Published: 3 June 2010
by JOSH LOEB

A CELEBRITY line-up is set to help lead a theatre workshop examining the scourge of gun and knife crime. Zip, a not-for-profit project supported by the Big Lottery Fund and Camden Council, is being run by Kentish Town-based theatre company Giant Olive and will culminate in a new, devised play being premiered at this year’s Camden Fringe Festival. Grime rapper Wiley will provide the soundtrack and actor Vas Blackwood – who has starred in films including Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – will be part of the creative process. West End star and Giant Olive artistic director Ray Shell will help lead a series of workshops with people of all ages affected by gun and knife crime. 

Two new plays funded and produced by Curving Road, an organisation that supports new writers over the age of 40, are coming to the Old Red Lion. Dig  – about a gangland killing gone wrong – and No More, Salvator by Michael Hart will be at the Islington theatre this month. Curving Road artistic director Sue Guiney said she started the organisation to give opportunities to new voices. “There is a widespread belief that new equals young,” she said. “We believe new equals new whoever you are.” The plays are at the Old Red Lion from June 8-26. To book call 020 7837 7816. 

Now showing at Hampstead’s Pentameters Theatre: Jerome K Jerome’s comic story Three Men in a Boat. Funnily enough, Davies Palmer, who is starring in the show, actually lives on a narrowboat that is moored in Southall along the Grand Union Canal. “I’ve sort of got canal legs already,” he admitted. The show is at Pentameters until June 20. To book call 020 7435 3648.

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