Bang Bang Bang – news, reviews and audience responses

We’ll post coverage and reviews here as they appear. Check back. We’ll also post them in our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

4 STARS “Stella Feehily’s engrossing new play explores what happens when aid workers are sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Orla Fitzgerald is fiercely convincing. Max Stafford-Clark’s tense production takes no prisoners”
Jane Edwardes, Sunday Times

4 STARS “Max Stafford-Clark’s direction is delicate and subtle amid simple staging. It awakens you to the pity, dignity and terror of Africa”
Libby Purves, The Times

REVIEW | WHATSONSTAGE – DAVE CUNNINGHAM | 7 Sep 2011
4 STARS
“A talented international cast, complex characters and a demanding storyline… Stafford- Clark delivers a taut show and uses Andy Smith’s relentless backing music to drive the production excitingly forward and maintain the atmosphere of constant peril… Wonderful writing… Orla Fitzgerald suggests that, despite her maturity and courage, Sadhbh is a damaged woman who may be using the challenges of her humanitarian work to avoid emotional engagement. It is a fearless and riveting performance… Bang Bang Bang is Stella Feehily’s best work to date”

REVIEW | TIME OUT – NINA CAPLAN | 17 Oct 2011
4 STARS
“Flicking between London and the DRC, between frantic partying and dreadful danger, Stella Feehily’s carefully researched play places Sahbh on the horns of a very real dilemma, and Orla Fitzgerald is both sympathetic and infuriating as she wriggles there, somewhere between bravery and foolishness, but a plane ride away from indifference.”

“Hard-hitting play shot through with gallows humour. The talented cast is excellent. Explosive theatre”
Leicester Mercury

REVIEW | PIRATE DOG – Aleks Sierz | 24 Oct 2011
“Powerful and compelling. Emotional truth and abrassive humour.”

INTERVIEW | OneWorld – Daniel Nelson | 6Oct 2011
Stella Feehily talks to the website of the global humanitarian community.
“I’m a white, middle-class woman. The play is from a human rights defender’s perspective”

“Stella Feehily’s excellent new play Bang Bang Bang explodes on to the stage. This is a play that has much to say — and say with great acuity and wit — about what motivates people to swap comfort and security for daily danger in a country not their own.”
Oxford Times

“Stella Feehily’s excellent new play Bang Bang Bang explodes on to the stage. This is a play that has much to say — and say with great acuity and wit — about what motivates people to swap comfort and security for daily danger in a country not their own.”
Oxford Times

“Searing dialogue staged with tension, suspense and a good deal of horror. See this play”
Daily Info, Oxford

“Hard-hitting, poignant, provocative, haunting…. Complex Characters, great insight and pithy wit… With such strong, cohesive cast it is difficult to single out individuals but Orla Fitzgerald was superb as the passionate aid-worker Saidhbh, and both Babou Ceesay and Frances Ashman demonstrated exceptional character acting… Atmospheric lighting, a deceptively clever set and an excellent continuous soundtrack”
Southern Daily Echo

INTERVIEW | BBC – Ian Youngs | 6 Sep 2011
Play casts aid workers in new light – interview with Max Stafford-Clark & Stella Feehily
“Of the people they interviewed during their research, they speak particularly admiringly of Anneke Van Woudenberg, an investigator for Human Rights Watch. ‘As a matter of routine she interviews warlords, and she described their reactions… Some of them would be blustering and threatening, but others would show remorse and indeed even burst into tears when accused of crimes'”

REVIEW | THE PUBLIC REVIEWS – LAURA MALEY | 6 Sep 2011
4 STARS
“Witty, warm and human”

REVIEW | THE BOLTON NEWS – KAT DIBBITS | 7 Sep 2011
“There are moments in the play that are truly shocking, but there are also some of intense poignancy and intimacy… Pacey dialogue and impressive sound and staging create a genuine sense of realism”