BODILY SENSATION AND MENTAL INSIGHT – AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH JANE WALKER

Posted on November 25, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Perspectives and tagged arts, books, Carmina Masoliver, Caroline Bird, elaine aaron, hannah jane walker, highly sensitive people, highly sensitive person, hsp, interview, theatre.

by Carmina Masoliver

Hannah Jane Walker is the author of The Power of Feeling Sensitive in a World that Doesn’t, which was released earlier this year. I know Hannah as a poet and theatre maker who created a show about being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). The term, coined by psychologist Elaine Aron, refers to people who score highly on sensory-processing sensitivity. This often appears as increased emotional sensitivity, stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli, and a complex inner life. As a fellow HSP, I contacted Hannah to interview her about the book and being an HSP.

TWO BILLION BEATS BY SONALI BHATTACHARYYA – REVIEW

Posted on March 4, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Anoushka Chadha, B.R. Ambedkar, British South Asian, Dalit, featured, Gandhi, history, immigration, islamophobia, left-wing theatre, Leicester, momentum, Orange Tree Theatre, people of colour, racism, representation, review, Safiyya Ingar, school, SOAS, Sonali Bhattacharya, Sylvia Pankhurst, teenagers, theatre, Two Billion Beats, uk, war on terror, young people, youth politics.

By Ananya Wilson-Bhattacharya

The presence of South Asian characters in British theatre is not the extreme rarity it once was. Whilst South Asians and people of colour more widely are still hugely underrepresented in theatre – as actors, writers, directors and in storylines – there has undoubtedly been some progress in recent years. What remains less visible, however, is South Asian characters engaging in rich discussions of history in all its complexity, from a questioning, left-wing perspective. If this is not for you, you should probably avoid playwright and Momentum activist Sonali Bhattacharyya’s Two Billion Beats, showing now at London’s Orange Tree Theatre.

THE GIRL AND THE DRAGON, BY SUITCASE STORYTELLING COMPANY – REVIEW

Posted on January 17, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Arts Council, children's theatre, compassion, displacement, featured, Minnie Wilkinson, Niall Moorjani, performance, Suitcase Storytelling Company, The Girl and The Dragon, theatre.

By Sarah Edgcumbe

The Suitcase Storytelling Company are magicians. There is no other way to describe them. On a recent wet and mizzly Sunday afternoon my partner and I took his eight-year-old daughter to a nearby community theatre, expecting to fidget our way through being mildly entertained, but hoping his daughter would enjoy the show. The set consisted of a screen painted with a rudimentary set of train tracks set against mountains in the background. In the foreground, a painted electronic sign indicated we would be transported onto a railway station platform as soon as the show began. A tannoy announcement repeatedly announced that the train was delayed, before politely asking passengers to keep their umbrellas next to them and report any sightings of dragons to train staff.

WHEN SERIOUS MEETS SILLY – ROBIN GOOD THE POLITICO-PANTO REVIEW

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged arts, Aveen Biddle, Dame Stratton Strawless, featured, James McDermott, LGBTQIA+, Mike Lloyd, norfolk, norwich, politico-panto, queerness, Richard Upton, robin good, socialism, Suffolk, theatre, Will Arundell.

by Ewa Giera

“You’re a socialist, how can you hate people?!”

The line is directed towards Marion, the genderqueer activist, café worker and counterpart to Robin Good.

The audience laughs goodheartedly at the oxymoron. Taken aback, I find myself laughing along. Soon after, Marion decides to run in the election to oust the Tory-coded Sheriff of Norwich, alongside Robin, and their drag queen father, Stratton Strawless.

LIVING RECORD FESTIVAL REVIEW – PART 2

Posted on April 5, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Beautiful Confusion Collective, Becka McFadden, climate change, Covert Firmament, Dan Horrigan, featured, Heloise Thual, improvisation, Living Record Festival, Living Record Productions, Martin Niemöller, monologue, norwich, online theatre, Outside Edge Theatre Company, overwork, performance, Prayer for a Parasite, Reflex Theatre, review, Scratch Reflex, spoken word, Stories of the Present War, theatre, web series, working from home, World War Two, Write Now.

By Carmina Masoliver

January 2021 saw the start of the Living Record Festival, which featured over forty artists and theatre companies showcasing digital work, from spoken word audio pieces to mini-web series. It has garnered many four-star and five-star reviews. In the second part of this two-part series, Carmina Masoliver discusses her remaining picks of the festival’s most interesting shows. You can read part one here.

LIVING RECORD FESTIVAL REVIEW – PART 1

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged ADHD, audio-visual, controversy, Covid-19, DJ Glade, Edinburgh Fringe, Elian Gray, featured, grief, identity, infuencers, Katie Elizabeth Payne, Katie Payne, Leanne Moden, Living Record Festival, Mango Lassi, Maya Katherine, mental health, Mike Masaros, music, My Mix(ed up) Tape, online theatre, performance, poetry, review, Rogue Play Theatre, Skip Skip Skip, spirituality, spoken word, The Quean's Company, theatre, theatre review, Thrash, Vivid Ashes, web series.

By Carmina Masoliver

January 2021 saw the start of the Living Record Festival, which featured over forty artists and theatre companies showcasing digital work, from spoken word audio pieces to mini-web series. It has garnered many four-star and five-star reviews. In this two-part series, Carmina Masoliver discusses her picks of the festival’s most interesting shows. You can read part two here.

THE PLAY ABOUT THERESA MAY – REVIEW

Posted on March 11, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Amie Marie, Boris Johnson, Brecht, Brexit, civil service, comedy, david cameron, farce, featured, government, political satire, politics, satire, slapstick, theatre, theresa may, Tories, uk.

By Toby Skelton

There is an elephant in the room with Amie Marie’s mischievous comedy The Play About Theresa May: why publish a satire on May’s bungled and mayhemic term in government in 2021? When placed beside the burning wreckage of policies created by her etonian man-child of a successor, there is a risk of the text losing its relevance before you’ve even passed the cover. Marie navigates this hurdle gracefully, however; its name-sake target has been out of office nearly two years, but The Play About Theresa May is still an extremely timely exploration of political engagement in 21st Century Britain.

RESISTANCE IN BUDAPEST: STUDENTS DEFY LATEST MOVE IN VIKTOR ORBÁN’S CULTURE WAR

Posted on September 13, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged agnes heller, antisemitism, Attila Vidnyánszky, central european university, eva s balogh, fascism, featured, freeSzFE, George Soros, György Karsai, hungarian, Hungary, index, jobbik, László Upor, mafia state, movemente, national curriculum, Nazi, occupation, Orban, populism, protest, Roma, Romani, rroma, student, szfe, theatre, university.

by Bernard Rorke

On the Wednesday evening of the 2nd of September, in a narrow street in Budapest’s eighth district, a large crowd gathered in solidarity with the students who have staged an occupation of Hungary’s University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE). The students had sealed the entrances to the building with red and white tape in protest against the latest power grab by the far-right government of Victor Orbán.

From the first-floor balconies, students stood silently in yellow face masks with clenched fists, while below, leading figures from Hungary’s cultural and literary scene recited apposite verses from the country’s rich reserve of defiant, liberty-loving poetry. The students closed the event with a folk song and the crowd joined in defiant chants of ‘Szabad Ország, Szabad Egyetem! (Free Country, Free University!)’.

EDINBURGH FRINGE 2019 – PT 1

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Bait Theatre, BDSM, beach body, body positivity, Caitlin Moran, Carmina Masoliver, comedy, dance, daughter, DID, Edinburgh Fringe, featured, feminism, festival, IFS, improv, Jessica Edwards, Jessica Redstone, kit redstone, Lewys Holt, lines, Lizzo, Maisy Taylor, mother, Neil Chinneck, performance, Phrases, Rory Fleck-Byrne, shibari, Simone de Beauvoir, spoken word, summer, Tamsin Shasha, The Roaring Girls, theatre, TheSpace.

by Carmina Masoliver

Edinburgh Fringe festival seems to get bigger and bigger each year; there are hundreds of shows to choose from and the densely-packed programme can be difficult to decipher. Here we have briefly reviewed three distinct shows from the 2019 edition, dealing with the mind, the body, sexuality, relationships and gender.

KILL THE PRINCESS, BY BAIT THEATRE

Posted on July 4, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged arts, comedy, Disney, Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, featured, festival, fiction, Fringe festival, gender, gender roles, heterocentrism, kill the princess, madsen, norms, performance, poetry, review, romance, Shakespeare, story, theatre.

by Sunetra Senior

A tall hill of turquoise, gendered cooing and guffawing, chainmail crop tops, and dance-fights with mops, performed to the sound of nineties nostalgia: Lizzy Shakespeare and Michelle Madsen, together known as Bait Theatre, effectively wield experimental drama to tear through the fanciful tropes of traditional fairy-tale femininity.Continue Reading

theatre

BODILY SENSATION AND MENTAL INSIGHT – AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH JANE WALKER

by Carmina Masoliver

TWO BILLION BEATS BY SONALI BHATTACHARYYA – REVIEW

By Ananya Wilson-Bhattacharya

THE GIRL AND THE DRAGON, BY SUITCASE STORYTELLING COMPANY – REVIEW

By Sarah Edgcumbe

WHEN SERIOUS MEETS SILLY – ROBIN GOOD THE POLITICO-PANTO REVIEW

by Ewa Giera

LIVING RECORD FESTIVAL REVIEW – PART 2

By Carmina Masoliver

LIVING RECORD FESTIVAL REVIEW – PART 1

By Carmina Masoliver

THE PLAY ABOUT THERESA MAY – REVIEW

By Toby Skelton

RESISTANCE IN BUDAPEST: STUDENTS DEFY LATEST MOVE IN VIKTOR ORBÁN’S CULTURE WAR

by Bernard Rorke

EDINBURGH FRINGE 2019 – PT 1

KILL THE PRINCESS, BY BAIT THEATRE

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