“beautifully staged and choreographed”
[Taipei Times on HUI, 2015]
“an example of how contemporary classical music can be accessible, experimental and emotionally powerful: the strict and precise choreography of the performers – and the use of evocative costume – lends David Lang’s score a bitter-sweet poignancy”
[The List on Little Match Girl Passion, 2015]
“The Victorian costumes are also pleasing, adding to the spiky sense of theatre the work displays. Josh Armstorng as director and designer added this austere moodiness and crystal like atmosphere to events.”
[The Sprout on Little Match Girl Passion, 2015]
“In this moving but somewhat chilling piece, Armstrong recognises and acknowledges within his symbolism that the drive to create can also be the same, very human impulse that impels someone to destroy”
[Exeunt Magazine on these delicate things, 2014]
“these delicate things is …like dark raw honey drawn with a .001 nib.”
[Steven Anderson, Visual Artist, on these delicate things, 2014]
“a slow-paced visual reverie that catches at the nature of transience even as it insists on being mindful of the moment as it’s lived… this performance reminds us to be living cameras.”
[The Herald on these delicate things, 2014]
“slow-moving, singing, and simmering landscapes of sound, thoughtfully mirrored in visual imagery and movement which seeks, in a deliberately solemn style, to evoke forces beyond our usual field of vision”
[The Scotsman on these delicate things, 2014]
“The result is kathartic and utterly transporting.”
[Limelight Magazine on Little Match Girl Passion, 2014]
“a powerful combination of music, movement and song… the installation-like set is impressive, and beautifully lit”
[The Scotsman on Red Shoes, 2013]
“the visual and design flair of Red Shoes, along with the energetic live music, is attention-grabbing… Armstrong’s set design has a Brechtian finesse, and the plot becomes a foundation for musical numbers that meditate on the themes.”
[The Stage on Red Shoes, 2013]
“drives like an emtional dagger towards the heart, challenging and thrilling as it goes.”
[The Scotsman on Little Match Girl Passion, 2011]
“Armstrong’s real skill is in ratcheting up tension between movement and extreme stillness”
[The Guardian on Little Match Girl Passion, 2011]
“this is truly what brilliant theatre is all about.”
[The Metro on Little Match Girl Passion, 2011]
Food based performance:
“Meanwhile, Josh Armstrong’s Lunchbox is possibly the most pleasantly surprising piece in Sonica’s programme this year. Providing a large cardboard lunchbox with all-organic, all-healthy food and drink as well as earplugs, wipes and a map, Armstrong allows the lunchbox bearer to stop, take time out of a busy schedule and enjoy this moveable feast in Glasgow. Using the elegantly written notes, Lunchbox creates a memory of sound, of texture and of food – in his words, a kind of “munching memory cartography.” Eating a meal simply doesn’t get much more enjoyable than this; drowning out any hustle and bustle with earplugs, it allows an association with food that is beyond the functional or practical. And he helps you clean up afterwards too!”
[The Skinny on Lunchbox, 2013]
“So cue cocktails and Heston Blumenthal-infused morsels of food where the eye deceives and the tongue is surprised. Near-naked performers Tom Harlow and Vendetta Vain also tease, impassive of face but lithe and expressive of body .Especially when fluttering ostrich fans like angel wings on either side of the all-female Astrid String Quartet and soloist Steve Dugardin as they premiere David Donaldson’s thrillingly sumptuous Requiem For A World. Dugardin’s Latin text is rooted in the classic form of choral requiems, but Donaldson’s score – the lushly live strings underscored by taped electronica back-beats and samples – sets the phrases to unlikely rhythms, while sending Dugardin’s creamy, unforced counter-tenor vocals soaring and hovering, like spirals of incense in the air. You never want this music to stop, frankly. You want to live inside Dugardin’s voice for ever, floating on the shifting intensities of Donaldson’s debut score. The border is now sadly closed.”
[The Herald on The Embassy, 2013]