
No Rhyme by Melanie Pennant
directed by Kate Bannister
Winning play
A Younger Theatre
Pennant has a natural flair for dialogue, particularly the colloquial banter between the two clubbers, which bounces backwards and forwards with scattergun rapidity…
the audience become completely absorbed in the complicated love lives of these girls…
all five of the performers attack the piece with energy and commitment…
The entire team of No Rhyme is to be congratulated on an excellent production.
Bump by Vinay Patel
directed by Tanith Lindon
Staged reading
It’s always gonna say Dartford on her birth certificate though. Can’t ever change that.
After ten years apart, Dan and Jayesh run into each other in the maternity ward of their hometown hospital. They share an anxious night as they wait for their partners to give birth.
But as the old school friends reconnect, it becomes clear that the past they shared was not as straightforward as it seemed, and that they and their families face a very different future.
The Magic Hour by Martin McNamara
directed by Mark Leipacher
Staged reading
He loved a good funeral. He would go to the funerals of people he didn’t know. He used to rate them. Mostly it was about how generous they were with the drink and how much singing there was. He always said the English didn’t know how to die.
Dennis O’Neill has died, and his family gather at the hospital as the priest prays for his soul.
Whilst two sons try to remember how to mourn the dead, an older generation evokes the remorse and sense of loss of unwilling migrants from an indifferent Ireland.
The Magic Hour is a darkly comic family drama set in a waiting room of a London hospital.