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2 weeks 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.
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2 weeks ago | 
londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer
Rarely, but, with merciful magic, sometimes, a production arrives on the London stage that is almost too beautiful to dissect lest its miracle of connection be vivisected. Alan Fielden’s Container at the New Diorama Theatre is such a work. And with it comes a renewed faith in creativity and talent. There must surely be a compound abstract noun in German that explains that exact feeling of excitement, discovery and renewal?
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1 month ago | 
londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer |Mary has worked
Amidst the Ides of March, I can’t help but remember the demise of the Vault Festival as the treat it was to catch shows on their way to or from the Edinburgh Fringe, but thankfully the Soho Theatre’s programming at this time of the year goes a long way towards scratching that particular itch. Derek Mitchell’s one-person, one-act performance of Goblin is particularly satisfying as a sneak preview that is much more than an entertainment snack but also holds the promise of something bigger to come.
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2 months ago | 
londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer |Mary has worked
Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy is a modern classic. As a pitch-perfect tween parable of friendship, betrayal, medical and press ethics and the real meaning of love, expectations for any stage adaptation of her novel are naturally high.
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2 months ago | 
londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer |Mary has worked
As is written boldly on its walls, the Bush Theatre strives to be “at the forefront of new writing, developing the very best new talent and championing unheard voices”.
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Dec 17, 2024 | 
lastminutetheatretickets.com | Mary Beer
The Horrible Histories franchise can almost do no wrong in my (and my children’s) estimation. We have found every stage (plus a Thames riverboat cruise) adaptation pleasing in its just-right gross-out juvenile humour mixed with lashings of proper history. Given my adoration of the brand, it’s probably worth acknowledging that my expectations are high when offered the opportunity to attend anything to do with it.
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Dec 8, 2024 | 
londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer |Mary has worked
“Unassuming” is defined as “modest, lacking in arrogance, pleasant, or polite,” – and all of those things are true about Claire Cunningham. She enters the performance stage and is immediately, for lack of a better word, nice. She is inviting. She is welcoming. With her lilting Scottish accent, she was a warm and knowing wit such that you feel she really means it when she says she wants you to be comfortable.
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Dec 3, 2024 | 
londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer |Mary has worked
Omar F Okai’s Pinocchio for the Stratford East is probably one of the most wholesome and traditional pantos I’ve seen for a long time – whilst bringing in a colourful and high production value sense of otherworldliness. Stewart J Charlesworth’s sets (and costumes) are sumptuous and playful without a single nod to the Germanic fairy tales and their imagery (castles, princes) that are so often source material of the British pantomime tradition.
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Dec 1, 2024 | 
lastminutetheatretickets.com | Mary Beer
Birmingham Rep’s The Snowman returns again after nearly three decades of performances and, based on ticket sales so far, it has come to occupy a place in the Christmas canon. Without question, the show’s aerial acts that accompany the famous choral rendition of Howard Blake’s “Walking in the Air” (from Dianne Jackson’s 1982 animated film adaption of Raymond Briggs’ seminal picture book) is thrilling.
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
londontheatre1.com | Mary Beer |Mary has worked
James Fritz’s The Flea returns to the Yard Theatre after its world premiere last year for a second run (until the end of November) with an impressive new cast – including the stage debut of knock-out performer Connor Finch who dazzles in two opposing roles: aristocrat Arthur Somerset and telegraph-boy-trafficker Henry Newlove.
