Theatre review: Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder!

I've listened to many podcasts since the pandemic but they've never included the true crime ones that seem to be the most popular genre out there. Still, I know how big they are and can see some of the attraction of digging into cold cases for new clues - after all the mix of morbid curiosity and trying to find sense in the senseless has always been popular in other media, why not this one? I suppose this means a musical about a true crime podcast was only a matter of time, and Jon Brittain (book & lyrics) and Matthew Floyd Jones' (music & lyrics) Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder Exclamation Mark had been a big Edinburgh fringe hit before this London transfer. Kathy (Bronté Barbé) and Stella (Rebekah Hinds) grew up at a time when the hunt for a serial killer called the Hull Decapitator was dominating the city, and this fed into a love for all things gory that turned into a lifelong friendship.

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.