot". Oh Mr Rembrandt, I've come over all a-flutter!

Rembrandt's sexual and artistic confidence goes some way to the art vs commerce debate at the centre of the play the much needed emotional dimension. We can see why his partner loves him, why his best friend wants the best for him and why his son (despite his protestations) craves his father's respect. By about the halfway point we're invested in what Rembrandt is doing, rooting for him to be able to express himself without financial and social shackles.

Despite those successes, there's a sense of slightness in Asking Rembrandt. Coming in at a svelte 75 minutes we whistle through time at breakneck speed. For example, at the close of one scene Henni informs Rembrandt that she's pregnant, the next scene she's 8 months in and a couple of minutes later the baby's arrived. This makes the secondary characters into satellites orbiting Rembrandt rather than people in their own right. Perhaps the biggest victim of this is his son Titus, who gets a few short scenes to define his character.

Similarly, though the emotional dimension is welcome, the play does eventually boil down to a slightly dry argument on the compromises an artist must make to put food on their table. As I said, this is definitely interesting, but it settles on massaging the brain rather than trying to whomping you in the heart.

Asking Rembrandt is (as is standard for the Old Red Lion) a technical success. The set oozes personality and the soft lighting subtly recalls Rembrandt's aesthetic. The cast are similarly top class: McKenna the obvious star attraction but Patey-Ford's Henni is impressively full of joie de vivre, managing the impressive feat of making a 17th century dutchwoman's costume rather coquettish. Despite these positives, I never quite felt involved in proceedings, admiring the play from a academic distance as opposed to losing myself in its rhythms and passions.

★★★

Asking Rembrandt is at the Old Red Lion until the 18th of July. Tickets here.

Ah the sixties musobiopic, we meet again. This is a genre plagued by cliché, inherently bereft of suspense and often overshadowed by truly colossal egos. All too often we have stars smothered under bad wigs and prosthetics doing impressions rather than acting, struggling through scripts that bear the fingerprints of lawyers. There's only been one in the last decade that's really been artistically worthwhile; Todd Haynes' chopped and fucked Bob Dylan autopsy I'm Not There.

In an optimistic twist, Love and Mercy shares a writer with I'm Not There (Oren Moverman). So is this that rare biopic that has something to say rather than playing it safe regurgitating the facts? Love and Mercy certainly has a promising subject; former Beach Boy and musical genius Brian Wilson, known as much for his battles with mental illness as his dense, experimental pop compositions.

Also optimistically, Love and Mercy experiments with a bifurbicated narrative. We alternate between the mid 60s, where a young Brian Wilson (Paul Dano) is fighting to create his genre-defining pop symphony and the 1980s where an older Wilson (John Cusack) has withdrawn into nervous isolation under tyrannical psychoanalyst Dr Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti).

Though the form may be rote, you can at least rely on the music biopic to sound great. It's arguably worth seeing this in the cinema purely to hear Pet Sounds and what would eventually become SMiLE played loudly over a cinema sound system. Atticus Ross, composing and sound mixing, makes this into an auditory treat. Instruments are intelligently isolated, rising and submerging in the mix to create a vague sense of what it must be like to devise this music.

The highlights are the meditative sessions where Wilson lies back, closes his eyes and we hear a collage of fragments of songs playing over one another, sound effects and snatches of dialogue. This, more than anything else, gives us a window into the artist, listening as he processes his experiences and inspiration into his music.

Sadly that proves to be the one true high point of the whole affair. Love and Mercy quickly indulges in some of my most despised musobiopic clichés. The most egregious offender comes when Brian's tinkling around on a piano trying to nail down a song. His brother helps him out, pointing out that a barking dog in the room is picking up "some good vibrations". Eesh. Later, there's even a moment where Wilson's abusive dad scoffs "Brian, in five years no-one will remember the Beach Boys, or you". This stuff is so cheesy/lazy - you'd think after the genre had been parodied so hard in Walk Hard writers would have taken note.

Similarly bad are some clunkingly heavy-handed visual metaphors. At one point we find Wilson hanging onto an inflatable in the deep end of a swimming pool. His Beach Boy brothers sit on the steps; "Come on guys, join me in the deep end!" Wilson shouts. "No, we prefer the shallows"they reply. You can all but feel the director nudging your elbow, insistently whispering "get it.. get it?"

The performances aren't exactly anything to write home about either. Paul Dano as the younger Wilson is the obvious highlight, managing to infuse this slightly portly, shy musician with a peculiar charm. There's an element of the child to his performance, from his conversational style to his physique. Cusack, by contrast, is a bit miscast. Bearing next to no physical resemblance to Dano (or Brian Wilson), he convey little if anything of what's going on inside his head. The enigma of Brian Wilson precludes any straightforward explanations, but Cusack can't even offer us theories.

The supporting cast are all broadly okay, though something must be said about Paul Giamatti's diabolical doctor Landry. Chewing scenery like a starving man, Landry is depicted as a villain of comicbook proportions, probably one step away from donning a suit of power armour and swearing revenge on Batman. The cherry on top is a completely ridiculous wig that constantly threatens to upstage Giamatti.. He plays it very over the top, but I can't deny that it's entertaining. I wish they'd given him a moustache to twirl sinisterly.

Love and Mercy is, sadly, just another bog standard musobiopic. There's glimmers of experimentalism in there and some top class sound design that might edge it towards watchable, but knackered genre conventions are in full force. If you're a Brian Wilson fan you'll eat it up, if you like The Beach Boys music it'll be a diverting enough experience. Sadly, Love and Mercy never quite finds its own angle on its subject, making it a missed opportunity.

★★

Love and Mercy is released 10th July 2015

It's like sitting in an oven. On one of the hottest days of the year we dutifully troop into what can only be described as a sweatbox. To aid us we're spritzed with water, handed cool drinks, have paper fans supplied to us - the show has even had an interval added so we don't start fainting en masse. Rivulets of sweat trickle down our backs and are mopped off of brows; our shirts are loosened; our tongues flop from our mouths as if we're thirsty dogs.

It is hot.

But oh, what an exquisite heat this is. After all, this is The Tempest, we're trapped upon a n isolated magical island, maybe things should be this scorching? The heat makes thoughts swim, this tale of sorcerers, cheeky spirits, conjuration, monstrous half-men, witches and drunk-as-all-hell butlers quickly feeling like a barely lucid dream. Famously, The Tempest foreshadows postmodernism, frequently drawing attention to its own artifice and whose primary mover is all too easily read as an analogue for Shakespeare himself.

Thick as Thieves' production plays things fast and loose, approaching it as a living text. This means frequent bashings of the fourth wall, a lot of adlibbing, direct interaction with the audience and lightning quick costume changes. Performed with a cast of four, Ariel Harrison, Marcus Houden, Nicky Diss and Thomas Judd, roles are swapped at whipcrack speed, the cast aiming to mine every last molecule of comedy.

It feels a little disconcerting to laugh this much during a Shakespeare play. Sure, he wrote a lot of comedies, but let's face it, most of them aren't exactly 'ha-ha' funny. Fortunately, Thick as Thieves are blessed with an extremely personable and talented acting quartet. As they work their magic on the audience, the laughter quickly becomes infectious. Be it a quizzical sideways glance, an unexpected interference with an audience member or a straightforward chunk of slapstick silliness, the giggles grow and grow.

My favourite bits are some wonderful delivery from Thomas Judd (also excellent in Dorian Gray earlier this year), who deeply impresses in his confidence, fluency and charisma in the language. There's obvious glee in his eyes as he enunciates Caliban's promises of nimble marmosets and clustering filberts, picking through the syllables with relish. Other neat moments are the actual straight-up Elizabethan jokes - they're a bit dated, but each character's obvious disappointment that no-one's laughing creates a series of metajokes.

There's a strong physical component bolstering all that. Judd makes for a nicely bestial Caliban, hunching and scurrying along the ground as he peers up at his masters with insouciant unhappiness. Nicky Diss also turns in great work as the drunken butler Stephano, reeling around the stage and swigging from a bottle in a rather Keith Richards-y manner. Also impressive is the physical way in which Ariel Harrison approaches her namesake; cavorting around the audience and climbing up the walls to peer from her perch.

When a production accentuates the humour of Shakespeare there's always a fine line to draw: go too far and you lose the emotional core of the work. Though The Tempest is overtly fantastical, each character has their own glimmer of sincerity (some fainter than others, but it's there). Thick as Thieves recognises this, precisely understanding where and when to dial down the irreverence and take the material seriously.

Prime among these is Marcus Houden's fine delivery of Prospero's famous final soliloquy. This is a bizarre and moving piece of writing, the lead character ending up alone on stage bidding farewell to magic and imploring us, the audience, to help him escape. The fluttering of our hands as we applaud will be the wind that spurs on Prospero's ship as he finally leaves the island. This speech is popularly taken to be Shakespeare's farewell to the theatre (The Tempest is Shakespeare's final complete play), the magician able to conjure up a tempest with a flick of his fingers equated to the magic of the playwright.

It's an incredibly elegant (and surprisingly modern) bit of writing, and Houden performs it with grace and dignity. It functions as the capper on an excellent night; one that's seen an audience member knocking their drink over seamlessly incorporated into the narrative, men with their heads wedged in each other's arses and endlessly gigglesome bumbling buffoonery.

Right now, the green parks and cool lidos of London might seem awfully inviting compared to a humid black box over a pub, but the Thick of Thieves' Tempest is worth the perspiration.

★★★★

The Tempest is at The Hope Theatre, Upper Street until 18th July 2015.Tickets here.

Morbidity hangs heavy in the basement of Trafalgar Studios. The black painted walls sport the chalked names those lost to our modern plague, HIV/AIDS. Snatches of news reports play out, tracking the progression of the virus in the popular consciousness. With the cast sitting on stage looking incredibly sullen it's all a bit oppressive. So thank god As Is opens with a joke.

Written by William M. Hoffman in 1985, As Is bills itself as 'the first AIDS play'. As Hoffman explains, he was working in New York theatre when rumours began of some mysterious new disease. Soon his friends and professional acquaintances began to die, healthy young men and women picked off in matter of months. As the death count rose, so did prejudice against sufferers; finding themselves disowned by friends and family, sacked from their jobs, mistreated by health workers and evicted from their homes. To counter this Hoffman wrote As Is, emphasises the humanity of those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

The central character is Rich (Steven Webb), an ambitious poet and runner. We meet him living the young metropolitan dream; he's beautiful, his talent is finally being recognised, he's in great shape and has a fulfilling sex life. Then his blood turns to shit and his fancy-free existence collapses around him. Interest in his work bottoms out, paying gigs dry up, medical bills begin to mount and his family makes excuses to avoid seeing him.

Things are bad, and they only get worse as the physical manifestations of the disease take their toll. Fortunately Rich has the unconditional support of his former lover Saul (David Poynor), who promises to stick with him no matter how bad things get. And things get pretty bad - by the final act he's confined to a hospital bed, his skin peppered with sarcomas and weakened to the point where he cannot walk across the room.

On some level, As Is is a modern horror story, the individual gradually consumed by a virus that has no concept of justice, love or mercy. But it's as much about basic humanity expressed in trying times - revealing the paradox that when life is at it's most miserable is when you find the most powerful connections. It's this that props up the straightforward message of As Is; victims of HIV/AIDS are human beings that deserve love.

The personal story of Rich is supported by expressionistic sequences that set out the bigger picture; synths pound out the speakers as two hilariously macho leather bikers square up with each other. Hooking their thumbs into their pockets they exchange rapidfire monosyllabic questions - each one playing a clearly defined, predetermined role. I have no idea what mid 80s New York gay culture was actually like, but this feels accurate. Similarly effective is a chorus of epithets directed at Rich, his family and friends talking over one another as they formulate their own reasons for avoiding him, all of which eventually coalesce into a paranoid communal yell: "Don't touch me!!"

These moments, in concert with subdued period costume, a malleable set and a cast all possessed of impressive chameleonic powers, go a long way towards creating a concrete sense of time, place and politics. In this regard it's an undoubted theatrical success.

However, the narrative skews a little too close to sentimentality for my taste. Only a stone cold psycho wouldn't agree with Hoffman's message, but the interpersonal fundamentals of the plot is 'yer standard weepie-of-the-week template. So we get the last minute family reconciliations, 11th hour renewals of hope and a couple of banal platitudes that're at odds with the rest of the play.

Maybe I'm just being a bit cynical, but considering how bang-on the rest of the production is, it's disappointing that we end on a note of cliché. Then again, I bear in mind that this play, when first performed, was genuinely groundbreaking. In 1985 the public needed to be straightforwardly instructed not to discriminate or dehumanise HIV/AIDS sufferers, and an easy-to-grasp story helps achieve that. But when seen in 2015 the dramatic seams are starting to fray a bit at the edges.

Still, no-one can deny the humanity on display. This is theatre fuelled by love, sadness and empathy, technically excellent and performatively impressive. It may not have pushed my buttons quite as much as I'd have liked, but judging by the tears, standing ovation and wild applause, buttons were indeed pushed.

★★★

As Is is at Trafalgar Studios until 1st August. Tickets here.

The saga of Orson Welles is sobering. After his notoriously panic-inducing radio broadcast of War of the Worlds he went on to write, direct and star in Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane might be the greatest movie of all time; Welles wrote, directed and starred in it at just 26. Sadly from there it was a long, slow decline. Sure there was the odd ray of artistic sunshine, but he gradually collapsed into rotund obscurity, unable to secure funding for his projects and reduced to comedy cameos in crap movies. He ended his career angrily selling peas and playing a planet-sized cartoon robot before dying lonely, fat and broke in 1985. Poor Orson.

Orson's Shadow finds Welles (John Hodgkinson) in Dublin, 1960. He's on stage as Falstaff in a stage production Chimes at Midnight, though it's playing to depressingly empty houses. Arriving to lift him out of his funk is prominent critic and old friend Kenneth Tynan (Edward Bennet). As a connoisseur of quality he cherishes Welles' genius, finding it depressing that he's wasting away in obscurity. In an effort to drag him back to the mainstream he proposes that Welles direct Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros at the National Theatre.

The hitch is that it'll star Welles' rival and artistic enemy Laurence Olivier (Adrian Lukis). Olivier is caught in a love triangle, trapped between the demands of his glamourous but manic wife Vivien Leigh (Gina Bellman) and the cool professional beauty of Joan Plowright (Louise Ford). These fractious interpersonal relationships turn the rehearsal space into a battleground, with the elephantine egos of Welles and Olivier the heavy artillery.

It's fair to say that Orson's Shadow partially relies on its audience having some enthusiasm and knowledge of both Welles, Olivier and the broad strokes of theatrical history. A fourth wall busting introduction by Tynan efficiently sets the stage, giving us a broad overview of Welles' career to date. Later expository dialogue fills us in on Olivier's life, knitting together his tangled love life and paranoias. Even so, this could be pretty rough going for anyone coming in blind.

For those who've got a grasp of Welles' filmography and life though, there's a wealth of tiny touching moments. Listening to the man excitedly lie about getting a five picture deal with Universal off the back of Touch of Evil is sad, as is his scheming to raise funds from Eastern European financiers. Similarly humbling is his dogged insistence on not letting projects die; shooting a couple of minutes of Othello here and there, and working on Chimes at Midnight in secret.

Welles is a hugely recognisable figure, any performance of him treading a fine line between acting and simply mimicry. Hodgkinson, fortunately, stays just on the right side. In a brave bit of writing we hear him booming away before we see him. Hodgkinson can't quite achieve a perfect facsimile of Welles' supercilious, sonorous rumble, but he gets pretty damn close. Physically he's slightly hamstrung by an overly padded costume that doesn't really bear scrutiny at close quarters, but the illusion hangs together. Most crucially, Hodgkinson nails that 'Welles' twinkle' - mischievously smiling with his eyes alone. You can see it in Kane, The Third Man and F for Fake, and you can see it here.

Lukis' Olivier is slightly lesser in comparison. Played almost entirely for broad comedy he's a stereotypical pompous ham - the few snatches of 'acting' we see more reminiscent of William Shatner than 'the greatest British actor of the 20th century'. Still, as far as pompous hams go, the performance is above par. The script finds a man whose brain is knotted, heading off on tangents, with shaky confidence and the frustrating habit of dancing around the subject. He's never less than enjoyable to watch, though is more of a caricature than Hodgkinson's Welles.

It really shouldn't be understated how straightforwardly funny this play is. Be it Lukis' clowning it up with a duster, Welles coming out with outrageous sexual epithets or Tynan's bitchy asides about the worth of critics (which went down a storm on press night), but lurking just beneath the surface is a solidly melancholic core. The smell of failure and wasted talent hangs heavy over proceedings, with Welles' creative decline at taking centre stage. Everything comes to a head in an unexpectedly touching epilogue, where Plowright (the only person in this place who's still alive), gives the characters a quick tour of their pretty depressing futures.

It's quietly heartbreaking to see Welles learn that over the last 25 years of his life he'll only make one more movie. That sadness turns to excitement when he learns that the movie will be Chimes at Midnight. Welles has been confidently blustering through the rest of the play, but here, finally, we see him vulnerable and childlike. "Is it any good?" He tentatively asks.

In its best moments Orson's Shadow achieves an eerie verisimilitude that makes you feel as if you're in the company of the great man. In its worst it's merely a well-written, comedic farce about two huge egos bonking heads. If you're at all interested in Welles it's an easy recommendation. If you're not, then go watch Citizen Kane. Seriously, watch it. It's not some unapproachable dated black and white melodrama - it's goddamn outstanding and actually straight-up entertaining. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll say "Ahhhh, so that's what the Simpsons was referencing...". Done? Good. Now come and watch Orson's Shadow for the rest of the story.

★★★★

Orson's Shadow is at The Southwark Playhouse until 25th July 2015. Tickets here.

Surrounded by cranes, shorn of floodlights and apparently devoid of life, the London Olympic Stadium has become the centre of a ghost town. Its neighbours, the velopark and aquatics centre, are generally closed to visitors, park paths are punctuated by steel mesh barriers and the sculpted greenery brings to mind an abandoned golf course. Colossal pedestrian boulevards; once funnels for thousands of happy Olympic spectators now host only the occasional lost Westfield shopper and steadily diminishing numbers of curious tourists. Looming over it all stands the skeletal Orbit, now less like a celebration of British architecture and more like a memorial to happier days.

There are, of course, big plans for the stadium. After much legal kerfuffle, West Ham football club are to be its new tenants, hopefully ushering in a new sense of purpose and atmosphere to this increasingly sterile place. But what's to be done in the meantime? After all, nature abhors a vacuum. This is where Ariel Narunsky steps in; proposing a gigantic piece of artwork to occupy the stadium.

This is Judgment: a spiral running track enveloped by walls, sending visitors through a 6000m long corridor that ends with them proceeding down into the earth and through a tunnel. Making your way through the thing looks like a pretty unrewarding (albeit hypnotic) experience, roughly akin to being a rat stuck in a maze. But even a rat gets a piece of cheese at the end, visitors to this end up unceremoniously squirted out somewhere south of Victoria Park.

The exhibition imagines what a visitors centre for this construction would be like. Played completely straightfaced, it behaves as if this enormous proposal has been accepted and will soon undergo construction. With sans serif corporate font, colour coordinated businessquirky orange and cosy sofa-based infomercial watching, the atmosphere is cool, controlled professionalism.

Judgement is a curious mix of the corporate and absurd; the project would require the decommercialisation of a hugely expensive piece of London real estate, one already subject to much legal quibbling. It'd also mean the construction of a tunnel bored right through the rat's nest of subterranean London. All for a piece of art that seems purposely designed to dehumanise, bore and antagonise those within.

The back of the glossy programme lists the corporate sponsors of Narunsky's project; including the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Balfour Beatty, the building company in charge of the redevelopment of the park. After examining every carefully laid out display in the exhibit; the posters bleating stentorian gobbledegook like "An Unknown Game with Ultimate Things"or "New Things Are Near"; the promotional video that draws parallels between Roman gladiatorial games designed to distract an unruly populace and the chic 3D printed models I began to wonder - do these companies realise they're being made fun of?

To my eyes Judgement is a multi-levelled satire; taking aim at the worth of sports, egotistical design and authoritarian architecture. The idea of a pointless leg and mind numbing running track subverts the original idea of the stadium, boiling back its purpose until all the grandiosity has disappeared to reveal people fruitlessly running in circles.

Narunsky's rat's maze design, from which deviation is neither tolerated or possible, neatly echoes the Queen Elizabeth Park's winding paths that subtly manipulate the visitor through a predetermined route. There are no great walls in the Olympic Park, but the slightest sense of adventurousness will (and I'm speaking from personal experience) herald the arrival of a black-painted and logo-clad Audi estate driven by unfriendly men in hi-vis jackets pointedly asking what it is you're up to.

Similarly, the sheer scale of the project is calculated to intimidate and impress. Public art on this scale is, rightly or wrongly, criticised as an act of ego by both those commissioning and designing. There's an almost aggressive desire to leave your fingerprints on the urban landscape, to mould the public experience around your vision. In it's spiral design and oval shape, Judgement recalls that very fingerprint - as if a 10 mile tall Narunsky has bent down and pressed his thumb into the soft stadium floor.

It's a neat, slyly subversive exhibition, one that adopts the aesthetic and tone of corporate art so fully that its been embraced by the very people it's mocking. Worth checking out.

Judgement is at arebyte Gallery until 7th August. Details here.

With George Osborne's post budget cackling still echoing down Whitehall and 'No Cuts' protesters gathering in Trafalgar Square, what better time for some 'austerity busting' comedy? Boy oh boy do we need it; rents are climbing, pay is stagnating - my poor wallet's being squeezed ever tighter! I need guidance! I want to wring every last drop of value from my pounds, to find out where the most useful freebies are, to exploit every damn inch of this system.

Ably informing mea re Flick (Beth Granville) and Julie (Mercedes Benson) a double act so classical it borders on the vaudevillian: Julie is the working class straightwoman, Flic is the upper class twit. We meet them in prison; Julie on a six month sentence for stalking 'MoneySavingExpert' Martin Lewis and Flick down for six weeks after ending up as the scapegoat for tax evasion in a swanky company.

After getting out of prison the two have neither money nor jobs. With the stigma of prison dangling over them and long-term unemployment looming, the two decide to take up the cause of Martin Lewis and run 'Pop-Up Penny Pinchers' seminars, doling out their best tips on how to survive with under a torrent of suspended phone contracts, overdraft charges and upset landlords.

This boils down to a series of sketches themed around being poor, offering advice both ludicrous and useful. My favourite was a sequence in which Julie demonstrates practical alternatives to owning an expensive smartphone. This begins with her producing a complex letter-writing kit in order to answer a message, producing a shredder to dispose of an old document and, the punchline, dropping sweets all over the table and smashing them with a club.

Similar highlights are some pleasantly absurd phone conversations where the two make ridiculous complaints about products. A receptionist at Right Guard is hectored for their "72 hour protection" promise leading to an unwashed and stinking Julie causing a date to run for the hills. In the best, Flick complains about some Prosecco, explaining that it's left her nauseous, with a headache and diarrhoea. And after only three bottles...

It doesn't take long to realise that these two are onto a good thing. They confidently bounce off one another, each and possesses an enviable sense of comic timing. Despite that, there's often the sense that these situations haven't been fully mined for comic potential. The audience chuckles rather than guffaws; the gags sharp but not honed to a razor edge. There's also a few marginally questionable decisions: primarily whether Pulp's Common People, a song about taking a rich girl to a supermarket, needs to be rewritten with new lyrics about taking a rich girl to a supermarket.

Thing is, these are two extremely likeable performers, the audience wants them to succeed, but that dam-breaking moment where we collapse into uncontrollable giggles never quite comes. This is salved somewhat by their politics being on point; their 'act' slightly slips every so often as we get a glimpse of their sincere indignation with the awful way things are these days.

This is a show devoid of clangingly obvious low points, yet right now it's lacking that certain something that'd propel it towards true excellence. Perhaps it's the pace, perhaps it's the writing, maybe something in performance. Whatever it is I hope they work it out, I'd love to see them again.

★★★

Flick and Julie: Pop-Up Penny Pinchers is next on Friday 24th July at the Old Joint Stock, Birmingham then at 10th-30th August at Cowheadgate Space 9 (Venue 32) during the Edinburgh Fringe.

What the fuck is this shite? Gigantic alarm bells were blaring out from minute one, as director Rocky Rodriguez took to the stage to encourage us to drop the masks of adulthood and put on the masks of childhood. Hearing this self help guru rubbish made my stomach churn, correctly figuring it as an terrible omen of what was to come. I'd had my doubts about coming here at all. I hated Craft Theatre's Dante's Inferno with every fibre of my being, but had been assured that their latest production was a step away from their usual fare.

And after all, everyone deserves a second chance right? Right?

Well, chalk this up as a painful lesson in trusting my instincts.

The Diver is a solo show by Helen Foster, directed by Craft Theatre impresario Rocky Rodriguez Jr. It's the story of adventurer Kate Plank, who's attempting to walk across the ocean floor from Land's End to New York City. This is, of course, an extended metaphor about the travails of solo performance. Helen as Kate must draw up the confidence to hurl herself into the unknown, trust in the advice of others, draw on reserves of inner strength and deal with the high expectations of those supporting her.

God I wish she hadn't. The Diver is one of the most embarrassing things I've seen on a stage in years. The deep sea adventuring lark quickly proves to be the vehicle for a parable about self-worth and a personal artistic journey, a painful public confession of the performer's deep rooted fears of inadequacy and doubt in her expressive abilities. Problem is, judging by The Diver, those fears are entirely justified.

What you're left with is a woman clowning about on stage with cheap props, a desperate rictus grin and a largely disinterested audience. I'm guessing that the intended effect was to create adorable ramshackleness, giving the show a no frills honesty. Foster spends much of the show apologising for the quality of what we're seeing, making light of the fact that she has no production budget and assuring us that though she may look like she's awkwardly floundering, it's actually all part of the show.

But there's a razor thin line between the cutely ramshackle and the just plain crap, and The Diver falls squarely in the latter. You can poke fun at yourself all you like for your production shortcomings, but that's not a get out of jail free card. Then again, it's not as if a massive budget would be a panacea. You'd still have to sit through the excruciatingly annoying sequences in which Foster talks to her animal sidekicks. They speak in grating comedy foreign accents ("WHAT EES THEES MEESES PLANK?!?") and never shut up. As the show creaked past the hour mark I felt my very soul beginning to curdle - occupying myself by trying to figure who I should hate most.

For all that she was pissing me off at that precise moment, I can't hate Helen Foster. Rather I feel a deep pity for her having to trudge through this bilge night after awful night, but I can't hate her. Therefore, blame must lie in those who've enabled her.

After all, what kind of sick bastard would let a performer go on stage with this act? Surely someone, somewhere should have sat Foster down and explained: 'sure you might have doubts about your talent, but the stage is not the place to work them out - at least not like this'. This feeds into what I've now concluded about Craft Theatre: their raison d'être is the inflation of their performer's egos.

Therapy through performance is a perfectly valid way of working through your woes, but for god's sake don't do it front of a crowd that's paid £12 a pop to get in. If you are going to make people pay to see your personal catharsis it'd better be bloody amazing. The Diver is not amazing. And it's not just regularly bad either. It's really, really fucking terrible.

Charging people to see this is insulting.

★

The Diver is at the Rag Factory until 2nd August. Don't go and see it.

In Still Ill Morrissey sang, "Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?". Inside Out asks the same question, an animated summer blockbuster entirely about a 12 year old girl's fears. The twist is that we experience them from inside her head, as the personifications of her emotions bicker amongst each other for control.

They are Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling); miniature primary coloured cartoon figures that embody each emotion. Their HQ is in the centre of the brain, and they jockey for position in an effort to influence the girl's behaviour. The actions they nudge her towards result in new memories, which appear as glowing bowling ball sized spheres, which roll down ramps and end up lodged deep within the mind. This inner world is precisely what Pixar's famed for; a fantastical scenario that's instantly comprehensible.

The narrative it's in service of is almost brutal in its straightforwardness. Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is a happy young girl who enjoys ice hockey, acting silly and hanging out with her friends. But change comes a-knockin', her family upping sticks from snowy Minnesota to San Francisco. Lonely and isolated in her new environment Riley gradually becomes homesick and miserable. Within her mind this is shown as 'Joy' being accidentally jettisoned from the mind, with Sadness in tow. Disgust, Fear and Anger are left to take the controls, while Joy and Sadness battle their way back to primacy and come to terms with each other's existence.

Adaptation to changes in personal circumstances run right through Pixar's oeuvre, from Andy moving house in Toy Story to Ratatouille's Remy navigating life alone in the big city to Carl's disquiet at the skyscrapers sprouting up around his suburban home in Up. Though the particulars of each story are surreal (talking toys/rats, flying houses etc) the emotions are instantly relatable.

Inside Out takes these underlying themes to their logical conclusion. This makes for an intensely focussed children's film; one without an antagonist, pop culture references and even the traditional comedy sidekick (well, sorta). The eventual thrust of all this is a fable that encourages its audience to be in touch with sadness and understand that it's perfectly natural to feel blue once in a while.

This is a pleasantly emotionally mature message, Inside Out's conceit giving us a scaffold upon which we can imagine their own emotions competing for control. It's also a view of human nature where the individual is entirely a product of their environment and memories. This determinism stands at odds with the typically Manichean Disney fare of pure-hearted hero/ines and irredeemably evil villains. Inside Out isn't exactly radical cinema, but still, this mechanical psychology separates it from the subliminal Judeo-Christian value systems that lie at the heart of most children's (and lets face it, most adult's) mainstream cinema fare.

It's a credit to the writers and directors that Inside Out is such an intellectually satisfying film. If it were to that standard in every way it'd be up there with Pixar's best; but in places, sadly, it comes slightly unstuck. In a rare mis-step, the character design is a smidge unimaginative, with the 'heroine' emotion, Joy looking rather like a young Marge Simpson and the rest of the emotions broadly descriptive designs that lack that special Pixar pop.

This feeds into an ever-so-slightly safe aesthetic. It's as though the high narrative concept requires the environment design to be predictable in order to let us comprehend it. I can understand that, but I'd rather have seen the Pixar animators/designers let off the leash in creating a world purely of the imagination.

Admittedly there is the odd visual flourish, specifically a battle through the land of abstract thought that twists and flattens the characters, or a sequence where a 'dream movie studio' is hijacked to create bizarre imagery to wake Riley up. Unfortunately these are the exception rather than the rule; the later action sequences serviceable yet uninspired.

Nitpicking aside, Inside Out is an excellent piece of cinema. After the triple blows of the awful Cars 2, the disappointing Brave and the mediocre Monsters University I feared that Pixar had lost their golden touch - by my money their last inarguably excellent film was Toy Story 3, five long years ago. Inside Out restores the studio's lustre, underlining their status as a powerhouse of imaginative, emotionally satisfying cinema.

★★★★

Inside Out is on general release from 24 July 2015

In 1953's Duck Amuck, Daffy Duck is tormented by an offscreen animator, his physical appearance, clothing and voice are sadistically screwed with. The duck collides, violently, with his limitations as a fictional character, despairing as he realises he cannot escape his creator. In Peter Barnes'Noonday Demons a similar process occurs.

Standing in for Daffy is St Eusebius (Jordan Mallory-Skinner), a medieval holy man who's spent the last 13 years living in a dank cave, subsisting on a daily handful of olives and sips of stagnant water. He lives a life of lonely torment; spending his time contemplating his own misery as rotting skin peels from his emaciated flesh. Theoretically, by rejecting every single comfort, his intense asceticism will bring him closer to the suffering of Christ, and therefore closer to God.

For the most part, his only company has been a steadily growing heap of accreted human waste, yet he's soon spiritually attacked by the devil (taking the form of a mischievous vaudevillian dramatist) and later physically battled by rival ascetic. This develops into a classically sitcom-ish scenario, the new spiritual recluse Pior (Jake Curran) and Eusebius trying to undermine each other's miracles to gain control of this shit-caked cavern.

Both Curran and Mallor-Skinner are top notch, their eyes glistening with demented fervour as they repeatedly debase themselves. With their matted hair, filthy loincloths and diseased looking skin, they emanate a real aura of religious intensity, even when they're being ridiculous you can sense their sincerity. Their Gollum-ish body language gives them a bestial intensity, their sinews straining as they try their best to escape their sinful flesh.

This is all accentuated by some wonderfully textured stage design. With the only piece of scenery a disgusting looking heap of shit, it's down to a large bag of dust, dry ice and lighting to convey a sense of place. At times it's almost choking how thick the fog gets, which, in combination with spotlights at the sides of the stage casts jagged shadows on the men, leaving them looking increasingly skeletal. Even better, in the moments of genuine transcendence, where Eusebius is backlit by a spotlight, the arcs the shadows of his arms make through the mist begin to look eerily like angelic wings.

Though this is broad farce and slapstick, there's a core of existential misery to the whole affair. Though about two would-be holy men, Barnes' play is written from a materialist, atheistic perspective. The misery of these men becomes a cosmic punchline, the external force they're humiliating themselves for isn't God, it's us. This makes their ordeal a a trial by theatre, with the playwright as cruel interrogator and audience as jury.

Highlights are when, to the Eusebia's dismay, Barnes (taking the form of Peter-Cook-as-Satan) assumes control of his body, tempting him with a multitude of sins - eventually demonstrating his power by putting the two men through a surreal soft-shoe-shuffle song and dance hall. Though Eusebius claims to be spiritually tough enough to withstand any demonic revelation, not even he can cope with the suspicion that he's a fictional puppet designed to entertain a modern audience.

This eventually comes to a head as two saints compete to have out of body experiences. Pior pretends to fly over the desert and witness the sinner's city of Alexandria, breathlessly describing the crimes against God going on under his eyes. Not to be beaten, Eusebius undergoes his own vision. He also flies to Alexandria; but our Alexandria. With horror he regards a world of municipal parks and general godlessness; eventually swooping over the terrifying neo-Babylons of London and New York. True horror comes not from his observing open sinning, but from a sedate, uncaring areligiousness: nobody cares enough about God to consciously disobey him.

Eventually the wool completely falls from Eusebius' eyes, resulting in him being granted the spiritual ascension he desperately craved. But in a cruel twist, all this does is propel him into being a member of the audience, staring in traumatised disbelief as his doppelganger soaks up the applause and leaves the stage.

It's a pretty marvellous night at the theatre; spinning some impressively powerful comic gears, the minimal staging used to fullest effect and the whole production infused with an earthy physicality that perfectly complements the themes throughout. Colour me impressed.

★★★★

Noonday Demons is at the King's Head Theatre until 2 August. Tickets here.

'Jurassic World' (2015) directed by Colin Trevorrow

'I and the Village' at Theatre503, 14th June 2015

'Mr. Holmes' (2015) directed by Paul Condon

'L'italiana in Algeri' at the Brunel Shaft, 16th June 2015

'Iphigenia in Tauris' at The Rose Playhouse, 18th June 2015

'Chef' at the Soho Theatre, 17th June 2015

'A Single Act' at Theatro Technis, 19th June 2015

'Slow West' (2015) directed by John MacLean

'The Tribe' (2014) directed by Miroslav Slaboshpitsky

'Amy' (2015) directed by Asif Kapadia

'Asking Rembrandt' at the Old Red Lion Theatre, 26th June 2015

'Love and Mercy' (2015) directed by Bill Pohlad

'The Tempest' at the Hope Theatre, 2nd July 2015

'As Is' at Trafalgar Studios, 3rd July 2015

'Orson's Shadow' at the Southwark Playhouse, 6th July 2015

'Judgement' at arebyte Gallery, 7th July 2015

'Flick & Julie: Pop-Up Penny Pinchers' at the Leicester Square Theatre, 8th July 2015

'The Diver' at the Rag Factory, 10th July 2015

'Inside Out' (2015) directed by Pete Docter & Ronaldo Del Carmen

'Noonday Demons' at the King's Head Theatre, 14th July 2015