Nuclear War, Buried, and Graceland - Old Red Lion Theatre - ★★★★★ - Until March 21, 2020


“Oh death, where is thy sting?” could well be a subtitle for Alexander Knott's enthralling triptych comprising Buried, Graceland and Nuclear War. The first of these, Buried, is brilliantly performed by James Demaine as a man temporarily entombed in a collapsed building. His entire life flashes through his mind in a torrent of words and actions. His first drink, his first sexual experience, military service, boxing are all presented with tremendous physicality. In Graceland, Anthony Cozens plays an endearingly dysfunctional teacher who is pilloried by his class. By using the audience as his class, Cozens gains a terrific and often hilarious rapport. Kids can be both perceptive and cruel so when they discover that he is being cuckolded a different side of the teacher emerges. Using combustion as a metaphor for life we enjoyed this ingenious play and the performance enormously. Nuclear War comes as a shock when we meet two women, played by Zöe Grain and Freya Sharp, who portray two sides of the same personality. Using complex movement at times to emphasise how the loss of a partner can be unbearable, the excellent Grain and Sharp frequently speak in unison and with distinctive vocal rhythms which can be bewildering as we hurtle along this unusual roller coaster of experiences. Helped throughout by Samuel Heron's ingenious use of sound and composition these pieces are certainly thought provoking. By placing them together Knott gives us an exceptionally rewarding and brilliantly performed entertainment.

 Reviewed by D.S.J.
Photo © Charles Flint Photography.
 Our Score:  ☆☆☆☆☆ 

 Want to save on tickets? See our Tips page.

 WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE:
Until March 21, 2020
Tue - Sat: 7:30 pm. Sat: 3 pm
Old Red Lion Theatre
Nearest tube: Angel
https://www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk/nuclear-war-buried-graceland.html
Map & Location: 418 St John St, Islington, London EC1V 4NJ, UK

Most Popular

St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

Image
Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
Full Details »

Wright of Derby: From the Shadows ★★★★★ The National Gallery | Nov 7, 2025 - May 10, 2026

Image
This exhibition is the first comprehensive showcase devoted to Joseph Wright’s celebrated candlelit works, featuring pieces from 1765 to 1773. Wright of Derby emerges as a master of contrast, using the interplay of shadow and illumination to craft scenes that are both dramatic and thought-provoking. Evoking the intensity of earlier masters such as Caravaggio and drawing on the tradition of tenebrism, Wright’s manipulation of light and shadow imbues each scene with tension and theatricality. Figures gather around an array of objects, from classical sculptures and scientific tools to animal specimens and anatomical curiosities. Through these attentive observers, Wright examines the act of seeing itself, inviting viewers to reflect on curiosity, morality, and human perception. Beyond his technical brilliance in rendering light, he uses nocturnal settings to probe deeper, darker themes, including mortality, melancholy, and the sublime. His work resonates with an underlying sense of questio...
Full Details »

My Fair Lady ★★★★★ The Mill at Sonning | Nov 20, 2025 - Jan 17, 2026

Image
It is easy to misremember Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady as simply another musical romcom, but this superb production reminds us that it is rooted in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion . Along with the beguiling love story, there is a sharp and insightful commentary on class, gender, and the social forces that shape us. This is a transformation tale with something to say, and this first-rate staging gets the balance exactly right between fairy tale romance and pointed social critique. The beloved story of the Cockney flower girl who blossoms into a lady and the brilliant but blinkered academic, who finds he has a heart after all, is presented with uncommon clarity and warmth. It is not only the tale of Eliza’s metamorphosis, a working class woman discovering her independence, her identity, and her voice. It is also about the detached and self assured middle class academic Henry Higgins learning, sometimes painfully, what it means to truly listen. Simbi Akande is a radiant Eliza Doolittl...
Full Details »

Fuseli and the Modern Woman: Fashion, Fantasy, Fetishism ★★★★ The Courtauld | Oct 14, 2022 - Jan 8, 2023

Image
For being intriguing and provocative, Henry Fuseli's life rivals his work. Born in 1741, he was raised to be a protestant clergyman, but he upset his parents' expectations to become an artist. Later as a pillar of the British artistic establishment, he had another side to his character that would have shocked many of his contemporaries. This delightful exhibition that offers a tantalising insight into both the man and his work is divided into three sections: The Medusa of the Hearth, The Other Side of Venus and Dangerous Liaisons. The groupings reveal Fuseli's preoccupation with the female form, his obsession with curious hairstyles and his erotic idiosyncrasies. While these drawings and watercolours may be somewhat transgressive in their subject matter, what is undeniable is the extraordinary quality of Fuseli's draughtsmanship. The stunningly executed pieces demonstrate the self-taught artist's extraordinary skills in all their subtlety and variety. The exhibition...
Full Details »

Coven ★★ Kiln Theatre | Until January 17, 2026

Image
Coven seeks to transform the seventeenth-century obsession with witches into a musical in the spirit of Six . The historical horror becomes an anachronistic retelling inspired by the Pendle Witch Trials and by the idea that Jenet Device, a child witness in the 1612 trials, later became a victim of the dark arts hysteria in 1633. In the first act, Jenet is imprisoned with several women accused of witchcraft although their 'crimes' really consist of practicing natural healing, assisting in childbirth, or offending powerful men. All are victims of a repressive patriarchy, an authoritarian church, and a deeply corrupt legal system. However, the portrayal of these women and their stories feels heavy-handed, and by the end of Act I the central narrative and main character remain uncertain. Only in the second act, through a flashback that explores Jenet’s psyche, do we learn her history and recognise her as the true protagonist. The scattered plot threads from the first act then begi...
Full Details »

Porn Play ★★★ Royal Court Theatre | Nov 6 - Dec 13, 2025

Image
Ani is a successful academic who lectures on Milton and has recently won an award for her latest book. She is in a relationship with a sensitive, gentle man, and on the surface, she seems to have it all. Yet beneath her success, Ani harbours a preoccupation with violent pornography which threatens to undermine both her personal and professional life. Sophia Chetin-Leuner’s drama explores two intertwined themes: the transgressive nature of sexual fantasies which gain their erotic power from being taboo and the fact that obsessive behaviour often stems from unresolved trauma. Ani’s addiction to porn and her excessive masturbation initially serve to numb her grief over her mother’s death. However over time, they begin to erode both her relationships and career. These themes are then developed through literary concepts, primarily drawn from Milton. The play opens with a reference to the Narcissus myth, which is later illuminated in Ani’s lecture on Paradise Lost , where she examines Milton...
Full Details »

End ★★★★ National Theatre | Nov 13 - Jan 17, 2026

Image
End is the third play in David Eldridge's trilogy about couples at different stages of their relationships. In this final instalment, Alfie (Clive Owens) and Julie (Saskia Reeves) confront Alfie’s imminent death from cancer. Their exchanges are at once humorous and deeply affecting as they revisit memories, moments of happiness, regrets, and past conflicts. Plans for the funeral become conversations about dying and tentative imaginings of what might lie ahead. Each of the three plays is set in the morning, a liminal period between night and day that suggests transition and vulnerability. However, in this instance, the strictly limited timeframe feels somewhat contrived. Too much is compressed into a span that in reality would unfold over several days. Dividing the play into a series of distinct scenes with overlapping discussions might have made for greater verisimilitude and prevented some of the abrupt changes in tone and subject matter. Within ninety minutes all five of Kübler...
Full Details »

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) ★★★★★ Criterion Theatre | Apr 4 - Aug 31, 2024

Image
She's a rather cynical, world weary New Yorker. He's a naïve, overly enthusiastic Brit. They are brought together by his father's wedding to her sister, and they have nothing in common except the capacity for some extremely amusing barbs and banter. We all know how this is going to end, but the fun is in the emotional journey and its satisfyingly comfortable conclusion. Not surprisingly, it turns out that his relentless optimism and her wary skepticism both mask disappointments and losses which they will come to terms with as they carry their shared burden across the Big Apple and come to know each other. This is a delightful two-hander that is intended as a romcom for millennials, but like all representatives of the genre it ultimately depends on the chemistry of its principals. Both Sam Tutty as Dougal and Dujonna Gift as Robin bring their A-game to these performances. They are immediately likeable, and we are instantly rooting for them. Tutty exudes a puppy-like charm an...
Full Details »

David Copperfield ★★★★ Jermyn Street Theatre | Nov 20 - Dec 20, 2025

Image
It seems like an impossible task. Can you really squeeze all of the incidents and characters of one of Dickens' sprawling novels into a two-hour theatrical production and have all of the people played by only three actors? Amazingly, the Guildford Shakespeare Company manages to do just that. This theatrical version of Dickens' semi-autobiographical masterpiece is remarkably faithful to the original story, and somehow the small cast brings to life each of the author's wonderfully eccentric creations. From the ever optimistic Mr Micawber to the unctuous Uriah Heep every figure David Copperfield encounters on his life-journey becomes a believable and engaging personage. As in the novel, we begin at the moment of David's birth and end with his marriage to a paragon of Victorian virtue. Along the way we are introduced to a plethora of weird characters and must navigate a convoluted plot that is riddled with coincidence. Refreshingly in this telling, the familiar Dickensian...
Full Details »

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold ★★★ @sohoplace | Nov 17, 2025 - Feb 21, 2026

Image
John le Carré’s landmark espionage tale remains a defining work of the genre. At the height of the Cold War, spymaster Alec Leamas has just seen one of his most trusted agents killed. Ready at last to abandon the service, he is instead drawn into a final, intricate scheme meant to topple his old adversary, Mundt, head of East Germany’s foreign intelligence apparatus. Leamas is only required to present himself as a whiskey-soaked cynic who is willing to betray his country - a role that comes all too naturally to a man who has grown tired of every trick in the trade. Yet two forces could unravel this cunning plan: the romantic resurrection of Leamas' long-extinguished idealism, or the dawning suspicion that he is a pawn, rather than a player, in someone else’s unforgiving game. David Eldridge’s adaptation and Jeremy Herrin’s meticulous staging capture the novel’s bleak, noir-tinged world with striking fidelity. Even the heavy burden of exposition, required to guide the audience throu...
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings