‘A love letter to organisers, activists and dreamers’
“Chasing Hares is a love letter to all of the organisers, activists and dreamers”, says playwright Sonali Bhattacharyya.
Darkness and love for a British-Caribbean family
The “content advice” for The Darkest Part of The Night lists “Death of a parent, racial discrimination, police brutality/violence, poverty, structural oppression, ableism, detailed medical talk, mild sexual references, domestic violence, mental healthcare system.” It’s actually about love.
Another migration drama hits the bull’s-eye
Migration dramas - particularly first-generation questioning of their parents’ attitudes - are a rich vein in London theatres.
Africa comes into fashion
A second explosion of African colour and creativity is lighting up London, as Africa Fashion at the V&A joins In The Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery.
Race against time
There’s no escaping race in The Fellowship, a drama about three generations of a British Caribbean family.
Join In The Black Fantastic
Enter the Hayward Gallery and be hit by an explosion of colour, fantasy, imagination, masquerade, exuberance and weirdness. It’s a joy.
The rise and fall of a despot - in 90 minutes and 300 years
No Particular Order is a 90-minute play that covers a lot of ground: 30 years in the first part, 300 years between parts two and three. And the final few minutes take place on a spaceship.
Asian beauty amidst lurking beasts
Playwright Satinder Chohan’s play set in a Southall salon starts as beauty and business banter and and careens into drama and emotional turmoil.
It’s 2043 and the Fifth Intifada is about to blow
The title says it all: Two Palestinians Go Dogging.
‘For the loved ones we lost along the way’
House of Ife at the Bush Theatre crackles with energy, snappy dialogue and excellent acting. as it puts an Ethiopian-British spin on first-generation migrant tropes.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
The title, Marys Seacole, tells you this isn’t going to be a straightforward biography of the Jamaican nurse and entrepreneur who set up the British Hotel behind the lines in the Crimean War in the 1850s.
Clown show about authoritarianism
Project Dictator is a “clown show about authoritarianism”. That’s a bold ambition, but amazingly it works.
‘We became West Indians in London’
Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now: an overdue and powerful exhibition.
Mohand and Peter take an imaginary trip to Sudan
Here’s another way of tackling insularity or xenophobia in Britain.
Animation helps bring a China news hack to life
‘Eternal Spring’ is a documentary about an ambitious and daring plan to hack into Chinese TV news and broadcast a subversive spiritual message to millions of viewers.
Gender turf war in the surf
Another wave, another film about female surfers and, like all the others, ‘Bangla Surf Girls’ is fascinating because it’s about sexism.
Diary of a forgotten war
How does it feel to be forgotten by the world, asks the publicity blurb for ‘Myanmar Diaries’ - a reasonable question for a pro-democracy struggle that’s been shoved from headlines in many parts of the world.
Listening to the silence of asylum-seekers
‘Silence Heard Loud’ ought to be a happy film, because it’s about people who have escaped harrowing — in some cases deadly — circumstances and lived to tell their tale.
The Unfinished is finished - and worth the wait
Almost four years since Dipo Baruwa-Etti was commissioned to write An Unfinished Man, and 13 drafts and two Covid years since it was initially due to open, it’s here. And it’s worth the wait.