Last week, some of the L5s stood on the bank of the Thames and recited their Shakespeare speeches, against a back-drop of the ever growing tower blocks of London’s skyline. As I watched, I was struck by how the past and present were colliding. Just yards from where we stood, 500 years earlier, Shakespeare’s Players who, to paraphrase, strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage, were speaking the same text out into the London air. Now , thanks to gaming, we think of a…

As part of the Off the Shelf festival, leading UK playwright John Godber visited the Performance Lab to see a Sheffield Hallam graduate production of September in the Rain and to take part in an 'In Conversation' event with collaborator and Sheffield Hallam lecturer, Neil Sissons.…

Doppelganster's 2019 'Choke me'.

A review by Katie Bott.

Doppelganster's 'choke me' is not your typical theatre performance. The art forms of acting, dance and music all work together, they are each well executed individually, and ultimately come together in one astonishing piece. Performed for the ‘Off the Shelf’ festival at Sheffield Hallam’s Performance Lab, the show demonstrates the problems our world is facing with ecological, environmental damage, with particular…

The Last King of Scotland.
The Crucible, Sheffield.

Tobi Bamtefa gives a capturing performance of the unpredictable and savage dictator Idi Amin, highlighted further by the anxious and fearful Dr Nicholas Garrigan played by Daniel Portman, Bamtefa portrays the oxymoronic character of the presidential dictator of Uganda with sheer confidence and might as expected with such a strong and powerful role to fulfil. The Last King of Scotland, directed by Gbolahan Obisesan based of…