Theatre review: Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew

If there was a touch of damning with faint praise to me calling Otherland "nice" a couple of days ago, the term feels as appropriate, but without the backhanded element, for Coral Wylie's gentle family drama Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew. As families go it's an eccentric quartet, in that the member with perhaps the biggest influence over the others has been dead for decades. In Debbie Hannan's production Wylie also plays Pip, who came out as bisexual to their parents a little while ago to little drama, but whose more recent coming out as non-binary still has Lorin (Pooky Quesnel) and especially Craig (Wil Johnson) struggling to get used to. To Pip this all blends in with their general feelings about their parents being rather distant and uncommunicative; Craig tends to disappear to his allotment, which they're vaguely aware has some connection to his dead best friend Duncan.

Theatre review: Sound of the Underground

Defying easy categorisation, Sound of the Underground, created by writer Travis Alabanza and director Debbie Hannan, mixes scripted theatre with drag cabaret on the Royal Court's main stage. Alabanza has brought together eight drag performers from the underground club scene to throw together a messy evening - but one whose underlying concerns are clear. CHIYO, Lilly SnatchDragon, Ms Sharon Le Grand, Mwice Kavindele as Sadie Sinner The Songbird, Rhys Hollis as Rhys’ Pieces, Sue Gives A Fuck and Wet Mess begin by introducing themselves. The show has factored in the fact that Tammy Reynolds as Midgitte Bardot's disabilities will sometimes mean they can't appear, so at some performances, like tonight, there's a stand-in: Namely their pre-recorded dialogue and a cardboard cut-out.

Theatre review: Pah-La

In the grand tradition of student activism (or at least in the tradition of talking about it,) when I was at university one of the student union spaces was called the Free Tibet Room. That was in the 1990s, and I wonder if it’s since been renamed to reflect a more recently popular cause; if people have forgotten about Tibet and its struggle to regain independence from China, Abhishek Majumdar is here to remind them with Pah-La, a play inspired by real events during the 2008 Lhasa riots. The title is a Tibetan word for “father,” and teenager Deshar (Millicent Wong) has gone against the wishes of her own to become a Buddhist nun, studying at a local temple. When Chinese police chief Deng (Daniel York Loh) leads a force to “re-educate” the nuns to the five principles of the Motherland’s supremacy over Tibet, Deshar’s Buddhist principles of non-violence are tested.

Theatre review: Things of Dry Hours

A white stranger forces his way into a black family’s home, but race is a secondary factor in Naomi Wallace’s look at Depression-era American politics, and an anti-Communist witch-hunt long predating the more famous one in the 1950s. Things of Dry Hours is set in Birmingham, Alabama in 1932, where factory workers are being laid off in large numbers, making the local Communist Party an attractive option, particularly to black workers who are more disenfranchised than most. One of them is Tice Hogan (Jude Akuwudike,) who takes on odd-jobs and teaches Sunday School, but mainly gets by thanks to the money his daughter Cali (Michelle Asante) makes as a washerwoman to the town’s rich. Both widowed, they live together in a tiny shack, where wanted murderer Corbin Teel (Emun Elliott) knocks on the door in the middle of one night in need of a hiding place. They have no intention of risking their lives for a suspicious stranger, but he blackmails them into letting him stay for a week.

Theatre review: Who Cares

Continuing the theme since Vicky Featherstone took over the Royal Court of having shows explode out of the usual boundaries of its auditoria, Michael Wynne's verbatim play Who Cares technically takes place in the Upstairs Theatre. But before it gets there Debbie Hannan, Lucy Morrison and Hamish Pirie's promenade production takes the audience from the rehearsal rooms and offices behind Sloane Square station, to the staircases and corridors backstage, and the area that's usually the lighting booth of the Upstairs Theatre. This is all in service of us hearing the stories of, for the most part, workers in the National Health Service, building up a picture both of the emotional connection that this country has to the NHS, and exactly how it's being changed by successive governments - particularly the "stealth privatisation" brought in by the current coalition.