An interview with the writer, director and performer John Cameron Mitchell, of Shortbus and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, about the London debut of his club night Mattachine and more
Marty McFly lives! But is he saviour or zombie?
At the end of Back to the Future, our hero crashes his time-travelling car into a building. It used to be a cinema but now it’s a church. That seems right. In a way, certain kinds of movie, including Back to the Future, are morphing into religions, offering us opportunities to be together and happy – though […]
Carried on others’ arms: an uplifting inaugural Not Television Festival
A report on the inaugural Not Television festival at Chelsea Theatre, a weekend of shows involving collaboration between performers and audience members and the special atmosphere that resulted
The Not Television Festival – this weekend!
The Not Television Festival is almost upon us! It doesn’t seem long ago that I was chatting to Francis Alexander, the artistic director of Chelsea Theatre, about the spirit of engagement that underpins Come With Me If You Want To Live, the cabaret night we’ve put on at the theatre twice now. Why couldn’t we […]
Critics are not parents, publicists or parasites. Here’s what we are.
An overview of some of the misconceptions about the cultural role of critics as expressed in several shows at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, including The Reviewers, Critical! and No Turn Unstoned by Diana Rigg
How not to screw up audience participation in a cabaret show
The relationship between performer and audience is crucial to cabaret: the form is arguably defined by the lack of a fourth wall and the possibility of unplanned collaborations between those on the stage and those off it. Cabaret doesn’t have a monopoly on such things but it’s the only form where they can be taken […]
Why isn’t today’s cabaret more overtly political?
In a post yesterday, I suggested that the direct political engagement with which we still associate Brecht, Weill and Weimar cabaret in general is harder to find on the current cabaret scene, even though we live in a world of war, division, oppression, inequality and exploitation scarcely less outrageous than that of the interwar period. […]
Interview with Alternative Miss World’s Andrew Logan for Run Riot
I didn’t know much about Andrew Logan and his Alternative Miss World pageant – except that the current title-holder was that awesome powerhouse of alt burlesque and more, Fancy Chance – until I saw the documentary The British Guide to Showing Off last year. I was pretty awestruck by the sensibility, scale, longevity and accumulated […]
Something old, something new: Ute Lemper and Dive’s Super-Fringe Sweep
“Come taste the wine, come hear the band!” As Ute Lemper reaches that line in that song (you know the one), she jerks a thumb over her shoulder to indicate ‘the band’ – though it’s a funny way of referring to the 60-odd classically trained musicians of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. But then Friday night’s […]
Edinburgh Fringe 2014: highlights so far
Well, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an internal organ… It’s been a slightly unusual Fringe. I had a week of great shows, lots of work and a little bit of play (less than I’d have liked thanks to those pesky London deadlines that I always promise myself will be cleared before the Fringe […]
