Theatre review: Time is Love/Tiempo es Amor

It’s got to be something of a coup for a 50-seat theatre to land a recent Olivier winner – in a supporting role no less – but there’s a couple of reasons Sheila Atim might be happy to lend a bit of star power to the fringe: Not only has she worked with writer/director Chè Walker before, she’s also composed the original music for his latest play, Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor. Walker’s Been So Long, recently reinvented as a Netflix film, had a strong flavour of London but the playwright subsequently moved to Los Angeles, and that’s the location, and the atmosphere he tries to capture here. This is partly through a film noir-ish feel to the story of Blaz (Gabriel Akuwudike,) who spends three years in prison after a robbery goes wrong. His friend Karl (Benjamin Cawley) was the one who talked him into it, but managed to get away; but apart from missing his friend he doesn’t seem to have much regret for what he got him into, if anything acting like he’s the wronged party.

Theatre review: The Strange Death of John Doe

Fiona Doyle’s second play for Hampstead Downstairs, The Strange Death of John Doe is structured as a post-mortem on what was, indeed, a strange death – though one not only based on a true story but on circumstances that are surprisingly common. The John Doe body in question will eventually be identified as Ximo (Benjamin Cawley,) found dead under the Heathrow flightpath with no sign of how he got there. The conclusion is that he’d stowed away in a plane’s landing gear and fell as it prepared to land, although whether the fall killed him or he was already dead from hypothermia is something pathologist Ger (Charlotte Bradley) and her team may never be able to establish. As they cut into Ximo’s body to find answers, detective John Kavura (Rhashan Stone) tries to figure out how he got there. Put on suspension because of his alcoholism and taken off the case, John is haunted too much by the story to let it go, and investigates anyway.

Theatre review: The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution

Caryl Churchill's The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution, based on Dr Franz Fanon's observations of the 1950s Algerian revolution, dates from 1972 but had never been performed before the Finborough added it to its Sunday-Tuesday repertory slot. The after-effects of torture are the play's focus, not just on the direct victims - indeed the only character actually to have been tortured is entirely silent, and played here by a disconcerting puppet - but on everyone who's come into any kind of contact with the violence. We're in a mental hospital during the uprising the colonial French resolutely refuse to call a war, and its resources are being stretched to breaking point by the influx of patients whom Fanon (Miles Mitchell) observes, mostly silently and without getting directly involved.

Theatre review: Shiverman

New York-based playwright James Sheldon's Shiverman takes place on a fictional Pacific island, but takes its themes from real cases and customs of small islands near Papua New Guinea. Possibly-American (Paul Mooney's accent does wander a bit too much to be certain) anthropologist Roy has been studying the indigenous tribes for three years, assisted by local boy Tatalau'e (Benjamin Cawley) who's been dazzled by dreams of studying in California. When a Chinese strip-mining company looks set to raze the valley to the ground, Roy calls in Dominique (Lisa Kay,) his girlfriend and colleague, to help his appeal to UNESCO to protect the local culture, under the laws of "intangible cultural heritage." But under these regulations, a culture's human rights can only be protected if they don't violate already-established rights, and Dominique discovers what Roy's been hiding from her: Before being allowed to marry, all local girls must be raped by the tribe of "holy men."

Theatre review: Fog

Actor Toby Wharton's first play is co-written with veteran playwright Tash Fairbanks, who was his mother's partner, and was born out of piece they wrote for his (successful) audition for RADA. So as Wharton was raised by a lesbian couple Fog can't be too directly autobiographical, dealing as it does with problems faced by children raised in care. After his mother's death, Gary (Wharton) and his sister Lou (Annie Hemingway) were left in care and their father Cannon (Victor Gardener) spent the next decade in the army. As the play opens, Cannon is suddenly back in town, renting a flat at the top of an East London estate, from where Gary can see the care home he spent many unhappy years in.

Although it still betrays the fact that it was written as a showcase for its lead actor, Fog also offers opportunities for the rest of the cast to make their mark. Gary's relationship with best friend Michael (Benjamin Cawley) is nicely played, and heartbreaking when cracks appear in it. Kanga Tanikye-Buah provides good comic relief as Michael's businesslike sister, and the whole play has moments of lightness to balance out the pretty dark accusations it makes about the care system. Ultimately of course it is the lead who's the most fleshed-out character, and Wharton gives us a teenager with an aggressive, cocky attitude (the title comes from the MC name Gary unsuccessfully demands he be called by) which barely conceals the fragile child he still is. At times the play is a bit heavy-handed with its politics, and sometimes sticks with the same groups of characters for longer than is interesting. But there's certainly some affecting stuff in Ché Walker's production too, and by the end you feel for Gary and his likely bleak outlook.

Fog by Tash Fairbanks and Toby Wharton is booking until the 28th of January at the Finborough Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes straight through.