Theatre review: The Dragon

Back in Southwark Playhouse's previous incarnation in London Bridge, Tangram's Fuente Ovejuna made my Top Ten shows of 2010; the current Elephant & Castle location was my Theatre of the Year 2014, so between the two I was optimistic as the company returned to do a Russian classic. One I didn't think I'd heard of, but as it turns out I recognised it as one that featured as a plot point in the Finborough's Silent Planet last month. Banned by the Soviets for its far-from-oblique metaphor, Yevgeny Schwartz's The Dragon sees the knight Lancelot (James Rowland) arrive in the small Russian village where Elsa (Jo Hartland) lives, and instantly fall in love. But inevitably there's a problem: The village has been terrorised for centuries by a three-headed Dragon (Justin Butcher,) who among many tributes demands a local beauty to eat every year. The day is tomorrow and the sacrifice will be Elsa, so Lancelot sets out to slay the Dragon.

Theatre review: Encounters

The Bush's new regime introduces two of its new Associate Artists, by pairing their existing one-woman shows in a double bill they're calling Encounters. Both shows originated in Edinburgh and have subsequently toured, and first up is Dry Ice, written and performed by Sabrina Mahfouz and directed by David Schwimmer (in a Q&A afterwards, Omar Elerian made reference to Schwimmer having directed it via Skype, a claim Mahfouz denied - I couldn't quite figure out if it was an inside joke or if Elerian had genuinely been told the show was directed via Skype.) Inspired by her time working as a waitress at a strip club, Mahfouz plays Nina, a lap dancer who narrates incidents from her life, stories about the other girls she works with and the "types" of men who come to watch them.