(5 / 5)

Please note there may be a slight spoiler in this review.

Harking back to many a youth, we are catapulted into an American school room to be amongst the teens, as they start to face questions around love, sex, misogyny and pop stars. They also have to face school, with all its complexities and a latest assignment, based on The Crucible.

John Proctor is the Villain is a story about a group of young, high school girls, around the time of the Me Too movement, with its impact on them, the local community as well as the trials of growing up, boys, pop culture, feminism, growing bodies and minds and confusing feelings. We see it from their conversations in their literature class with their young male teacher, their after-school feminist club and the moments in between, before and after school where an empty classroom is meant to be a place of sanctuary but doesn’t hold itself as that safe space. As they delve into sex education and The Crucible, their lives unravel, almost mirroring the story-line of the play with woman being the blame, men supported for wrongdoings and gossip running riot, resulting in them really reaching their feminist height, pulling the boys along with them and fighting back.

Remembering my own days of reading and performing The Crucible at school, this already evoked memories of discussing the play and its impression upon me as a young wannabe-actor. However, even these nearly 20 years later, I found myself newly informed and immersed in the discussions, factoring that John Proctor was pictured a hero and the women still as the villains. A story about the dangerous spread of gossip and rumour, we still side with his stoicism and rarely comment on the play being written by a male and the male view on the female characters. I found myself already with a renewed outlook, feeling like I was one of the girls discussing this and all the interpretations. Oh my horror when I remember how I was cast as Proctor way back when…

There’s a real sense of relatability as a female – while set in America, teenage girls are teenage girls, and all the performers (Lauren Ajufo, Holly Howden Gilchrist, Clare Hughes, Miya James and Sadie Soverall) evoke that youthful-ness, excited-ness and awkwardness that we all felt at that age. In a specific time where our minds and bodies are growing, our brains being somewhat working towards adulthood but still children, they brought this to life without it feeling satirical or unnatural. Each with their own personalities, there was no stereotyping here but something still very relatable. The excitement over a boy liking you, the girlish crush on your young teacher, the blow ups of friendships and family… all so normal yet still so dramatic. We want to be part of them, and we gasp and laugh as they do. We want to dance when they dance and we cheer them on when they fight back. Their relationships are so easy and natural and funny – so teenage and so girl-like. I can remember those moments with my own friends back at school.

When things get hard, we feel it. And we remember it from our own time. While the shocking turn of events may not have happened to us in our lives, we maybe heard stories of it in other places with other people, and went through our own serious moments while trying to grow up and be children at the same time. It’s still shocking and the theatrical techniques used to drop these bombshells is impactful. It only heightens the great acting on stage. The lighting, scene changes, spotlights highlighting character’s feelings at the time, all add to enhance this production from the script to the stage.

One can’t go without a mention of Dónal Finn. Like many, I am on the Finn train after his recent appearances in The Other Bennet Sister and Young Sherlock. Already two very different characters in themselves, Finn throws in yet another drastic change of character as Mr Smith. A likeable, excitable character, we can’t help but have a girlish crush ourselves and lean to liking him. So when things are turned upside down, the change from our impression of him is still as shocking. His character doesn’t change necessarily but it is felt under the surface; something running as a current. And his uncomfortable-ness at the crescendo is plastered naturally across his face and enveloped in his tense body language, ready to burst. If you happen to see all 3 of these credits in quick succession, you will see what a real upcoming talented star this man is becoming. One to look out for.

John Proctor is the Villain is a triumph of a production, relatable yet sufficiently dramatic. It questions everything we were ever taught about a fantastic play and forces us to continue to question feminism and the long way we still have to go.

(5 / 5)

Forewarning: this review may allude to spoilers and trigger warnings related to pregnancy.

Sometimes, theatre needs to pull back the pomp and circumstance and deliver work that is raw and unfiltered. And this is exactly what the Royal Court Theatre have done with Guess How Much I Love You?

This production shows the relationship between a young married couple, from their 20 week scan and through the unexpected turmoil from the results of this. We watch as their hearts and relationship break and rebuild, through unimaginable circumstances and laid completely bare to us and our own emotions.

Robert Aramayo, who has just won himself two Baftas, and Rosie Sheehy present an intimate and realistic couple, so much so that it almost feels as if we are peaking in through that fourth wall to something private. They bounce off one another in a natural way and present something ever so real.

The writing itself lends itself, along with their fantastic acting, to build us up, wrap us in their love, which packs the punch so much more when the blows come. It makes us feel their pain as raw and heartbreakingly as they may feel and it does not stop when we think it will… it’s almost like Luke Norris when writing the play thought “are those all the tears you have? I want more!” Norris has not shied away from the real conversations, the moments of anger and hatred as well as deep love, unconditional and the juxtaposition between these moments is again, so raw and truthful. No pretending this is some fairy story or happily ever after… which, there is somewhat of one, but, a very difficult happily ever after.

The set is simple – glimpses into hospital wards, their bedroom, their bathroom, and propped up high above us. We look in but the rooms are small and again, we feel like we are peaking into the privacy of their lives. It makes when we meet their baby all the more close and makes them seem even smaller, unconsciously, and we want to reach out and cuddle him ourselves. Scene changes are abrupt, filling the room in pitch black and ominous instrumentals that are neither jolly nor frighting, but creates an uneasiness; and this is so effective to give us the tiniest of reprieves. We’re then treated with this open, full stage, in the end scene, with the two at the beach, almost like the pressure of their feelings and situation has relented. The writing brings the story back around full circle, but not after we’re beaten and bruised by the former emotional roller coaster.

Guess How Much I Love You? is every bit beautiful, painful and hard hitting. Not a dry eye in the house, you’ll come away in awe of this production and needing a few minutes to collect yourself – all in the best way that fantastic theatre creates.

(3 / 5)

In this Utopian meets historical retelling of our past, The Sh*theads at the Royal Court Theatre does not hold back its mercy on bringing the intensity of love, violence and a willingness to live to the audience.

Looking back on early man, the debut from Jack Nicholls looks at how we began, grew, the nature of survival and the core feelings and emotions of human beings. At a state where the world is changing, we assume, for an ice age, a family fight for their survival, fearing the dangers of the world through story telling and belief without any other influence. When someone outside of their family unit joins, it pushes them to the reveal the lies about their way of life and soon the love becomes hatred and violence.

Our stage is kitted out, just like we would expect from early man – a cave with red painting on the wall of it, depicting hunting of animals by humans, with a small staircase of rock and hole at the top shining in light. The set changes little but when we move from the outside, in, to show the development of the family to the “others” (or, Sh*theads as they are known), this becomes a little more sophisticated; a standing lamp, chandelier made from bones, carpets put out – along with the animal print clothing that borders on modern, there’s a unique modernist yet dystopian feeling to this view of the past.

All the characters are larger than life and, while not a “stereotype”, they do lean into a certain differing character; the father is a eccentric man, ageing and a life long injury, the youngest daughter is bubbly and bouncy, with no filter, like most toddlers and Clare, the oldest daughter, while bordering psychotic, is strangely often the leader and voice of reason. The Sh*theads are also well rounded and different characters – a slightly simpler man, almost excitable as a child and his partner who is inquisitive and in her own right pretty fierce. The different dynamics work well, particularly when all descends into chaos.

My favourite part of this production has to be the puppetry. This is in the guise of the Sh*thead’s baby – evoking similarities to a smaller version of Little Amal, with effective and lifelike movement and voice and later a young doe eating grass. However, our first impression of the whole production is a huge, life-like Elk. Similar to War Horse, puppeteers envelope themselves within the structure and you forget that this is not a real animal. It is beautiful and yet made with a raggety-ness to it that feels homemade yet highly professional. It makes the circumstances it falls into all the more emotional.

The Sh*theads is a great production. It is beautiful aesthetically, with well thought out characters and an interesting story-line. However, while I cannot quite pick out what it was, it felt a little like the shining element to make it an outstanding piece of theatre was missing. Enjoyable none the less and worth watching despite it missing that little piece of the puzzle.