MARIA DUARTE, LEO BOIX and ANGUS REID review Brides, Dead of Winter, A Night Like This, and The Librarians
Uber-menshen
MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds the revival of an eerily prophetic drama
SCANDALOUS: Sean Delaney in Brilliant Jerks at Southwark Playhouse
[Pic: Nick Rutter ] ![REBELS: Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar in Nadia Fall’s powerful debut feature Brides [Pic: IMDb]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2025-09/round%20up%20web_0.jpg.webp?itok=41xI6jhN)
MARY CONWAY recommends an early Shakespearean tragedy that feels so contemporary that it mirrors our daily news
A ghost story by Mexican Ave Barrera, a Surrealist poetry collection by Peruvian Cesar Moro, and a manifesto-poem on women’s labour and capitalist havoc by Peruvian Valeria Roman Marroquin
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends a dazzling production of Bernstein’s opera set in a world where chaos and violence are greeted by equanimity
MARY CONWAY is frustrated by a new play that loses its drama amid the moral dilemma of re-settling children in the aftermath of WWII
Acclaimed as a masterpiece when it premiered, this study of story-telling in an Irish pub more than lives up to expectations, says MARY CONWAY
SYLVIA HIKINS relishes a comedy that dives deep into Liverpool’s divided loyalties
Brilliant Jerks
by Joseph Charlton
Southwark Playhouse
WHEN Joseph Charlton’s Brilliant Jerks was first performed at Vault Festival in 2018, Uber was less than a decade old, but its influence on the world was already enormous. Despite huge global resistance to its exploitative practices and a series of scandals, it is now an entrenched global brand. Katie-Ann McDonough’s revival feels like a warning we have failed to heed.
The plot melds three engrossing but uneven stories. Mia (Kiran Sonia Sawar) is a Glaswegian driver offering “bargain-bucket therapy” to stray passengers as they fall out of nightclubs or need a ferry to the airport. Sean (Sean Delaney) is an overly trusting coder, riding the wave of the company’s success and Tyler (Shubham Saraf) is the juvenile, status-obsessed CEO, hell-bent on taking over the world.
Between the three of them they also multi-role thirteen other characters in a whirlwind ninety minutes in which it’s not always easy to keep up, especially with costume changes kept to an absolute minimum.
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