Lyric Hammersmith

What was great about the Lyric Hammersmith’s 2019 adaptation of Stanisław Lem’s ‘Solaris’ was that it understood that sci-fi on stage doesn’t have to mean splashy effects and cinematic thrills, that it can mostly take place in your head.    But David Haig’s new version of Philip K Dick’s 1956 short story ‘The Minority Report’ regrettably takes the opposite tack. It feels like it’s trying to ingratiate itself to fans of the action-packed 2002 Tom Cruise-starring Spielberg adaptation, eschewing the darker, more cerebral thrills of the original story. Although the many, many action setpieces in Max Webster’s production are accomplished,  it’s hard to see the point in most of them. Much of the show’s terse 90-minute running time is taken up with stuff like characters breaking into a building through a high window, or a cab chase, or a character with vertigo crossing over a tiny aerial walkway. But none of it really adds to the story. For all the skill that’s gone into crafting these scenes there’s not the budget there to match the lavish theatricality of shows like ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ or ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’, where the spectacle is so overwhelming it becomes the point. Even more muddled is the plot. All incarnations of ‘Minority Report’ are set in a future where a ‘precrime’ department of the police has been established in order to arrest murderers before they kill. The protagonist is always named Anderton, in this case Dame Julia Anderton (Jodie Mc

Deaf-led theatre company Deafinitely Theatre returns with a stint at the Lyric Hammersmith studio with this new drama from Paula Garfield and Melissa Mostyn about the impact of untreated dementia on the deaf community. It follows Rita, a tireless champion for deaf education system in the UK who is disturbed to fiund her memory failing her. Deafinitely theatre artistic director Paula Garfield helms proceedings.

Aussie writer and performer Yve Blake scored a cult domestic smash in the immediate pre-pandemic era with ‘Fangirls’ (aka ‘FANGIRLS’), a subversive musical that she wrote the book, lyrics and music for, and even initially starred in. Inspired by interviews with actual pop star fangirls, the musical follows Edna, a 14-year-old Australian girl madly in love with one ‘Harry’, a member of a massive-selling pop group (hmm, rings a bell). When the band comes to Sydney she’s determined to meet Harry – at any cost. Although it seems probable it will be substantially or totally recast, this is, nonetheless, a London remounting of the original production, headed by Australian director Paige Rattray.