Mary Beer

1 week ago | londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer

There are lots of ways to divide people in the world and whilst I’m often loathe to look for differences, I think there is fundamentally a split between those for whom a virtuoso drum solo has them whooping, impressed and ecstatic, and those for whom — no matter how technically brilliant they may perceive the act – there is something just a bit dull and self-indulgent about beholding it.  In Japanese, the word taiko refers simply to any kind of drum.

3 weeks ago | londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer

Whatever you do, do not confuse Jon Fosse with Bob Fosse. Whilst both artists are exceptional and boundary-pushing in their respective milieux, Jon Fosse is the Nobel-prize-winning Norwegian poet and theatre-maker whose latest production at the Coronet Theatre makes Ibsen feel like Rodgers & Hammerstein, whereas the other Fosse (now deceased) is, of course, all jazz hands, tipped hats, and sex-drenched show-stopping dance numbers.

1 month ago | londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer

Mark O’Halloran’s script of post-coital meditations and chatter has flashes of promise and insight but despite some daring choices, Jess Edwards’ London production manages to drift and feels anything but edgy. There is something rather old-fashioned, bordering on judgemental in O’Halloran’s writing that suggests the casual hook-ups of She (Olivia Lindsay) must be rooted in a kind of pathology or at least malaise.

1 month ago | londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer

Oslo-based troupe Susie Wang’s third instalment in a trilogy of “human nature” is an ambitious and audaciously executed work of absurdism that I still can’t decide whether to recommend or not. But its stagecraft, physicality and aspects of emotional provocation have not left my memory for days now and, as such, it is indisputably haunting. Like a fever dream, the performance vacillates from the logical and literal to the disturbingly fantastical.

2 months ago | londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer

If you lived through the Covid-19 pandemic and experienced lock-down in the UK, there is absolutely no reason to relive the worst aspects of it by devoting 75 minutes of your life watching James McDermott’s Jab. This two-hander, directed by Scott Le Crass, is so tedious that I found myself, at about 20 minutes in, hoping that the entirely predictable ending would just arrive sooner.