Drama – Page 2 of 3 – The Orbital

Theatre Tickets at a Price You Can’t Afford to Miss

31Oct

By Rebecca OwenNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

Theatre Tickets at a Price You Can’t Afford to Miss

When you’re 40 minutes from central London, with a return ticket for as little as £7, studying at Royal Holloway is a drama student’s dream. But being a regular theatre-goer comes at a hefty price if you’re not savvy about how to nab the most reasonably priced tickets. Student life is expensive enough as it is, so I’ve compiled a list of the best ways to maintain your theatre addiction and save your pennies. Mousetrap Theatre Projects has a scheme called westend4£10 if you’re 19-25 (or theatrelive4£5 if you’re 18!) where they organise trips to the biggest shows currently in the West End, often accompanied with a backstage tour or Q&A to make the experience even better. You can sign up for free on their website. PROMPT offers students great deals from £16 to some of the best West ...

25Sep

By Josip MartincicNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

A Dark Season

A theatre will usually create a season of shows with a shared concept, and an example of this is the upcoming season of Oscar Wilde at the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End. It is often the case with Shakespeare’s Globe, especially during Emma Rice’s time as the artistic director, with seasons called ‘Summer of Love’, for example, or ‘The Wonder Season’. Therefore, it is very interesting to see that, unintentionally, the Performing Arts Societies on campus are all putting on some very dark shows, while The Student Workshop, the extension of the Drama department not affiliated with the SU, instead chose an intentionally light show. Drama Society is putting on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Musical Theatre Society (MTS) is doing Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret, Savoy Opera Society is offering Br...

RHUL hits the Fringe: Singing on Skid Row

15Sep

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

RHUL hits the Fringe: Singing on Skid Row

Ethereal Theatre Company held auditions at Royal Holloway months ago, choosing the best of the best to go with them to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to perform the cult classic ‘Little Shop Of Horrors’. As the other audience members and I stood in line to enter The Grand Theatre at Surgeons Hall in Edinburgh for their last performance, two of the show’s crew greeted us in hazmat suits and stamped us all with Skid Row barcode ‘tattoos’, a key component of the direction in which the production has gone in. Director Mahmoud Zayat took Howard Ashman’s script and incorporated dystopic themes of “control”, “surveillance” and “innovate science”. This production thus has Skid Row under surveillance, as they are an experiment in determining a person’s level of greed. For those who don’t know,...

Medea: a monster, a mother, or a murderer?

13Jun

By Victoria BastableNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV, Literature, Theatre & Performance

Medea: a monster, a mother, or a murderer?

‘A bride of hate to me and death / Tigress, not woman’ (Euripides, Medea) Medea: a monster, a mother, or a murderer? Victoria Bastable reviews her week with By Jove Theatre company and how their ‘Season of Violent Women’ has made her question the dehumanisation of violent women in culture from Ancient Greece to the 21st century. I Googled ‘violent women in art’ and the results were dominated by articles titled ‘Violence Against Women in Art’. To me, this demonstrates how in art we often attempt to distance women from being portrayed as the perpetrators of violence, perhaps because of cultural expectations of the ‘ideal woman’ as either the nurturing mother or passive victim. But what about the violent women who do appear in art and literature? By Jove Theatre Company have been a...

31Jan

By Emma HalahanNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

UnScene Festival: A Review

The 10 short pieces that made up Drama Socs UnScene Festival certainly packed a punch. Emma Halahan reviews a night of laughter, tears and tender moments. Ranging from spoken word to a brief improvisation by The Holloway Players, the 2016 UnScene Festival had something for everyone. Original writing at RHUL doesn’t have much of a platform: if you are a drama or creative writing student there are opportunities with the Student Workshop and Musical Theatre Society’s Variations offers the opportunity to write an original musical, although it’s first years only. UnScene plugs this gap in the market by allowing a plethora of original writing styles to gain stage time and I can attest, the results were simply magical. Guided by two wonderful co-hosts, Ellie Cozens and Azan Ahmed, the night pr...

30Jan

By Ruby_rogersNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Doctor Who?

Ruby Rogers discusses the decline of BBC’s ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Sherlock’ “Doctor who?” – the famous question, that has been asked by almost every character on the BBC’s favourite family sci-fi drama, has suddenly gained new meaning for me. I, like many other people my age, remember vividly when the Doctor returned to our screens in 2005, in the form of the leather-jacket-wearing, more-intense-less-eccentric Christopher Eccleston. My brother and I watched it every week without fail for years, and, when it wasn’t on, we’d spend countless hours re-watching previous episodes, playing with my brother’s TARDIS set or running around the garden pretending to be aliens. Then, the question “Doctor who?” was nothing more than a plot device, a question to which the answer was simply ‘the (italics) ...

21Nov

By Susanna clarkNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

Never Swim Alone – Review

Image by Sophie Morgan Susanna Clark reviews The Student Workshop's production of Never Swim Alone. The Student Workshop’s production of Never Swim Alone is, simply put, a triumph. Frank (played by Jack Read) and Bill (played by Azan Ahmed) are two adult men who were once childhood friends and maintain a façade of the continuation of this friendship, despite their destructive rivalry. The play is structured as a competition with 13 rounds, each of which is judged by the referee (played by Tabatha Gregg). In each round the men attempt to prove their superiority over each other: whichever man argues his case best is awarded a point by the referee. The points are recorded on a whiteboard in a prime position for all to see: a reminder of the constant struggle amongst men to prove the...

20Nov

By Victoria BastableNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

‘Bluebird’: Brave, bold and beautiful.

Drama Society’s production of ‘Bluebird’ by Simon Stephens is filled with raw and visceral emotion. I have to commend director Emily Young for her bravery and experimentation in this very well executed production. Jimmy (Rafael Aptroot) is a taxi driver. He is sullen and monosyllabic. We, the audience, are voyeurs of Jimmy’s interactions with his ‘fares’ on what appears to be typical night’s work for him. From grieving fathers, to smooching couples, to a young sex worker; the customers in Jimmy’s taxi tell their story of living on the margins of society and their fragmented tales create a mirage of the bleak possibility of life in London. ‘Bluebird’ is not the sort of production you can passively enjoy: thought provoking and emotionally charged would be more apt descriptions, althoug...

Bowie From Your Bottom: Midsummer at The Globe

3Aug

By George SomersNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

Bowie From Your Bottom: Midsummer at The Globe

Concealed in the midst of artistic director Emma Rice’s traditionally authentic season of Bard-based foolery, nestled within the open air glory of Sam Wannamaker’s theatrical baby, the controversial wackiness of the Kneehigh Theatre Group's updated, revamped and revitalised 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' is a spectacle to behold. Colliding the wandering woodland players with the splendour of Ziggy Stardust, while regenerating the romantic comedy of the Demetrius-Helena spats via the hilarity of an on-off gay couple, Rice is utterly immersed in her element, with sold-out performances splitting Shakespeare purists and newly indoctrinated Bard followers into Marmite-like love or hate camps. This eccentric production has been both adored and loathed alike by critics. With self-deprecating Nick...

Savoy Kicks Off Half-Centenary with ‘Pirates Of Penzance’

21Mar

By George SomersNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Music, Theatre & Performance

Savoy Kicks Off Half-Centenary with ‘Pirates Of Penzance’

"Everyone we capture says he's an orphan. The last three ships we took proved to be manned entirely by orphans, and so we had to let them go. One would think that Great Britain's mercantile navy was recruited solely from her orphan asylums — which we know is not the case." With Holloway’s oldest society celebrating its golden anniversary, it seems fitting for Savoy to open 2016 with one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s best-known operettas: ‘Pirates of Penzance’. Brilliantly witty, self-mockingly fickle and proposing possibly the most ingenious ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card in theatrical history (when in doubt, declare your adoration of Queen Vic), ‘Pirates’ has everything we’ve come to expect from a comic Savoy production: superb vocals, charming silliness and Will Davidson’s amusing variety of...