Sunrise for the Blind by Lee Thomas doesn’t shy away from the mood of the material. On the Camden Fringe website, it’s described as a, “raw, naturalistic portrayal of life in a bleak North Manchester town centre”. Many might give such a prospect a sharp swerve. One friend said to me, “I’m sorry, but I can’t face any more bleakness right now.” It’s a valid sentiment in the current climate, so I was shocked, but buzzed to see busy pews for a 4pm matinee. While some of Grey Brigade were out in force, it was cheering to see a surprisingly young audience lapping up new writing in a fringe theatre.

Celebrating a milestone birthday almost a year late might suggest poor organisation, but for Anna, it represents something far more purposeful: a refusal to let disappointment have the final word. In ‘Belated’, a postponed party becomes the stage upon which she takes stock of middle age, abandoned ambitions and the uncomfortable feeling that everybody else’s life has progressed more successfully than her own. Anna once worked as a professional dancer but now teaches Pilates to wealthy and famous clients. Approaching her 51st birthday, she is contending with the demands of motherhood, the aftermath of a painful separation and the lingering frustration of creative aspirations left unexplored.

Eyes See Song is a truly interdisciplinary, interactive show!

Created and performed by Mary Redmond, ‘Maz Pantz’ arrives at the Camden Fringe with considerable confidence, promising a character-led sketch show combining physical comedy, mime, cinematic voice-over and cleverly constructed material. Unfortunately, the performance itself falls some considerable distance short of that promise. Across approximately 45 minutes, Redmond introduces an assortment of eccentric characters through a succession of sketches, some of whom return throughout the show. There is certainly imagination behind the concept, and Redmond commits enthusiastically to each creation, employing physicality, recorded sound and exaggerated characterisation to distinguish between them.

YouTube video by Paul Levy

Four Face Theatre’s ‘Mates’ begins with an appealing comic problem: four friends, based on a misplaced promise, have secured the resources and financial backing to stage a new production but have yet to decide what that production should be. Each arrives with different artistic ambitions, and their attempts to develop a coherent piece soon become a contest between personalities, insecurities and conflicting definitions of meaningful theatre. This framework gives the company considerable room for invention, and the action repeatedly shifts into imagined productions proposed by the characters, enabling the show to experiment with contrasting genres and performance styles.

A Two Woman Hamlet is that most famous of plays, reenacted in just one hour by only two women

Up The a(Rs)e is a new writing created and written by George Wigglesworth who also plays his character George in the play, who is a Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts Grad-year student. There are tw…

BEIGE is a darkly funny, physical theatre piece that sits somewhere between satire and something very real