JENNY MITCHELL, poetry co-editor for the Morning Star, introduces her priorities, and her first selection
Thriller fails dramatically in mountain ascent
Black Mountain
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond-upon-Thames
BUILDING dramatic tension is not an easy skill for a playwright to master. Just a word or two, or even a pause, in the wrong place can puncture long spells of hard-earned unease.
In Brad Birch's latest play it is not so much his delicately crafted and intriguing wordplay that bursts the bubble but the deflating lack of substance behind it.
James Grieve's minimalist in-the-round production utilises just a ring of light and a collection of shrill sounds to illuminate the story of a murky love triangle.
Similar stories
MARY CONWAY relishes two matchless performers and a masterclass in tightly focused wordplay
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
MAYER WAKEFIELD is chilled by the co-dependency of two lost souls as portrayed by German communist playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz
MAYER WAKEFIELD wonders why this 1978 drama merits a revival despite demonstrating that the underlying theme of racism in the UK remains relevant



