Could this be a new genre? Comedic, acrobatic burlesque? GODZ , which is presented by Apollo, Dionysos, Cupid and Hercules, delivers some inane comedy, some impressive acrobatics and some inoffensive nudity. It is all good fun, even if it doesn't make much sense. Why the four Greek gods? Who knows? With a meagre narrative and minimal characterisation, that is never quite clear, and it probably doesn't matter. On the plot side of things however, we thought the distinction between the Greek Hades and the Christian Hell which is amusingly introduced could have been exploited for a lot more humour. The heart of the show is really the acrobatics, and what the four performers do with chairs, aerial straps and a ladder is quite breathtaking. They had the audience on the edge of their seats with their wonderful shenanigans. However, the point of the sequence with the whip and candles was simply unclear, and the yo-yoing bit which demonstrates some awesome prowess left us briefly wonder...

When Sam Crow's mother is ill, she is constantly positive. She is always looking forward to things being better. It is an optimism that the young Sam adopts, but when his mother dies, it leaves him uncertain about how to adjust to that situation. Then, he remembers the tale his mother used to tell him about the island of Pangea, a wonderful mythical place; he thinks about that land and wonders if the means of sorting out his complex emotions about her loss might be found there. King of Pangea is a slight fable about loss and reconciliation to the reality of death, but it never really works. The rather forced metaphor about finding the final piece of the puzzle and the journey to the fabled land all fall rather flat. A major issue is that this doesn't seem like a fully thought-out fantasy place, and the whole sequence about the magic coins fails to resonate. Luring an audience into an imaginative construct is never an easy task, and in this case, Pangea simply doesn't engag...

This premiere of Danny James King's play has much to recommend it. There are some nicely drawn characters and some very strong performances. The show is dominated, however, by Diveen Henry's portrayal of the indomitable Miss Myrtle. Playing the judgemental, sharp-tongued matriarch, Henry reigns over the stage in the same way that Myrtle strives to control her world, her garden, and all the people who enter her life. From Myrtle's late husband, Melrose, to her grandson, Rudy, and including their drunken neighbour, Eddie, Miss Myrtle sets a standard of behaviour that is very high, and often unattainable. She is both a force of nature and a force to be reckoned with. King's portrait of her is a delight, but there is so much more we would like to know about her. We never really get to the heart of what makes this fascinating character the way she is. Instead, we are given lots of other narrative threads, several of which are never fully developed. What is the mystery behind...

In 2012, Sarah Ruhl met Max Ritvo. He was a senior in her playwriting class, and she immediately recognised his talent for writing. Over the following years, they began a correspondence which covered many topics from poetry to Max's ongoing battle with cancer. Letters From Max was developed from that ongoing dialogue and movingly chronicles their shared love of life and literature. It is a deeply affecting experience that is beautifully captured in the performances of Sirine Saba as the putative mentor, Sarah, and Eric Sirakian, as the irrepressible pupil, Max. These roles are far from fixed, however, and as Sarah opines in the play, she learns as much from Max as he does from her as they both experience his coming to grips with his mortality. It is fascinating to watch these two intelligent and articulate individuals struggle with questions of art and death, and both Saba and Sirakian put in beautifully subtle and cerebral performances. If there is any fault to find in this lovel...

This gentle fable about a child who is mourning the loss of his father won three prizes at Japan's Yomiuri Theatre Awards in 2024. For that original production, Michinari Ozawa not only wrote, directed and did the set design, but he also starred in the show. It is quite an extraordinary achievement. Our Cosmic Dust tells the story of a young boy, Shotaro, who is equally precocious. When he questions his mother as to what has happened to his late father, she says he has become a star. This causes Shotaro to withdraw and become silent, as he ponders the meaning of her explanation. He then sets out on a quest which not only interrogates the notion of an afterlife, but also questions the very place of humanity in the universe. These metaphysical and cosmological themes are beautifully expounded in the story, with Shotaro being represented by a puppet operated against a stunning set which makes use of some delightful LED display imagery. Indeed, this is a show that has an extraordinary...

One of our favourite signs of summer is the return of Giffords Circus to Chiswick House & Gardens. This year marks the troupe's 25th anniversary, and to celebrate they have created "Laguna Bay." This is a show inspired by America in the 1950s. It is a nostalgic flashback to what might now seem a simpler and more innocent time, full of sun, surf and rock 'n' roll. All the crowd favourites are back including the ubiquitous Tweedy, the clown who has been with the show for over twenty years. This year he is struggling with deck chairs and ladders as he also laughably inserts himself into almost all of the other acts. He pops up in Maximiliano's magic sequence in which he is made to neatly disappear. He bedevils Mikey Fletcher, the talented singing emcee of the show, and he creates ice cream havoc with The Rivelinos, Daniel Santos Silva and Jose Luis Santos Oliveira. At the circus, our personal favourites are always the acrobats and aerialists and the Ethio-Sal...

At the height of the Cold War, there was no business like the spy business, and this thoroughly delightful comedy is a brilliant send-up of our enduring fascination with James Bond and his counterparts. The plot, such as it is, revolves around trying to thwart a double agent who is intending to deliver plans for a secret doomsday weapon to the Soviets. But, there's really not much need to worry about that. This spoof about spooks is a wonderfully wacky farce with agents from the CIA, the KGB and MI6 all running around a hotel where an earnest young baker is planning a proposal to his girlfriend and a hapless actor is preparing to audition for the part that Sean Connery made his own. The silliness is non-stop, and the gags come thick and fast. The puns are totally outrageous, and the cast's physical comedy is superlative. While all of the performances were outstanding, our particular favourites were Chris Leask as the back-story obsessed Sergei Ivanov, and Henry Shields as the t...

In 1893 George Bernard Shaw wrote Mrs. Warren's Profession . Dealing with prostitution, the marginalisation of women and the viciousness of capitalism, it is not surprising that it shocked and offended the powers that be. Indeed, that was the very reaction that Shaw was seeking from people, for he deeply believed in the importance of theatre as an instrument to create social awareness. What may be more surprising, however, is how the playwright's concerns still continue to resonate. Faced with a choice between working in a white lead factory and probably dying as a result, or of using her entrepreneurial skills in the world's oldest profession, Mrs. Warren chooses the latter. However, later in life she is faced with a daughter who sees her practical, hypocrisy-hating mother as simply another exemplar of the system that exploits women and perpetuates the every-man-for-himself ethic that motivates society. Yet, is this moralising daughter only able to afford such scruples bec...

On entering this exhibition, the visitor is greeted by representatives of three major faith traditions. Statues of the Buddha, Ganesha and a tirthankara both open and close this thought-provoking introduction to three of the world's major religions: Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. All three began in India, and this ambitious show seeks to trace their origins, consider their interconnections and celebrate their artistic expression. However, in the face of such rich and complex traditions, the best that the exhibition can do is to offer a peek into these subjects, concluding with the hope that the visitors' appetite will be whetted to learn more. The first gallery, Nature Spirits , looks at the objects created from 200 BC onwards, establishing how these works of devotion and their imagery would influence and be integrated into the the three faiths covered in the later sections: Jain Art, Buddhist Art and Hindu Art . Perhaps, the least widely known of the three, Jainism, emerged ...

Many one-person shows are representative of an increasingly popular genre - the theatre of personal catharsis. Elephant written, composed and performed by Anoushka Lucas is no exception, but it is a truly first rate example of its type. Lucas' character, Lylah, is the child of Indian, Cameroonian, French and English heritage who strives to come to terms with the issues of race and class that form the context of her socialisation and ambivalent sense of self. As an individual she is brought up to assimilate into a white middle-class society, but as a professional musician she is faced with an industry that wants to accentuate her race and working-class roots, denying the complexity of who she is. Lylah's struggle with issues of self-acceptance becomes tangled into her desperate desire to be accepted by others as she attempts to become an individual who is not defined by the racial and class lenses that both she, and others, constantly see her through. Indeed, her brief ponderin...