Road to nowhere

At time of writing, theatres have been closed for over 100 days. It’s taken only until very recently for the government to even acknowledge there’s a problem, and all they really seemed to do was pay lip service to the industry rather than attempt to tackle it in a more practical way. Instead, theatres have […]

Most popular posts of 2019

In terms of total views, 2018 was a bit of a freak year – so 2019 hasn’t managed to live up to it. However, it has continued on the trajectory that we would have been on had Mind the Blog 2018 not been so ridiculously popular… And, as ever, I’ve been watching the stats page […]

End of 2019 report

Well, it’s been quite a year, hasn’t it? The less said about the political landscape the better, except for the fact that it’s probably given James Graham enough material to last a lifetime… I can’t help but wish that I had some play writing ability to lighten the load (and for my own catharsis)! Back […]

Favourite shows 2019

Whilst I didn’t see as many shows as last year, I don’t think I had quite such a good run of shows in 2018 as I have this year – so making this list was no mean feat. As usual, there were some which were ineligible for the list as I’d seen them last year; […]

Favourite male performances of 2019

As with last year, there were too many brilliant performances to restrict this to one combined list – so once again I’ve split them up into male and female performances. It was a particularly strong field this year, I thought, which makes for quite a cosy male performances subs bench: Oliver Chris (Oberon – A Midsummer […]

Mind the Blog ‘on tour’ 2019

Even though I’ve become quite tired this year, and have tried to keep some sort of balance in there, I couldn’t resist nipping out of London every five minutes to see what was going on in theatres across the country. I even managed to start my 2019 theatregoing with a trip to Paris, courtesy of […]

Arthur Miller 2019: a summary

Before this, I’ve taken on Shakespeare, puppetry and Emma Rice; thanks to an early pattern in theatre scheduling, I decided this year had to focus on Arthur Miller. I started off really enthusiastically – it definitely helped that I was rather spoilt for choice in terms of productions of Arthur Miller’s plays in the first […]

What Girls Are Made Of

“They are made of sugar and spice, And other things, not ALL nice” Last year, Cora Bissett started going through her collection of old diaries, and the end result was What Girls Are Made Of: a gig theatre piece charting her teenage years spent as an indie rock star, and the knock-on effects that experience has […]

EFF 2019: final thoughts

The first thing I want to do is formally express surprise at the lack of a freak out throughout my stay in Edinburgh – and as I’ve struggled to catch up with everything since then. Hit with a non-compliant laptop the night before my trip, having to head up there on the overnight National Express, […]

EFF 2019: comedy picks

Last year I wanted to go to at least one stand-up comedy show each day I was at the Fringe; I ended up just going to one (though it was the brilliant Harry & Chris Save the World, so a top choice). I’ve managed to rectify that mistake this time round, seeing the prescribed one […]