On paper, blending stand-up and sexual assault seems risky. While I would personally argue the medium to be the perfect place to address the unspoken, the taboo, the current role of stand-up in most people’s lives is to entertain rather than challenge. In any case, if it does confront the audience, at what point does the comedian become a lecturer?

Charlotte Ashton’s script does not lecture the audience, nor does it follow the depressingly well-beaten track of using women’s trauma to shock and titillate. In fact, we don’t witness any of the assault itself. Instead, we see the resounding effect on Dolly’s life, and the truth that the assault wasn’t an aberration, but a product of a society that doesn’t challenge misogynistic violence and punishes victims far more than perpetrators.

Jessica Clark is phenomenal as Dolly, captivating the audience throughout as both a convincing stand-up and woman at and past the breaking point. Director Anthony Biggs, together with superb Sound Design from Roly Botha and Lighting Design by Skylar Turnbull Hurd, masterfully builds the tension to agonising heights before allowing us to release and laugh at perfect Wotsit-eating impressions and hashtag misunderstandings. The stand-up framework is able to seamlessly merge into one-woman play, emerging as a mask for Dolly to hide behind; the choices of microphone vs without vs voiceover are genuinely outstanding.

Ever-present plastic dolls, piles of naked plastic bodies under live stream or present in the police interview room, are a well-executed metaphor. The live-stream aspect in general is interesting and well-utilised, though having only one pre-recorded video played on the projection (via Dolly’s mobile) makes the lack of any more footage shown feel incomplete. In general, Asli Ozuak’s design is impactful and yet blends well into this “stand-up” performance.

Dolly is bitingly angry, gripping and relevant. Many will recognise themselves in it, and those who don’t should watch to understand how common the experiences are. This is a show that everyone should see, and well deserves many more performances.

Dolly is running at the Omnibus Theatre until 7th November 2026.

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Reviewed by Alice Wilson

Alice (they/them) is a set, prop and puppet maker who moonlights as a performer and writer. Their work encompasses political comedy, magical realism and children’s theatre, with a deep passion for folklore, history and queer stories. They also just really love the Muppets and make weird little creatures. Their work can be found at andyaliceart.com, on Instagram and more writing at zoneoneclub.com

Production details:

Written by: Charlotte Ashton
Directed by: Anthony Biggs
Performed by: Jessica Clark
Produced by: PlayGC Theatre Company
Design: Asli Ozuak | Lighting: Skylar Turnbull Hurd | Sound: Roly Botha
Venue: Omnibus Theatre, 1 Clapham Common Northside, London SW4 0QW
Runs: until Saturday 7th November 2026, Tuesday - Saturday at 7:30pm, matinee on Saturday 7th November at 3pm
Content warning: sexual violence
Tickets: £18 to £25, book here

ThickSkin’s latest production, It Walks Around the House at Night, written by Tim Foley and directed by Neil Bettles, arrived at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre on Friday 16th October 2026, following a sold-out run in Edinburgh the previous weekend. Part psychological thriller and part ghost story, the 90-minute, interval-free piece plays out on a minimalist set of old wooden floorboards, accented only by a bed and a fridge to evoke a decaying manor.

From the outset, the production is lean and atmospheric. Pete Malkin’s sound design delivers perfectly timed, jarring bangs that work hand-in-hand with Joshua Pharo’s lighting and video design to keep the room on edge. The back wall projector displays a dynamic background of the manor and its floorplan map, a visual device that proves essential in helping the audience navigate the geography of the grounds. Audiences should note significant access warnings: the staging features intense blackouts and frequent, heavy flashing lights that pose a risk for anyone with photosensitive epilepsy. Accessibility was also an immediate concern in the auditorium itself; the steps leading up to the seating bank were exceptionally steep, feeling precarious for anyone with a mobility disability.

The production relies heavily on a single actor, anchored by an athletic and energetic performance from George Naylor as Joe, featuring voice work from Paul Hilton. While the script places a heavy demand on the performer, Naylor’s physical commitment drives the story forward. He covers the stage rapidly, matching his movement pace to Joe’s deteriorating state of mind. Key set pieces mirror this descent into instability: the fridge door is slammed with increasing violence as Joe’s grip on reality loosens, and at one moment glows with ominous red light to signal the supernatural. Naylor breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience, establishing a clear rapport across the entire room. His comedy delivery comes out of the blue with sharp timing, offering genuine surprise and much-needed light relief against the building dread.

Oliver Baines delivers strong support as The Dancer, appearing only at the peak of Joe’s insanity. His abstract, circular choreography intertwines with Naylor’s physical performance, creating a striking piece of visual art that elevates the emotional peak of the play.

Even so, the narrative style presents structural challenges. Much of the plot relies on Joe recounting interactions and impersonating the other characters himself rather than having them acted out by a full cast. Underpinned by themes of queerness and desire, and a recurring cycle of the character stripping off and redressing on stage, this multi-character monologue begins to wear thin about three-quarters of the way through.

Despite those structural lulls, the production offers creative highlights. The eventual appearance of the spectre, signposted effectively through shadows and sound, is well executed, and a mid-show sequence where the main actor appears to levitate provides a genuinely striking surprise before a series of twists in the final moments. The packed, student-heavy crowd was completely invested, reacting enthusiastically to every joke and screaming at the scary crescendos. While I did not leave feeling quite as exuberant as the rest of the audience, who awarded the performance a standing ovation, there is no denying the skill and theatricality behind its best moments.

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Reviewed by Jennifer Petrie

Jennifer is a print journalist and theatre reviewer based in Aberdeenshire. A graduate in Print Media with work featured in the Daily Record, she brings an honest, specific eye to her reviews, shaped by her ongoing study in scriptwriting, script reading and acting. She has a particular passion for Scottish theatre and a commitment to accessibility in performance.

Written by: Tim Foley
Directed by: Neil Bettles
Company: ThickSkin
Cast: George Naylor as Joe, Oliver Baines as The Dancer, with the voice of Paul Hilton
Venue: Tron Theatre, 63 Trongate, Glasgow G1 5HB
Performed: Friday 16th October 2026
Running time: 90 minutes (no interval)
Age guidance: 14+
Content warnings: Loud and sudden noises, haze, strobe, flashing lights, occasional strong language, horror imagery and jump scares
Tour: October to November 2026 — full dates and tickets

What Would Jarvis Do?, a new play by Laura Grillo, is built on a beautifully simple premise. Two best friends, Didi and GG, have purchased a pair of trousers believed to have been worn by their hero, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. The catch: they might not actually be his trousers. Their obsessive quest to locate the real ones sets the plot in motion.

Annabel Smith and Isabel Butt play Didi and GG with considerable charm. Their bond is strong and their dynamic well-drawn, though we are never told how they met. Their mission leads them to the house of Ms Lacy, their therapist, whose unconventional methods and increasingly erratic behaviour raise questions about her own sanity. The character-driven plot follows a cycle of replays of the visit to Ms Lacy’s house, each time presenting a different version of events, a structure reminiscent of Beckett, which the production wears lightly.

The night I attended, Ms Lacy was played by understudy Maggie Daniels, who continues in the role. It is no small thing to step into a central character, often at short notice and with minimal rehearsal time. Daniels rose to the challenge, bringing a dominant authority to Ms Lacy and slowly revealing her more insidious nature as the play progressed.

Isabel Butt excels as GG, particularly in her clowning and tangents, while Annabel Smith brings a slightly more child-like vulnerability to Didi. Henry Miller evokes unease as Mister, a character whose presence raises more questions than answers.

As the play progresses it takes an increasingly surreal turn, and the audience on the night I attended seemed entirely unfazed as the plot became ever more outlandish. The set design is resourceful and the use of laminated props, necessitated by a limited budget, is handled with humour. A few Pulp songs, mainly Something Changed, punctuate the action effectively.

What Would Jarvis Do? is an assured and entertaining debut from Laura Grillo. I look forward to seeing what she produces next.

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Reviewed by Gemma Frost

Gemma is a Dance Facilitator and former Communications professional with a lifelong passion for theatre. She writes with a commitment to making the work accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

Production details:

Written by: Laura Grillo
Directed by: Maiya Pascouche
With: Annabel Smith, Isabel Butt, Maggie Daniels, Henry Miller, Gigi Zahir
Venue: Omnibus Theatre, 1 Clapham Common Northside, London SW4 0QW
Run: 6 to 16 October 2026
Running time: 80 minutes
Tickets: £18 to £25 (concessions available)

What’s the Story?

There can be few more enticing places to stage The Tempest than aboard The Golden Hinde. Moored beside the Thames on London’s Bankside, the reconstructed Elizabethan galleon provides something no conventional set could quite replicate: real timbers beneath your feet, cramped cabins, steep ladders, low beams and the irresistible feeling that you have stepped aboard something built and bound for another world.

For this site-specific production, Shakespeare’s sprawling tale of shipwreck, magic, betrayal, revenge and reconciliation has been condensed into approximately 60 minutes, performed by a cast of six. Both actors and audience travel through different levels of the ship, as Prospero’s enemies find themselves at the mercy of his magic.

It’s a daring proposition. At times, though, the setting proves a little more compelling than the play unfolding within it.

What Surprised Me?

The most successful idea of the evening is also one of the simplest: we don’t stay put. The audience is shepherded up ladders, through narrow spaces and between decks, following the story around the ship. At one point we’re divided into two groups, each watching a different scene before swapping places.

The surprise, when it comes to moving a disparate group of audience members, is that it all works beautifully - no cat-herding comparisons to be made here!

There’s something immediately bonding about squeezing into a tiny space together with a fellow band of adventurers to discover what is happening there – and the smaller groups create an intimacy between actors and spectators which suits the production very well.

What Worked?

Cassandra Wilson is particularly impressive in the dual roles of Ariel and Miranda. Her two characters are delightfully physically and vocally distinct. Take away Shakespeare’s words and the costume signifiers and there would still be little doubt which character she was playing. In a production relying heavily on multi-roling, that precision matters. Charlie Woodward also brings a likeable sincerity to Ferdinand, while Lauren Grierson creates some enjoyable comic moments as Stephano.

Simple costume choices generally help us keep track of changing characters, while the Golden Hinde itself does much of the designers’ work for them. There’s little need to suggest a maritime world when we’re crouching beneath actual wooden beams.

The soundscape adds another layer, helping to create the illusion that this stationary ship might somehow have slipped its moorings.

The company as a whole also deserves considerable credit for the sheer physical challenge of performing here. Low ceilings, unforgiving beams, narrow stairways and steep ladders would complicate simply walking around the ship; incorporating them into a performance while an audience occupies the same spaces is another matter entirely.

Room for Improvement?

The impressively managed movement around the ship does come with an inevitable trade-off. A surprisingly substantial proportion of a 60-minute show is spent relocating its audience. Atmospheric as the journey is, I wondered how much more breathing room the play might have gained from fewer moves.

Reducing The Tempest to an hour is an enormous challenge. This version necessarily strips away great swathes of plot and character development. Those already familiar with Shakespeare’s play can fill in the gaps. I’m not so certain that a newcomer could.

The multi-roling occasionally adds to that confusion when the distinction between characters isn’t sufficiently strong. Sightlines can also be problematic: one exchange between Prospero and Miranda positions the pair opposite one another, leaving those seated behind Miranda looking predominantly at her back. In a space where visibility is already restricted, positioning becomes especially important.

Sound occasionally competes with rather than supports the actors. The production can’t control the considerable ambient noise of Bankside, but there were also a few moments when the show’s own soundscape made already difficult-to-hear dialogue harder still.

And the Award Goes To…

The Golden Hinde. The great achievement of this Tempest is the experience it creates around Shakespeare’s play: boarding after hours, ducking beneath beams, following Ariel into another compartment, squeezing alongside strangers and wondering where the story will take us next.

And perhaps there’s a great lesson in that for independent theatre-makers. A limited budget needn’t mean a limited theatrical imagination. Sometimes the most exciting piece of design available to you is finding somewhere extraordinary and asking: could we tell a story here?

In condensing the play so drastically, this production sacrifices a little too much clarity and character depth for it to fulfil all of its promise. But as an experiment in putting Shakespeare somewhere he isn’t usually found, it has genuine magic. I left wanting more - more space for the story to breathe, and more theatre-makers willing to look beyond conventional stages and imagine what might happen elsewhere. Just remember to mind your head!

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Performed: 8th and 22nd September 2026
Adapted and directed by: Rebekah King
Venue: The Golden Hinde, St Mary Overie Dock, Bankside, London SE1 9DE
Running time: 60 minutes approximately

Note: The ship’s steep ladders, narrow passages, low ceilings and uneven floors may make the experience unsuitable for some visitors with mobility requirements. Further accessibility information is available on The Golden Hinde’s website.

Reviewed by Emma King-Farlow, Founder and Editorial Director, Exits & Entrances

A riotous night of cheeky queer excellence, the 160th anniversary of Shoreditch Town Hall is both a celebration and an embrace of the acts it has helped to create.

Hosts Bourgeois & Maurice, cult cabaret legends, start the show with lightning-quick sly quips and lyrics. You’d worry that they’ve stolen the show already, but they’re simply setting the tone and bar for the rest of the evening.

What follows is a wild ride from the beautiful (Corali Dance Company in a wonderfully contemplative showing) to the bizarre (Fanny Bleach’s life drawing session has the entire audience screaming with laughter, delight and a bit of terror). Acts from the Cocoa Butter Club, performing hoop and pole respectively, are slick and stylish feats of incredible skill and physical control. Meanwhile Pecs Drag Kings treat us to three performances that pair comedy with vulnerability in perfect measures.

Riss Obolensky and Fabio Lezonli both bring out the King in Drag King, skewering toxic archetypes with hilarious physical comedy and visual gags. Operotica and Lavinia Co-op bring delicious cheekiness to their songs, and Midgitte Bardot and Travis Alabanza effortlessly keep the audience in stitches with sly faux-exasperation. Emma Frankland appeals to the queer awakening in us all with her joyful tribute to that k.d. lang photoshoot, and Frankie Thompson gives us a juicy taste of their acclaimed show, Horrible Things.

Live captioning is always a boon to any performance, provided well here by Nicola Dutton, and a word has to be said for the space itself. The grandeur of the concert hall is still looking similar to how it did a hundred years ago. Helen Taylor and Sylvia Pankhurst held speeches and demonstrations here, and, we’re breathlessly told by Bourgeois & Maurice after their billionth new outfit of the evening, Meryl Streep actually stood on some actual stairs that are actually here.

There was something truly special about being at an evening entirely made up of work that challenges the norm and finds community together. 16 Acts was the perfect, fabulously irreverent and loving birthday party to a space that has become vital to unique performance.

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Reviewed by Alice Wilson

Alice (they/them) is a set, prop and puppet maker who moonlights as a performer and writer. Their work encompasses political comedy, magical realism and children’s theatre, with a deep passion for folklore, history and queer stories. They also just really love the Muppets and make weird little creatures. Their work can be found at andyaliceart.com, on Instagram and more writing at zoneoneclub.com

Production Details:

Presented by: Shoreditch Town Hall
Hosted by: Bourgeois & Maurice
Venue: Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London EC1V 9LT
Performed: Friday 9 October 2026
Running time: 180 minutes including two intervals
Age guidance: 18+

Hurtling through the 70 minute run-time, director Harry Burton keeps David Ireland’s darkly comic script slick and sparking, yet still giving perfect amounts of breathing room for the tense physical language between actors Matthew Blaney and Robbie Martin.

First performed in Glasgow in 2009, David Ireland’s debut play returns for a 2026 audience at the Finborough Theatre, but the text and the scene we’re immediately met with act as a late noughties time capsule. Eddie, played with a fantastically compelling brazenness by Martin, is slouched back in jacket, cap, and the kind of bedazzled skull t-shirt fortunately left largely forgotten to that era. To the consternation of the apparent stranger next to him, Jimmy (a wonderful performance of self-conscious affectation by Blaney), Eddie’s phone is ringing, the repeated South Park jingle not heard by the latter due to his headphones.

What follows is a clash of two, on the surface, wildly different characters, that are stripped efficiently and unflatteringly by the narrative, showing their matching cores as selfish and self-centred men who are desperate to get out of their circumstances.

Burton’s staging is dynamic and revealing; the constant pursuit of Jimmy across the stage by an often oblivious Eddie is a fascinating physical conversation of dominance carrying on under the verbal. Neither character is likeable, but there’s a charm to Eddie’s openness, a child-like naivety to his crass behaviour and language, so he often comes across as clueless rather than cruel. However, his physical power as the more athletic of the two, as well as his social power as a famous footballer, are tensions Jimmy and the audience are constantly aware of.

Much of the humour lives in Eddie’s lines, Martin perfectly balancing the aforementioned lost boy demeanour with the threat of his words (and often body), generating empathy even as we are shocked by him. But plenty of the laughs come from Blaney’s expressive reactions and brilliantly pretentious deliveries. The second act’s performance of obsessive desperation, with Jimmy’s chasmic lack of self-actualisation having him recite Hamlet instead of his own words, is a masterful turn by Blaney, demonstrating the tatters of a carefully crafted persona around the fixated hunger, and making the free-fall incredibly funny.

Set designer Alex Marker, and, as already noted, costume designer Eleanor Landgrebe, achieve an impressively faithful depiction of the setting. Marker’s sets of ferry waiting room and film trailer are perfectly bleakly mundane; the promised glamour of both Eddie and Jimmy’s careers are nowhere to be found here. The glowing orange tourism poster and bright green graffiti catch the eye and act as subtle nods to the sectarian themes, without deviating from the naturalistic style. Though the sparkly skull shirt and noughties-footballer-accurate blonde buzzcut are certainly vibrant, Landgrebe continues the naturalistic choices. An echo of the poster, Jimmy’s orange scarf, is a nice touch, particularly as Jimmy gives the impression it’s slightly choking him.

In fact, the production overall is committed to this naturalism. It’s appealing and works until the end of the play, when the building violence and obsessive behaviour cross into the realms of farcical. These final lines are played well by Blaney, but the stakes, that had been so well ratcheted up and dependent on our belief in the situation, feel removed when the final image of Jimmy isn’t too dissimilar from a Looney Tunes antagonist come a cropper.

But the big question, whether a play written and set in 2009 Glasgow can feel relevant to 2026 London, is a resounding yes. Sectarianism is still rearing its head in Glasgow and Northern Ireland, with attention over the summer on effigies and flags placed on Battle of the Boyne bonfires, and, at the time of writing, the stand-off between the Orange Order and Garvaghy Road residents (and the thousands attending rallies in support, particularly of the latter) reaching a seventh day. Meanwhile, across the UK and worldwide we’ve seen rising nationalism and tribal mentality, with algorithmic echo-chambers driving us-and-them narratives yet further. Eddie’s racist spiels feel like they might be plucked straight from the comment section on many social media apps.

Equally, Jimmy’s desire to be seen as morally correct and his attempts to rewrite his identity to better fit the narrative he presents to others is a sharp reflection of the “oppression olympics” often found in creative spheres. It detracts from important conversations about intersectionality to alleviate feelings of guilt in those who benefit from societal systems. He’s Irish now, not British, and has obviously always been a Celtics fan not Rangers. Most importantly, he holds his principles only as they benefit him. He will condemn Mel Gibson’s anti-semitism and simultaneously be desperate to even meet the man. In an increasingly surveilled world, where fame feels one viral video away and consumer choice is often presented as a moral vote, the dichotomy of single-minded ambition and self-conscious performance is deeply relevant and either reassuring or horribly foreshadowing to see preserved from 2009.

Wickedly funny and strikingly resonant, What The Animals Say is still fresh after 17 years.

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Reviewed by Alice Wilson

Alice (they/them) is a set, prop and puppet maker who moonlights as a performer and writer. Their work encompasses political comedy, magical realism and children’s theatre, with a deep passion for folklore, history and queer stories. They also just really love the Muppets and make weird little creatures. Their work can be found at andyaliceart.com, on Instagram and more writing at zoneoneclub.com

Production details:

By: David Ireland
Directed by: Harry Burton
Venue: Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Run: 29 September - 24 October 2026
Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Tickets: £20 to £29 (concessions available)