Theatre review: Human Animals

Playwright Stef Smith takes the metaphorical language of dangerous animals and swarms of insects that accompany right-wing scaremongering about immigration, and imagines it as something literal in her apocalyptic Human Animals, but somewhere along the way the dark absurdity turns tiresome: Nancy (Stella Gonet) is waiting for her daughter Alex (Natalie Dew) to come back from a gap year, but her return coincides with a mysterious, localised plague among animals and birds that sees hundreds of pigeons at a time fly into windows, and dead foxes piling up in every garden. Nancy's friend John (Ian Gelder) is befriended by an odd man in the pub - Si (Sargon Yelda) turns out to be in charge of the efforts to deal with the crisis, which largely consist of quarantining the whole neighbourhood and incinerating first the diseased animals, then whole buildings, just in case.

Theatre review: The Pass

Much as I'd like to approach every show I ever see as a blank slate, some inevitably have more levels of anticipation built up around them than others. The latest stage appearance from Big Favourite Round These Parts Russell Tovey is always bound to be a bit of an event. The news that he'd be playing a gay footballer didn't make it any less exciting. The publicity photos confirming the rumours that he spends most of the play wandering around in his underwear... well, you've read this unholy excuse for a blog, you know where this is going. The good news is that The Pass will disappoint only the most demanding of theatrical perverts. The better news is that John Donnelly's play is a bit of a triumph, equal parts funny and disturbing, which would be memorable even if the cast didn't spend most of it in a state of undress. Although just in case it wasn't clear: The fact that the cast spend most of it in a state of undress is a good thing.