stage - East End Review

The Harder They Come - 'a message of persistence rings loud and clear'

Olivier Award-winner Matthew Xia directs this stage adaptation of the film The Harder They Come at Stratford East

Author: Gabriel Wilding

Danny Bailey (José) in The Harder They Come

Hackney playwright details foster care experience in debut play

Four Paintings combines art and performance to explore the experience of growing up in care

Author: East End Review

Hackney playwright details foster care experience in debut play

Human rights play to shed light on ‘biggest unreported war story of our time’

The Island Nation, opening this month at the Arcola, revisits the Sri Lankan civil war to address a ‘black hole in history’

Author: East End Review

Human rights play to shed light on ‘biggest unreported war story of our time’

Sleepless, Shoreditch Town Hall, preview: exploring Fatal Familial Insomnia

A new play looks at the most rare and horrifying strain of insomnia of all

Author: East End Review

Jake Ferretti in Sleepless at Shoreditch Town Hall

Barred: prison play asks if art and education can rehabilitate offenders

Writer and ex-offender Dean Stalham bases his plays on searching questions that interrogate the prison experience

Author: East End Review

Saddled with Shakespeare: The Handlebards ride to Geffrye Museum

An all-bicycling theatre company is giving new meaning to the phrase ‘play cycle’

Author: East End Review

The Handlebards' all-female troupe. Photograph: The Handlebards

Grimeborn Festival, Arcola, review: ‘excellent programme of rarities and standards’

Opera gets back to its experimental roots at the Arcola’s annual festival

Author: East End Review

Grimeborn Festival, Arcola, review: ‘excellent programme of rarities and standards’

From the Ground Up, Shoreditch Town Hall, review: ‘a lo-fi game show experience’

The show, devised by the Almeida young company, saw audiences peppered with provocative yes-or-no questions

Author: East End Review

The cast of From the Ground Up. Photograph: Almeida

Africa Utopia comes to the Southbank Centre 31 August – 4 September

Discover art and ideas from Africa that are changing the world

Author: East End Review

The Mandela Trilogy - an "epic operatic tribute." Photograph: John Snelling

‘It was love soup’: Britten in Brooklyn with Sadie Frost at Wilton’s Music Hall

Sadie Frost ventures to East London to star as stripper Gypsy Rose Lee

Author: East End Review

The Passion of Lady Vendredi: Rich Mix to stage ‘blaxploitation epic’

Voodoo, evangelism and white working class comedians are some of the inspirations for the character of Lady Vendredi

Author: East End Review

The Passion of Lady Vendredi: Rich Mix to stage ‘blaxploitation epic’

Play set in ‘shipping container’ highlights plight of child refugees

Arcola production enacts a border-crossing using a replica of the type of container used to escape conflict in countries such as Syria and Afghanistan

Author: East End Review