Whilst I can understand which politicians might be reluctant to leave Twitter, they should, at the very least, cross-post the content to other microblogging sites like Bluesky. I really don't see why the rest of us should be expected to register for the hellsite to read this.

For anyone who's not been following a blow-by-blow account of this play since 2022, this is a good account of its journey to the West End.

Since there was no rule against shameless self-promotion, here's my favourite entry I wrote in CeeFaux's competition. Discussions are ongoing with Hugh Grant and the ghost of Gene Wilder to get this made. #ifyoufollowceefauximightwinanmug

amazing how the entire machine can pivot within 24 hours. no need to slowly upsell the argument; just issue new marching orders

IDK, maybe it'll be cheaper to get America's stupid gun laws changed.

"Bee has detected a problematic conversation with your neighbour, when you were unfairly critical of President Trump and Jeff Bezos. Consequently, your Amazon banking is frozen, your Amazon internet is suspended, and your Amazon Smartfridge is locked. Thank you for your understanding."

TBF, a lot of us would consider a zombie apocalypse encouraging.

wat

That's better.

Fuck. It's cold.

Okay, that's enough news for today. Here's a bit of escapism with life-size Pacman. www.youtube.com/shorts/3JKrl...

"But why is the arts community being so mean to us? All we did was tell them that their craft is now worthless and they're going to lose their livelihoods any moment now and they deserve to spend the rest of their days working in Burger King."

Is there any way Trump and Maduro can both lose here?

... who is definitely not based on someone in real life that the author hates for no reason. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxGY...

I am not the slightest bit interested in The Traitors but I'm stuck in a house where everyone else is obsessed by it. Pray for me.

One last category before we go to the big two: non-event of the year. I was spectacularly unimpressed with the Scottish Government screaming blue murder of the sort-of cancellation of one of their own, whilst making excuses for more sinister censorship. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

Day 6. Play I wish I'd seen is Orhpeus by Wright and Grainer. But this was on a limited run at Edinburgh Fringe and sold out in 6 nanoseconds. Honourable mention: Wankernomics, also on a limited run and sold out. Seems it's relatable to a lot of people. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

Day 5 now: Most bizarre moment: The opening to Alison Sanley's Hard at Laurels, where a bored-looking sex working introduces herself and her story in the middle of a client humping away. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

Can someone please explain six seven to me like I'm a boomer?

Day 5 of awards. Play that deserved better: instead of mentioning a single play, this year it's all the Edinburgh Fringe acts that ran part of the fringe who lost out to the Oasis gigs. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

Interested in how you square the circle of “British people who post ‘burn down a migrant hotel’ during race riots shouldn’t be arrested” with “someone who posted pretty objectionable and racist things 8 years before they became a British citizen should be deported” and am sure someone will ask Nigel

Hot take: It's right for the UK government to call for the release of an activist imprisoned for organising a protest - even if he has posted utterly vile stuff on social media. Nothing should deprive you of the right to a fair trial.

New day, new set of awards. 3rd place for Most Promising Debut goes to Isaac Freeman in Medium, but positions 1 and 2 unusually go to freshly set up big ensembles ... chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

Day 2 of the 2025 awards. We begin with most effective staging. 3rd: Sylvia Milo's The Other Mozart, for the exquisite dress on stage. 2nd: @graeaetheatre.bsky.social and @livetheatre.bsky.social for innovative use of sign & subtitles on centre stage. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

Only just caught up on this, but ... I disagree with Clive Lewis on lots of issues, but this about Farage's schoolboy antics is spot on. x.com/labourlewis/...

Okay, it's Boxing Day, which can only mean one thing: it's time to start on my 2025 award, being announced between now and New Year's Day. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother

For some reason, I'm getting a flurry of pageviews for LAST year's Best Individual Performance. Your guess is as good as mine.

Gerry & Sewell opens on the West End in three weeks today! Absolutely mad.

Every good tv show has like 5 co-equal protagonists

Not commenting on the David Walliams stuff just yet because there's a lot of claims and counter-claims to unpick and I want to make sure I've got this right before I commit to a position.

"All stories have a protagonist and antagonist." Not true. Having them does make things easier for the audience to follow, but it's by no means the only way to do things. Both characters in a conflict can be equally sympathetic. A play can have 3 or more equally important characters.

Special mention: Not individual performance as such, but also want to recognise the ensemble performances of: * Luke O'Dell and Ronald Hamilton in Medium @lanterntheatreb.bsky.social * Alexander Burnett and Ellie Whittaker in The Crawl. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/19/b...

New embarrassingly late blog post. Roundup of Edinburgh Fringe 2025. Featuring @awkwardprods.co.uk, @turlygod.bsky.social, and many more people I wish would get on Bluesky instead of Twitter. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/23/r...

In honour of Chris Rea, the greatest ever Chris Rea meme. (From 2020, obvs.)

Also - and this is very very important - David Byrne appears to be talking about free speech for everybody. I have seen countless so-called free speech campaigners only care about free speech for themselves and people they agree with. A change for someone to care about the actual principle.

Not that familiar with the politics in the upper echelons of the arts, but based on my observations at fringe level, yes, artists censoring other artists is a bigger threat than censorship from elsewhere. Hope we have a proper debate on this. www.thestage.co.uk/news/david-b...

By the way, if you know any of these performers on other platforms and want to tell them the good news, please do. I have no intention of going back to the cursed birdapp, but the reach on Bluesky isn't what it was.

Last review for 2025: Operation Moonlight's A Christmas Carol. Very traditional and very faithful adaptation of the famous story, including the bits that most adaptations leave out. Also good to see @durhamcathedral.bsky.social in action as a venue. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/20/l...

Right folks, Aadil and I had a productive meeting today to set plans for Durham Free Fringe 2026, including venues and an earlier timetable for programming. Expect to share this with you in early January.

All right, enough ranting for this year. Now, something positive: my top ten individual performances from 2025. We begin at #10 with Trystan Youngjohn for The Dahlia Files from @heythankstheatre.bsky.social, and at #9 Mimi Martin for Youth in Flames chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/19/b...

Okay, one bit of interesting news: Rotunda is doing Edinburgh Fringe. Quite a notable contrast to other venues (particularly Sweet) who decided Edinburgh wasn't worth it any more.

Ooh, this is interesting. I'm not the greatest fan on gender swaps for the sake of it, but a female version of Garry looks like a very interesting variant of Present Laughter. www.thestage.co.uk/news/product...

I regret to inform you I have seen a UK advert referring to Christmas as "The Holidays".

Guys, if your favourite chant could reasonably be interpreted as a call for violence against minorities, and there's evidence to suggest some people are committing said acts of violence, you probably should find a different chant. That is, if you think violence against minorities is a bad thing.

New blog post. Never thought I'd be writing a hit piece, but this is what I think should be done with Whistlebinkies and Banshee Labyrinth: Kick them out of PBH Free Fringe. Ban them from registering with Edinburgh Fringe. And sue the fuck out of them. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2025/12/16/k...

Just got a circular email from Brighton Fringe. Spiegelgardens is returning to Brighton Fringe, this time with two spaces. AFAIK, Old Steine Gardens is will out of action which counts Spiegeltent proper out of 2026. As for what happens in 2027, who knows?

HOLY SHIT. www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1zh...

First fringe 2026 dates booked. chrisnevillesmith.info/wp/2025/12/1...

So apparently Fenwick's are doing A Christmas Carol as their Christmas window display. But they zipped over the Ghost of Christmas Future. Disappointed they didn't have a window containing a sobbing Crattchet family and a dead Tiny Tim. Cowards.