Chi-San Howard Archives

Safiyya Ingar as Asha and Anoushka Chadha as Bettina (Photo: Alex Brenneer)

REVIEW: Two Billion Beats, Orange Tree Theatre (2022) RETURNING January 2023

Post author:Lizzie Loveridge
Post published:15 February 2022
Post category:London but not West End Play Review
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Two British Asian sisters, both are at secondary school, one nearing the end and looking at university entrance to SOAS and the other, younger and hoping to buy a pet hamster. The elder girl Asha (Safiyya Ingar) is studying hard and getting involved in political history; the younger Bettina (Anoushka Chadha) is being bullied on the bus home from school. The playwright of Two Billion Beats, Sonali Bhattacharyya is a graduate of the Royal Court Young Writers Programme and is under contract currently to the Almeida Theatre and The Kiln.

Matt Whitchurch as Michael and MyAnna Buring as Vera (Photo: Jane Hobson)

REVIEW: Milk and Gall, Theatre 503 (2021)

Post author:Lizzie Loveridge
Post published:12 November 2021
Post category:London but not West End Off West End Play Review
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This exceptional new play by Matilde Dratwa, who was born in Belgium but who now lives in New York, juxtaposes the mega event regime change of the advent of the Trump presidency with the micro in world terms of the birth of Vera (MyAnna Buring)'s first child. Of course for Vera, this birth is anything but micro as her life is turned upside down by the new arrival and responsibility for him. As Vera goes into labour with the supportive father of her child, Michael (Matt Whitchurch) in attendance, it is November 2016 and the states are being called either for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.