Anna Orton News Today

Gunter is a messy play. Literally. There’s sand, dirt, blood, confetti, and ink all over the actors and the floor. Fringe company Dirty Hare throw absolutely everything at their canvas, in a piece that includes music to projections to microphones, shadow puppetry, and masks. In this rare gem of a show, however, it all sticks. Usually, when critics refer to a show as ‘messy’, it’s a bad thing. When I call Gunter messy, I mean it with the utmost praise. 

Lydia Higman, Julia Grogan and Rachel Lemon’s play set around a 1604 witch trial is a vital and exciting piece of gig theatre full of improvisational spirit and creative virtuosity

So many dramatic techniques are thrown in that the production, rather ironically, became less engaging as it went on.

It begins with Blythe Duff’s Mrs Jarrett stumbling on Lena, Vi and Sally catching some rays as they indulge in chit chat, gossip and tittle tattle…

A high-school English teacher and his former star pupil meet in a brothel in Kieran Hurley’s new play

Roxana Silbert directs Conleth Hill in the sex comedy

It’s a major community engagement production supported by fundraising

The whole piece is staged very “tongue-in-cheek”, in zany, comic book style, befitting the novel’s origins as a magazine serial.

Enough of Him - May Sumbwanyambe’s harrowing, but uplifting drama about the Joseph Knight, who freed himself from slavery through the Scottish courts, and Ramesh Meyyappan’s Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance), a poignant exploration of dementia in the deaf community - top the nominations lists.

Bromance isn’t dead in this glorious reinvention of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic historical romp, brought to life by the creative team…