GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Pitting the personal against the state
SIMON PARSONS reviews two plays in which the manipulation of facts for the sake of the drama produces uneven results
Sam Hoare, in Press, as a self-centred journalist with little or no moral compass
[Steve Gregson]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Make Mine a Double
Park Theatre
PARK Theatre continues its exciting commitment to new writing with four new or nearly new hour-long shows. Tunnels and Press share an evening and at first glance seem to have little in common, the first about two men digging their way under the Berlin Wall and the latter, a tabloid hack forced to grow a conscience.
As the plays develop the similarities begin to emerge. Both are fictional accounts based in factual events. Both leave the central character isolated and grief-stricken at the choices they have made.
Tunnels is a claustrophobic drama written and performed by Oliver Yelp as easy-going Freddie while Lewis Bruniges plays his emotionally damaged cousin, Paul. They share hopes, memories and banter about life in East Germany as they work on their 200-metre escape tunnel, but over time the tunnel becomes a petri dish for their anxieties, nightmares and losses.
Similar stories
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
SIMON PARSONS is beguiled by a dream-like exploration of the memories of a childhood in Hong Kong
SIMON PARSONS is taken by a thought provoking and intelligent play performed with great sensitivity
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic