Deborah Adelodun

Image credit: Manuel Harlan ★★★★ In this adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the National Youth Theatre delivers an exceptionally chilling production. By twisting gothic 19th-century lore with modern, club-attacking vixen vampires, Tatty Hennessy tells the gory story of Dracula across two worlds set decades apart. The production opens with a rather classic portrayal of Stoker’s Dracula.

As part of my New Year’s resolution, I finally decided it was time to get my driver’s license. I’ve said I would do it for five consecutive years now, yet I never actually make time to start learning. In fact, the longer I delayed it, the less I wanted to do it. Driving had always felt like a teenage rite of passage, not something you begin in your twenties, and I convinced myself that I had somehow missed my window.

Image credit: Colin J Smith ★★★★★ The play opens ominously. Miles Davis (Benjamin Akintuyosi) is seemingly resurrected atop a piano. The story immediately shifts to another scene, where we meet Jay (Jay Phelps), an aspiring trumpeter struggling to create music that will save his record deal. Technically, he is capable, but his compositions lack depth and identity. Writer and director Oliver Kaderbhai presents jazz as art borne from lived experience, passion, hardship, and personal struggle.