Theatre review: Baby Reindeer

Actor/writer/comedian Richard Gadd won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2016 for a show that definitely doesn’t sound like the usual fare for stand-up: A confessional about being groomed and raped while he was a drama student, and the subsequent feelings of self-loathing that came from questioning his masculinity and sexuality. It was cathartic for him but all the time he was performing that show he was in the middle of another traumatic experience, as he’d been targeted by a prolific stalker. Baby Reindeer tells that chapter in his life, moving on from comedy and presenting it as more of a traditional dramatic monologue; in part as a straightforward development of Gadd’s writing and performing style, in part because he sees this particular tormentor as more of an ambiguous figure and a victim of the system in her own right, and doesn’t think it’s appropriate to use her for out-and-out comedy.

Theatre review: Four Play

The cliché about gay relationships is that everyone is cheerfully shagging around, so anyone in a more old-fashioned, monogamous pairing might well feel like they're missing out on something. Jake Brunger's Four Play looks at two gay couples in their twenties, a generation that's always had the option of civil partnerships and now marriage, for whom a traditional relationship is as much of an expected option as something a bit kinkier. Rafe (Cai Brigden) and Pete (Michael Gilbert) met at university, came out together and have been a monogamous couple for seven (and a half - it's an important distinction to Rafe) years. It means neither of them has ever slept with anyone else and, although they still insist everything is fine between them, they think a one-off with someone else might be the thing the shake off any seven-year-itch.

Theatre review: The Late Henry Moss

Sam Shepard delivers another dose of a particularly American kind of masculinity crisis, at Southwark Playhouse this time with The Late Henry Moss. Ray (Joseph Arkley) receives a call from his older brother Earl (Jack Sandle) to let him know their father has died. He goes down to the New Mexico shack the titular Henry lived and died in, to find that the body is still in its deathbed, and nobody's alerted the authorities. Earl says that he went to New Mexico when a neighbour told him Henry was ill, but got there too late. His naturally suspicious brother doubts his story and, convinced Earl actually arrived before their father died, starts to investigate what really happened. After he pays and bullies a taxi driver (Joe Evans,) who was one of the last people to see him alive, for information, we see flashbacks to Henry's (Harry Ditson) final days.

Theatre review: Pioneer

Last year The Kindness of Strangers garnered less praise from me than it did from most people - although that's not because I disliked it as such, but because it gave me motion sickness. With Shoreditch Town Hall seeming more likely to stay still for 80 minutes than the back of an ambulance, I decided to give Curious Directive another go, with a (hopefully less queasy) trip to their 2014 Fringe First winner, Pioneer. It's 2029*, eight years after an initial mission to send astronauts to Mars ended in disaster, and now a new crew is being sent up amid much publicity. What the public doesn't know is that in the intervening years a top-secret mission has sent a Dutch couple to the planet, and their successful survival has made NASA confident enough to go public with the latest attempt. As they await the new arrivals though, one of the astronauts disappears while carrying out routine repairs. Left alone with just her fears and the ship's computer, his partner Imke (Flora Denman) starts to crack.