Criticism - Ruby Skippings

Slave Play by Jeremy O Harris - an ambitious, hilarious commentary on strained sexual relationships under white supremacy

The 2024 work by a prolific modern American writer Jeremy O Harris, Slave Play, challenges the boundary between race and sex - all while making us belly laugh.Of course, a piece as successful as Slave Play goes on tour, but I think the decision to bring it to the West End was a thought-out one. Part of its draw (at least for me) is the brazen name; there’s no getting around the content matter. It’s a pun on the phrase for dom/sub sex role play, and a nod to the “play-within-a-play” therapy task...

Review: FIREBIRD, Southwark Playhouse Borough | West End Best Friend

Going into Firebird without knowing what it was about made for quite the shock, but as the play is about child trafficking, it was never going to be comfortable. The opening scene, of 14-year-old friends Tia and Katie swigging stolen champagne on top of a hill in Glasgow, appears innocent enough. A sense of dread builds as Tia dismisses Katie’s innocent game and wants to play a version of ‘Never Have I Ever’. Katie, like most 14-year-olds, hasn’t done much, and subsequently alternates between dr...

Review: STING, Young Vic Theatre | West End Best Friend

Sting almost couldn’t come at a more poignant time. A play about a justice system that continuously lets down female abuse and violence victims premiered during the World Cup, when domestic violence rates go up across the country - no matter what happens on the pitch. That said, with cases of unsolved femicide constantly rising, it’d never be not the right time for this play. Writer Sophia Swithinbank tackles these issues with tact and accuracy, holding up a mirror to a justice system and asking...

Review: INTERVIEW, Riverside Studios | West End Best Friend

“Just the truth or someone’s version of it”. Interview’s tagline lets us know that we’re in for 90 minutes of twists, unreliable narration and ethical debates - and it definitely delivers. Robert Sean Leonard accurately captures the disgruntlement of passed-up political journalist Pierre Peters, who opens the play by complaining to his bed-ridden colleague Theo about his latest assignment: interviewing successful influencer-turned-actress Katya. Pierre’s frustration at the lowness of this gig se...

Review: HOT MESS, Southwark Playhouse Elephant | West End Best Friend

It’s not been an easy ride for “the universe’s most iconic couple”, Earth and Humanity. New musical Hot Mess, fresh off the back of a successful run at Edinburgh Fringe, is a playful imagining of how the pair came to be, but will their relationship last? For 65 minutes, it delivers meaningful commentary about our over-exploitation of the earth’s resources without feeling preachy or overly earnest. We instantly know Danielle Steers is Earth, as she comes on stage in a silk dressing gown with her...

West End Best Friend • 22nd December 2025

Review: THE SENTIMENTAL VALUE OF A HALF-EATEN BISCUIT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL RAMIFICATIONS OF A LOST HAIR-TIE, Bread & Roses Theatre | West End Best Friend

The Sentimental Value of a Half-Eaten Biscuit and The Psychological Ramifications of a Lost-Hair Tie is a tonally accurate title for this one-person play by Sian Kayleigh. Oakley - who’s also played by Kayleigh - arrives on stage dancing to the music in their headphones before giving themselves a strict schedule in which to tidy their room, shower, eat, and get changed. Spoiler alert: they achieve one out of four things. This is one of the strengths of the piece, the subtle but effective depicti...

Review: English National Ballet's R:EVOLUTION, Sadler's Wells | West End Best Friend

Is ballet a rigid, unchanging discipline? Over just over two hours, the English National Ballet proves that’s not the case. The performance is divided into four pieces which couldn’t be more different from one another. Yet each is as beautifully performed as the previous, conveying the range of emotions that can be expressed through the power of dance. The first piece is “Themes and Variations”, choreographed by George Balanchine, which appears to be the most traditional. It evokes a wedding cel...

Twelfth Night Review for West End Best Friend

It’s good to see theatre is alive and well at the Network Theatre. Tucked next to Waterloo station, the second press night for Twelfth Night was buzzing - and The Acting Gymnasium group kept that energy up. Following their successful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it was a treat to see Gavin McAlinden’s vision come alive with this high-chemistry cast.

The roles we play in love: On the “Before” Trilogy — Bad Gal Film Club — A women-centric film community

Richard Linklater gives us a masterclass in depicting a real relationship, but his character’s strong alliance with hetero gender norms feels outdated. The 1995 film “Before Sunrise” was meant to be a one-off indie film based on director Linklater’s chance encounter with a woman over the course of a single night. The film’s massive success saw not one but two more films made, and so a three-act, decade-spanning series was born, following the changing relationship between Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and...

Again, and again, and again

General audience consensus suggests that there are too many film adaptations. Following the recent premiere of Paul King’s “Wonka’‘, a movie musical that imagines how Wonka came to be the world’s best chocolatier before Charlie ever won the gold ticket, has received backlash for not maintaining the same magic as the earlier films, “rendering anything possible and nothing meaningful” (Brody). Adaptations that stray from the original story to inject a “fresh perspective” are often divisive, such a...