Issue Nº 18 Summer 2026 South London Performance Quarterly Reading the Room Issue Nº 18 Summer 2026 South London Performance Quarterly Reading the Room
Cover Story · Issue 18

The tent
still matters,
says the new
generation.

For two decades, contemporary circus has been moving indoors — into theatres, art galleries, conservatoires. A small, stubborn cohort of London-based makers is putting the canvas back up.

Read the cover story

Circus tent at dusk

Recent reviews.

All Reviews
Aerial performance
Review · Aerial

An aerial work that refuses to look like aerial work.

Two performers, a single rope, and a forty-minute meditation on the weight of waiting. We saw it twice and would happily see it again.

Naomi Adekoya · 9 min Read review →
Cabaret
Review · Cabaret

The new cabaret room above a Camberwell pub.

Forty-eight seats, a single piano, and a refreshing lack of pretension.

Tomás Verheyden · 6 min Read review →

Long reads.

All Features
Rehearsal room
Feature · Inside the room

Six weeks inside a physical theatre rehearsal.

A diary from the rehearsal of a new ensemble piece — written by an outsider who left mostly confused, and entirely converted.

Iliana Cosma · 18 min Read article →
Clown make-up
Feature · Craft

What clown school actually teaches you.

A first-week diary from one of Europe's quieter clown courses, where the red nose comes out late and the silence comes first.

Bea Tholen · 12 min Read article →
Dance studio
Feature · Dance

A choreographer who works only with non-dancers.

For five years, every piece has been made with people who never trained.

Marek Ostrowski · 10 min Read article →
Performance archive
Feature · Archive

The performance archive that lives in a shed.

Twenty years of South London cabaret, catalogued by one woman.

Naomi Adekoya · 11 min Read article →
Festival
Feature · Festival

Notes from a festival that refused to grow.

One field, three nights, eighty-six attendees — by design.

Tomás Verheyden · 8 min Read article →
"A magazine that takes the work seriously, but never the building. Long may that distinction last."
— Letter from a reader, March 2025

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