Zelly Lisanework is a British Ethiopian multidisciplinary artist, writer, poet and theatre reviewer based in the UK. She has reviewed theatre for nearly 10 years, with reviews at Theatre Bubble, Suffolk Theatre and UK Theatre Network. Her writing has also appeared in DIVA Magazine, the BBC as well as exhibitions at Suffolk Archives and the formerly named Museum of East Anglian Life. As a multidisciplinary artist, Zelly has performed at literary, theatre and arts events across the UK and internationally, including the Asmara-Addis Literary Festival, SPILL Festival, Folk East Festival and Primadonna Festival.
Cast of Dracula. Photo by Adam Koszary Nick Lane’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel has the machinery of a chilling theatrical encounter, but rarely generates the dread that should animate it. Directed by Hal Chambers, this uneven production is more adept at illustrating the story than making its horrors felt. Victoria Spearing’s multi-level set […]
Catherine Russell as Patricia Highsmith and Jamie Sayers as Edward Ridgeway. Photo by Fourth Wall Photography An absorbing psychological thriller driven by two compelling performances and a strikingly atmospheric design. In Joanna Murray-Smith’s Switzerland, fact and fiction intertwine in a darkly entertaining portrait of crime novelist Patricia Highsmith. Set in 1995, the play imagines an […]
The cast of Wilko. Photo by Stuart Purfield There is an irresistible story at the heart of Wilko: Love and Death and Rock ’n’ Roll. Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson was given a terminal cancer diagnosis and, rather than retreating from life, responded by embracing it; only for the diagnosis itself to take an extraordinary […]
JESS & MORGS turn political evasion into a technically dazzling collision of dance, film and digital illusion In Deepfake, award-winning director-choreographers Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple transform the carefully manufactured theatre of political communication into something exhilaratingly literal. Set inside the acidic green of a television studio, the work places Kennedy Muntanga’s Prime Minister opposite […]
photography by Mike Kwasniak Andrew Bovell’s Things I Know to Be True finds its emotional force in the uncomfortable space where unconditional love becomes expectation. Rachel Lansdowne’s production for Gallery Players is warm, thoughtful and often affecting, capturing a family whose affection sits alongside disappointment, resentment and change. Lansdowne’s set places a fairy-lit tree at […]
Cast : Catherine Terry, Karen Holmes, Pippa Duffy, Annie Kirkman, Angela Caesar, Rachel Hammond. Photograph by Will Green Photography This collaborative production from New Wolsey Theatre, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Theatre by the Lake and Octagon Theatre Bolton brings Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s Calendar Girls the Musical to life as a warm, sharply observed and […]
Photo by Mike Kwasniak L.P. Hartley’s famous observation that “the past is a foreign country” hangs heavily over Ben Musgrave’s adaptation of The Go-Between. Produced by Eastern Angles, this is a bittersweet, sharply observed exploration of nostalgia, memory, and the permanent fractures left by childhood experience. Before the narrative proper begins, Sophie Crawford’s Balladeer establishes […]
Photo by Charisma Benitez Written by Rickerby Hinds and co-directed by Hinds and Mxolisi Masilela, Dreamscape is a powerful, inventive piece of hip-hop theatre that celebrates Black life while directly confronting the systemic violence that threatens it. Inspired by the 1998 police shooting of 19-year-old Tyisha Miller in Riverside, California, the production refuses to define […]