MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
Strategies of resistance
SIMON PARSONS applauds the psychological study of prisoners dealing with a frighteningly oppressive world endured by far too many
Ross Tomlinson as Smash and Waj Ali as Valdez in The Unseen
[Manuel Harlan]
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes an engaging and nourishing account of the queer subculture that flourished in London between WWII and partial decriminalisation
RON JACOBS welcomes the political lessons for today, about organisation and withdrawal from conflict, made by an erudite and conversational biography
The Unseen
Riverside Studios, London
CRAIG WRIGHT’s deft and thought-provoking script set in an isolation wing for political prisoners shows little evidence of its initial commission as a play about Jesus. Instead, the taut drama is based round the relationship of two contrasting prisoners and their violent yet troubled guard.
In near adjacent cells, Wallace, an articulate analytical doctor and Valdez, a reticent yet impassioned former actor have established a long-standing relationship based only on their verbal exchanges, frequently based around word games.
Similar stories
Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS
SIMON PARSONS applauds the timely revival of a play about solidarity and betrayal within Britain’s Pakistani community
GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son
GEORGE FOGARTY is captivated by a brilliant one-man show depicting life in HMP Strangeways