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Review: Santi & Naz, VAULT Festival

The Thelmas’ Santi & Naz presents Partition through a much more personal, intimate lens at the VAULT Festival

“It doesn’t matter if you’re Muslim, or I’m Sikh or our friends are Hindu. We’re all the same inside.”

The recasting of historical narratives through the eyes of those whose stories are rarely heard is one of the most culturally significant things theatre can do, IMHO. So The Thelma’s Santi & Naz is certainly right up my street, as it explores Partition through the eyes of two young women.

They’re fast friends, the bestest of best, but as Santi is Sikh and Naz is Muslim, it’s a relationship that is destined to become more tangled. But where Guleraana Mir and Afshan D’souza-Lodhi’s play takes us, is into a more intimate, but no less complicated, version of their world. Continue reading “Review: Santi & Naz, VAULT Festival”

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Review: [BLANK], Donmar Warehouse

Much to admire technically in [BLANK] at the Donmar Warehouse but it doesn’t quite land the emotional hit it aims for

“Have you ever felt like you were standing exactly to the left of your life?”

On the face of it, [BLANK] has all the makings of an outright success. With Alice Birch writing and Maria Aberg, this Donmar Warehouse and Clean Break co-production is a powerful indictment of how the vicissitudes of our criminal justice system hit women, and their families, the hardest by far.

And in terms of a text, it is undoubtedly an audacious undertaking, consisting of 100 scenes from which directors can craft their own narratives. Here though is where the production doesn’t quite click, Aberg trying her best to form some, any, kind of flow but the form just doesn’t allow for it. Continue reading “Review: [BLANK], Donmar Warehouse”

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Review: Top Girls, National Theatre

Caryl Churchill’s superb Top Girls receives a luxurious but clear-sighted production from Lyndsey Turner at the National Theatre

“They’re waiting for me to turn into the little woman”

Written by a woman and directed by a woman, the opening night of an all-female play couldn’t have been better timed for the National Theatre. But while this doesn’t negate the concerns raised in the too-male-heavy partial season announcement from last week, it does frame them – and the questions it provokes – in a larger context. After all, Lyndsey Turner’s production of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls is the first not to use double-casting, which means it boasts a company of 18 women – more of this please.

It helps that they are performing such a bravura piece of writing. Churchill’s 1982 play is a shrewd and startling affair which has lost none of its impact here as it gives women their voices in ways which haven’t always (and in some ways still don’t) been encouraged. From historical characters (both real and imagined) to contemporary families (it may be set in the 80s but there’s nothing dated about what is happening here), we are dared to listen. Continue reading “Review: Top Girls, National Theatre”