The F-Word stage blog: April 2020

It’s a short blog post this week with just a few suggestions of things to watch while we’re all staying at home. Please do email through to [email protected] and [email protected] any suggestions of things to review. I really enjoyed the production of The Tempest that I watched last weekend.

Streaming tonight at 8pm is Zara from companies Walk the Plank, Mind the Gap and Emergency Exit Arts. This is a film of their final performance last summer that took place outside the Imperial War Museum in London. This giant outdoor theatre event for the whole family tells the epic story of one learning disabled mother and her fight to protect her baby. A version with audio-description can be found here.

Comedian Sofie Hagen is selling her shows Dead Baby Frog and Shimmer Shatter for £5 each.

Online service Next Up (starting at £4.79/month after a free trial) is great for standup streaming. You can watch Abigoliah Schamaun, Alison Thea-Skot or Alice Fraser and that’s just the comedians beginning with A.

It’s True, It’s True, It’s True which I loved at Edinburgh in 2018 is back online on YouTube (CN: rape) this time around until 23 April or so. In my 2018 review I wrote “as I watch I get angry not only on Gentileschi’s behalf, but also for all other women who have been lied about, disbelieved and discredited” and it’s only improved since then. Give it a watch.

Funny Women have moved this year’s awards, at least the start of them, online. The regional heats will involve the industry panels watching videos in virtual rooms. Registration is open now.

Jayde Adams is streaming a weekly interactive cabaret night on Wednesdays at 7.30pm through Facebook. “Hosted straight from her living room and accompanied by her glamorous assistants and fellow comics Rich Wilson and Paul Sweeney, Jayde invites her friends from the worlds of drag, comedy, art, and music to showcase their varied talents and entertain with new and experimental performances from their homes.” Her standup special Serious Black Jumper is still available on Amazon Prime of course.

And finally, here’s a quick shout-out to all those arts professionals whose entire day-to-day life has been knocked sideways and are finding other ways to help instead. Good work.

The feature image is the promo picture for Jayde Adams’ Serious Black Jumper. It shows Adams wearing a black polo neck and glasses leaning against a wooden wall. She looks seriously at the camera.