Theatre review: This Much I Know

My theatrical 2024 kicks off in chaotic fashion, with me trying to find a last-minute replacement for my second show of the year after a friend had to drop out of the trip, and next week's shows looking unlikely for me to get to because of tube strikes. As for my first play of the year, I was doubting I'd actually get to see the whole thing after a technical issue at the interval made it unclear whether or not we'd actually get a second act - we did, with the show eventually running 20 minutes over the advertised 2 hours 20. On the other hand if this start is anything to go by quality-wise, I could end up having a much less disappointing time at Hampstead Theatre than I did in 2023. Jonathan Spector is the playwright behind the Old Vic's big, starry 2022 show Eureka Day, and while this three-hander in Hampstead's studio space is a more modest proposal in some ways, its storytelling is more ambitious and, to me, more consistently satisfying. Although it does also get laughs from projections of emojis.

Theatre review: The P Word

Waleed Akhtar's two-hander at the Bush is about gay Pakistani men in their thirties, so the title The P Word could refer to a couple of different slurs; they get called both of them over the course of 90 minutes although it's the racially-charged one which features more, and which at times becomes a bone of contention between the pair. Akhtar himself plays Bilal, a second-generation British Muslim whose parents theoretically accept his sexuality, but with a level of tutting and undisguised hope that it might be a "phase" after all, that's left the family relationship sour. It's fractious, but it's a level of family peace asylum seeker Zafar (Esh Alladi) could only dream of: He's fled Pakistan in secret after his father discovered his sexuality and threatened to kill him. He's got connections in the army and the threat's no idle one: He did murder Zafar's boyfriend when he caught them together.

Stage-to-screen review: Out West

Another show where I opted for the streaming option rather than a lengthy Undergound journey each way, Out West comes from the Lyric Hammersmith, a venue with a history of work that often takes very specific inspiration from its West London location. Co-directed by Diane Page and the venue's artistic director Rachel O’Riordan, these three specially-commissioned monologues from big-name playwrights all have some kind of connection to Hammersmith or the surrounding areas of London, beginning with a historical one: At the end of the 19th century Mohandas Gandhi (Esh Alladi) lived in Hammersmith for three years while studying for the Bar. In Tanika Gupta's The Overseas Student we follow the teenage Gandhi from the ship taking him from India to London, to the ship taking him back three years later. It may well be the same ship, and the treatment he receives is certainly the same, but in the intervening time Gupta subtly suggests the development from awkward young man embarrassed when confronted by women and made to feel guilty for his vegetarianism, to a future world-changing figure.

Theatre review: Absolute Hell

It takes a certain amount of confidence to call a play Absolute Hell, given the likelihood it’ll end up doing the reviewers’ job for them; of course Rodney Ackland’s 1945 play, not produced until 1952, was originally called The Pink Room, which is only going to result in people like me saying something vague and misinformed about vaginas, so maybe titles were just never his forte. Set shortly after VE Day and either side of the General Election that would put Labour in power, Absolute Hell takes place in the Vie En Rose Club, a private members’ bar run, nominally – her staff regularly grumble about doing all of the work for none of the credit – by Kate Fleetwood’s Christine. A seemingly gregarious hostess with a penchant for men in uniform who tends to get as drunk as any of her customers, she really cuts a painfully lonely figure who needs the club and its clientele to keep her from despair.