This week in theatre: Loop, Porn Play, Ballet Black SHADOWS, After Sunday and Ballet Shoes

From the return of Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre and Ballet Black’s SHADOWS at Sadler’s Wells, to women going through it at Theatre 503 and the Royal Court, this week in theatre is a feast for the senses. 

Loop @ Theatre503

Tanya Loretta-Dee | Credit Zoe Birkbeck

As far as debut stagings go, Tanya Loretta-Dee’s Loop is a stunning monologue into the mind of a woman undone. We meet Bex, full of whimsy and a little bit of an idealist if you like, and she’s met a man. Loretta-Dee’s script is a cautionary tale, full of symbolism and folk-like storytelling, she weaves Bex’s character easily during the production’s 65 minute run. 

On the tiny stage of Theatre 503, the set design and lighting help to bring life to the show, directed by Sophie Ellerby. We’re met with dirt and dried foliage as Bex unleashes her inner animal in hopes of keeping her man. Simple yet effective, the stage is bathed in purples, reds and yellows to evoke the ever increasing anxieties Bex feels as she grapples with the failing relationships around her; her mum, best friend and lover.

Loretta-Dee makes for a captivating woman obsessed. She owns the stage in a way that can often fall flat in a show of this nature where the script is dense and demands to be felt in a way that requires full engagement from the audience. Craftily done is the use of mixed media - the ping of a text message, the sound of the forest and the music tracks which drags us out of Bex’s fantasies. 

This is a play that I can see making a strong return to a larger space after ironing out some kinks with its overall flow and will settle firmly in being a physiological horror that can be referenced for those interested in the genre for years to come.  

Loop ends on Saturday 29 November, purchase tickets here.

Porn Play @ Royal Court

Ambika Mod and Lizzy Connolly | Credit Helen Murray

Ambika Mod has found a home on the stage and a firm partnership with writer Sophia Chetin-Leuner (This Might Not Be It). After seeing Chetin-Leuner’s sold out play at the Bush Theatre in 2024 it was clear that whatever the playwright put her pen to next would be just as powerful. 

We’re introduced to Ani, an accomplished young woman with an addiction to violent pornography. This is contrasted with a cleverly designed set of soft plush carpet, so pure and intrinsic to the play that the audience is given foot coverings prior to entering the Jerwood Upstairs space. Yimei Zhao (associate designer for Hot Wing King) has lulled the audience into a dream-like state before we are forced to grapple with the reality that Ani is desperately struggling to stay afloat. There is also something clinical and clean about how additional props are built into the swirls of the soft carpet, everything has its place and yet only if Ani would stay in hers, life would be perfect.  

Early on we are met with Ani and her soon-to-be ex partner, they eat cake to celebrate Ani winning an award for her academic pursuits. Talk turns to Ani’s proclivity for what her partner feels is pornography which is too violent, for a woman? Or just too violent in general. 

Things escalate quickly from there and Mod does well to carry the weight of Ani’s dual shame but also her reluctance to change or tame herself for those around her. She masturbates in bed next to her best friend, in her old childhood bedroom and her addictive nature just can’t seem to stop this self-destructive spiral. 

We are treated to blistering monologues from Mod which are powerful in their unpacking of separating the art from the artist as well as seeking to understand herself and her own motivations. 

Ani is a scholar of Milton and specialist in his Epic Paradise Lost, but yet is confronted with the fact that Milton was a horrible person by one of her students during an office hours meeting. Paradise Lost parallels Ani’s own life; it tells the story of the fall of man as told in the Bible and seeks to understand free will, the ‘moral consequence of disobedience’. 

Chetin-Leuner along with the entire Porn Play production under the strong direction of Josie Rourke have laid bare a play which blurs the boundaries of how acceptable female desire is, more so when it’s violent. As Ani becomes increasingly desperate we’re unsure if her actions are a moment of fiction or flinchingly real.  

Porn Play ends 13 December and is currently sold out. You can join the wait list here