JOE GILL speaks to the Palestinian students in Gaza whose testimony is collected in a remarkable anthology
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Unique wedding woes
TOM KING sees a bitter-sweet musical, the first ever about a gay marriage
Passionate partners: Tyrone Huntley (left) and Billy Cullum in Leave to Remain
[Helen Maybanks]
MARY CONWAY delights in a rarely performed comedy that recalls a Britain we remember in our bones
JEAN ROBERTS appreciates the way traditional panto can be remodelled into critique of the academy schools system
MARY CONWAY is riveted by a superbly crafted glimpse into the soul of a cast-off US star
MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
Leave to Remain
Lyric Theatre Hammersmith
AS A musical, Leave to Remain treads familiar ground.
The young Alex and Obi meet and fall in love before their respective pasts catch up with them, throwing their future together into doubt. But the fact that they’re both gay gives what would otherwise be a fairly hackneyed story some interesting new dimensions in Matt Jones and Kele Okereke's work.
The plot thickens when Alex (Billy Cullum), a US citizen whose visa is dependent on his work, announces he must leave Britain and follow his company to the UAE, effectively calling time on the couple's new and thrilling romance. The only way Alex can stay and be granted “leave to remain” is for he and Obi (Tyrone Huntley) to marry.
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