Bunker Theatre, London (****) 
Cardboard Citizens are a remarkable success story, especially dealing as they do with those at the sharp end of society, the ones who have fallen through the cracks. For 25 years, Adrian Jackson, CC’s founding father has pioneered theatre that will not let us forget what it is like to be homeless, to have lost everything including your dignity and identity. Continue reading
Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, (***)
© Fiona Glascott (left), Jane Hazlegrove , John Mackay (background), Sarah Niles (right)
Maybe one should always beware plays with letters as cast members. It never bodes well. E V Crowe has been steadily building a reputation as a writer of taut, stringent control since her debut, Kin (2010) followed by the positively garrulous (by her standards) but impressive Hero (2012) with Daniel Mays. Last year, Brenda, a study in mystery and abuse, premiered at the High Tide festival and certainly took no prisoners. Nor does her latest, The Sewing Group.
Aldeburgh, Suffolk
****
This, my second visit to the influential HighTide festival (now in its 9th year) saw it settled into a new home in the small, beautiful Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh. More usually associated with Benjamin Britten and the music festival he helped launch with partner, Peter Pears I’ve no doubt future years will see it as associated with HighTide, its drama equivalent. It offers so much for a theatre festival with an array of venues if, strangely, less sympathetic to the spoken words than HighTide’s previous home in Halesworth.
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