Theatre review: Ivan and the Dogs

The annual JMK award seems to have moved venues but the Young Vic has still hung on to the other directors’ bursary that’s showcased a couple of times a year in its smallest space: The latest Genesis Future Directors Award sees Caitriona Shoobridge direct Hattie Naylor’s 2010 monologue Ivan and the Dogs, based on a true story from Russia’s catastrophic financial collapse in the late 1990s, when even very young children were homeless and roaming the streets of Moscow on their own. Starting from the present day, Ivan (Alex Austin) flashes back to when he was four years old and kept overhearing his abusive stepfather telling his mother they’d have to put the child out on the streets because they could no longer afford to feed both him and themselves. Deciding to jump before he’s pushed, Ivan runs away to the other side of the city; but the glue-sniffing street kids frighten him too much for him to join one of their gangs.

Theatre review: Bluebeard

Are there a lot more monologues around this year or am I just catching them all? The latest person to be giving an audience his side of the story is a version of the original fairytale serial killer, Bluebeard. In Hattie Naylor's play, Jim (Paul Mundell) is a sharp-suited charmer whose drawling way of speaking and shark-like grin mark him out as a bit creepy from the off, but as he goes on to explain this is never a drawback when trying to seduce women. Far from it, he believes that the women he ends up with aren't just drawn to the bad boy, they're actively attracted to the possibility of physical violence and genuine danger. So he makes sure they're not disappointed as he tells us about some of the women he's known. His seductions are a slow tease, but when it's finally time for sex it involves bondage, submission and pain. He occasionally even lets them live afterwards.