MATT BOOTHMAN

Review: The Stefan Golaszewski Plays, Bush Theatre

14th December 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Written and performed by Stefan Golaszewski
Directed by Phillip Breen

Bush Theatre, until Saturday 9th January 2009, £15.00/£13.00 (book tickets)

Two one-act plays back to back don't usually make a successful two-act play. Right? Which suggests it's probably no coincidence that Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved and Stefan Golaszewski Is A Widower work so well as a double bill; it seems likely they were always meant to be performed...

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Bush Theatre re-opens to unsolicited script submissions

7th December 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

The moment the Bush Theatre axed its script reading team, citing a lack of funds, was the moment the recession became real for me. Beforehand I'd been taking my usual naïve/optimistic view of the situation, confident that it couldn't be as bad as the media made it out to be, and that it would soon blow over with no major consequences. The discontinuation of script reading at one of London's...

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Belt Up, Tim Crouch and breach of contract

27th November 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

At this year's Edinburgh International Festival, Belt Up premiered a new piece of experimental theatre called Leasspell. It involved the company and audience standing together for half an hour, all blindfolded and telling one another love stories. While Belt Up themselves readily admit that Leasspell was not the most successful of experiments, it did raise certain issues that the company explored further this week in a discussion event charmingly titled...

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Launched: theblogpaper, the troll’s soapbox

25th September 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

This time last week, thelondonpaper published its last ever issue. Just one week later another publication seeks to fill the resulting vacuum.
Anton Waldburg and Karl Jo Seilern-Aspang, creators of theblogpaper, style their new freesheet "the first user-generated newspaper in the UK". Users submit articles and photos to theblogpaper.co.uk, where their content is rated out of five by the community. The highest rated content in each category is then published in...

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Reviewing the upholstery

11th September 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

I spent a pleasant hour on Wednesday experiencing Theatretank's ÁTMAN, which involved wandering the residential streets and footpaths of south Wimbledon while listening to an abridged audio version of Peter Handke's Self-Accusation.
Theatretank's mp3 player setup was one of the better ones I've come across when investigating audio-assisted productions. The player was small and simple to use and, even better, came with a lanyard, so I could hang it around my...

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Arts futurism – theatre in the newsfeeds of the future

4th September 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Arts Futurism is an occasional strand in which I discuss, based on current developments, what might be next for the arts.

So let's assume for the moment that print newspapers are, indeed, nearing the end point of a lengthy and unintended suicide at the hands of their own free online content distribution systems. Let's briefly put aside the alternative theories and concentrate on the one where the presses are silenced and...

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Traverse Theatre sweeps first week awards

24th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

It's traditional for shows playing at the Traverse Theatre to clean up when the Scotsman and the Bank of Scotland start handing out their Festival awards. It's equally traditional for the rest of the Festival to complain that the Traverse cleans up so regularly and predictably. There hasn't been as much of that flavour of carping as usual this year; perhaps everyone's realised that complaining is less constructive than putting...

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Rap Guide star Baba Brinkman rekindles an old debate

13th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

"Congratulations on writing the first four star review in history without a single positive adjective! Utterly unquotable, but I do appreciate the stars : )"
Baba Brinkman, commenting on MattBoothman.com
So Baba Brinkman isn't satisfied with four stars, or with the accompanying review - which was, by the way, 50 per cent longer than my editor at the British Theatre Guide recommends for a Festival Fringe review, because I didn't feel I...

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Who to follow at Fringe ‘09

7th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

If you can't make it to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year, because a banker vaporised your life savings, or because National Express couldn't be bothered to drive you up the East Coast, or because you usually live in Edinburgh and have gone on holiday to Inverness for the month, never fear!

You can recreate the experience of battling your way along the Royal Mile, accosted every other step by acts...

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