The Body of an American at the Gate Theatre In 1993 Paul Watson took a photograph of Staff Sgt. William David Cleveland being dragged by a Somali mob through the streets of Mogadishu, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Twenty years later, he began to exchange emails with playwright Dan O’Brien. They developed a strange friendship and O’Brien turned their stories and their relationship into this essentially verbatim play – The Body of an American , which makes its UK premiere at The Gate Theatre in Notting Hill. The audience sits on benches in a small tunnel. The floor is covered in fake snow. Watson’s photographs are projected at each end. There are only two actors – Damien Molony playing Dan O’Brien and William Gaminara as Paul Watson, although they also play a host of other characters. Molony and Gaminara are both excellent, doing justice to a complex and powerful script. The dance-like, symmetry-infused direction by James Dacre and minimalist stage design by Alex Lowde are simple, and a powerful contrast to the geographical and thematic spread of the play. From Kabul to Jakarta we see Watson’s photographs as he reflects on why he took them, whether taking...

Review - Grounded at the Gate Theatre George Brant’s monologue about an F16 fighter pilot, directed by Christopher Haydon, had a successful Edinburgh run, then played at the Gate Theatre last year; it returns for a second run there – and a good thing too. Pregnancy forces the unnamed pilot (Lucy Ellinson) to stop flying. When she returns to the Air Force she is told that pilots do not go up in the air anymore – they control drones, remotely. From a darkened trailer in the middle of the Nevada desert she watches a grey screen for 12 hours on end, explodes a few terrorists and then returns home to her husband and child. This routine sends her, for all her laddish bravado, into a deep and chilling madness. The design by Oliver Townsend is a miniature version of ITV’s The Cube. Ellinson is alone inside and cut off from the audience by one-way screens on each of the cube’s faces. From the beginning Ellinson adopts a cocky swagger, an open stance and an irritating zeal for fighting wars. But she subtly reveals a remarkable depth of emotions: for one thing, she's actually quite childish. Disappointment at no longer...