I’m a Phoenix, Bitch
Bryony Kimmings’ solo performance is an extraordinary piece of theatre by an artist of exceptional integrity, imagination and guts. A subversive feminist musical, with elements of pop video, horror movie, art installation and therapy session, it chronicles the moment in 2015 when she broke up with her boyfriend, lost her mind and very nearly lost her baby. A choking and exhilarating ride. MG
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Jessie Cave: Sunrise
Assembly George Square Studios
There’s intimate standup comedy, and then there are Jessie Cave’s shows: animated diary entries tracing the ebb and worrisome flow of her sex life, her self-esteem and her feelings for her ex and father of her kids, fellow comic Alfie Brown. This is a potent, grownup and emotionally intelligent hour of heart-on-sleeve comedy. BL
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Juliet and Romeo
The clever conceit of Ben Duke’s funny but achingly sad revision of Shakespeare’s tragedy is that the formerly star-crossed lovers (Duke and Solène Weinachter) are approaching middle age. They are embarking on a memory exercise in which they relive key moments of their lives. It is beautifully assured: fast, inventive, smart and expertly paced. JM
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The Fishermen
Assembly George Square Studios
Based on Chigozie Obioma’s Man Booker prize-nominated 2015 novel, Gbolahan Obisesan’s script for The Fishermen strips the stage of the book’s many characters. Instead we are given a speedy two-hander that pulls humour and heartache from an ambitious story that is half flashback-heavy Bildungsroman, half Achebe-esque family tragedy. BM
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It’s True, It’s True, It’s True
Breach Theatre’s tremendous three-hander evokes the 1612 trial of Agostino Tassi, accused of rape by Artemisia Gentileschi, a gifted baroque painter who was 15 at the time of the alleged attack. It uses period transcripts, translated from Latin and Italian into conversational English, as the raw material for a gripping court drama driven by implicit feminist rage. MF
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Fake News
Assembly George Square Studios
In Osman Baig’s punchy, provocative monologue, the audience play interns to whom Baig, as a senior editor, delivers an induction lecture on “journalistic integrity”. We are invited to learn from his catastrophic fact-checking error over a piece of breaking news that almost broke the internet. Such is his energetic intensity he seems to deliver the entire performance in a single breath. ML
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Rose Matafeo: Horndog
This is a history of the New Zealand comic’s brushes with love and sex. Having kissed nine people in her life (she’s 26), that easily fits into a fringe hour. And what an hour it is: another storming set from a woman whose neuroses, intelligence and flamboyant sense of her own ridiculousness make her a near-perfect comedian. BL
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BalletBoyz: Them/Us
BalletBoyz has metamorphosed from the founding duo of Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt to a seven-strong group who are not only dancers but – on the evidence of Them, the first half of this double bill – budding choreographers too. It was devised democratically by the company and is thoughtful, fresh and finessed. The second half, Christopher Wheeldon’s Us, reaches deep into two men’s connection. LW
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Status
Chris Thorpe’s one-man show is about the questions of nationhood that the divisive Brexit referendum and the impending split from Europe throw up. With its magical-realist twists, the show has the strange pull of a Haruki Murakami novel; it’s a dense and provocative barrage of reflections on a world in flux and our place within it. MF
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Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster
The Beatbox Academy is a collective born from the Battersea Arts Centre, with members ranging from nine to 29 years old. Mary Shelley’s novel is used as the loosest of frameworks to explore issues of identity, body image and social media. The space throbs with unimaginably complex harmonies and beats. It beggars belief: could this really be just six people with microphones? MG
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