Blood Brothers spent 21 of its 24-year West End run at the Phoenix Theatre and, during those two decades, sent countless audience members out into the night wiping the tears away. New Phoenix incumbent Once goes for a much more subtle tug of the heartstrings but is no less powerful or effective. The film to…
It’s hard to recall when a new musical opening has been met with such anticipation in the West End. Yes, recent openings may have garnered plenty of press attention but that’s often been on the back of celebrity casting or TV talent shows. The Book of Mormon arrives at the Prince of Wales on a…
The end of the year and time to once again reflect on the year’s theatrical offerings and try to assemble a list of highlights. In many ways this was a year where sport interrupted the theatrical calendar with the Olympic and Paralympic Games eating into the theatre going and providing their own unique, and hard…
Aladdin seems to be the pantomime of choice this year, with magic lamps being rubbed up and down the country. It’s easy to see why; the spectacle and exotic settings providing a sumptuous backdrop to the onstage clownery. The Orchard Theatre’s production, though, has added a new twist to the Eastern setting, mixing the Orient…
The whodunit is a theatrical staple. Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap has recently celebrated its 250,000th performance over 60 years in the West End but in Eastern Angles marvelous mad murder mystery the genre has been given an anarchic makeover. The traditional ‘whodunit’ cry of ‘the butler did it’ doesn’t last long here as the menservants…
“People, People who need people”… Barbara Streisand’s famous song wasn’t the inspiration for Alan Bennett’s latest play for the National Theatre. In fact if Bennett’s theme is understood it’s more a case of people who don’t want people. In a large, crumbling Georgian pile Lady Dorothy Stacpole is confined to one room, the leaking roof,…
While many theatre awards focus on London, the Theatre Management Association’s Theatre Awards UK, being held later this week, look further afield and covers the entire country. Perhaps the awards don’t quite hit the headlines in the way the Olivier Awards do but it’s an important area to celebrate and one we need to support….
Actors are often advised to draw on their own life experiences to shape their performances. When that life experience includes the death of two of your closest friends and the raw emotion of the death of your own mother to cancer you might expect an actor to shy away from digging too deep into their…
We think as national borders as a permanent feature, something immovable and solid. In reality though borders frequently shift as political factions come and go. What happens when one such border devides a community and a family? Farhad Sorabjee’s Hard Places, receiving its UK premiere at the Colchester Mercury, looks at one such border. Although…
It can’t be often that a small child has a West End musical dedicated to them. It’s even rarer when that child ends up writing a new song for the show’s revival a couple of decades later. When your surname, though, is Lloyd Webber such things shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. As…
One doesn’t normally associate Alan Ayckbourn with horror. The prolific writer, normally more familiar with suburban comedy, has though turned his hand to a chilling thriller. First performed in 1994 and revived in Lichfield and London in 2011, Haunting Julia now stretches its spectral legs on a first ever national tour. While the territory may…
Even the most genial of family groupings can feel the strain while on holiday; when the holiday is in a small, remote, cottage the pressure can build to explosive result. Despite what Louise, the refined matriarch of the family may think, the Harringtons are a somewhat dysfunctional bunch. Louise has ideas above her status. Her…
Purists may sniff at an opera company turning its hand to the work of Rodgers & Hammerstein but, in Opera North’s sublime revival of Carousel, it is the audience who end up sniffing away tears. Of all the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon, Carousel is perhaps the closest the pair came to writing an opera and…
It’s not often you get the opportunity to revisit a production, a year apart. Last year on press night for London Road in the Cottesloe theatre, the atmosphere was electric; a sense that we were witnessing a new direction for musical theatre. A year on and the production has transferred to the larger, neighbouring Olivier…
Shakespeare productions still appeal to directors, not only for the strength of their writing, but also, despite their age, the ability they have to be constantly re-imagined in new ways. King Lear seems to have a particular fascination for directors looking to place their stamp on the production. Over the years we’ve reviewed all male…
There’s the well-known saying that you know you’re getting older when the policemen start looking younger, but in Simon Egerton’s solo show Fag Ends and Families it’s when the bar owners don’t look old enough to drink that triggers a sense of encroaching age. Egerton says the piece isn’t ‘exactly’ autobiographical but even so it…
‘May we cram, within this wooden O….’ For the Latitude Festival, Theatre Delicatessen take the wooden reference to the extreme – taking to the Henham woods for an open air performance, split across two days. It gives the production an air of a military camp, as soldiers mingle among the audience, lines suddenly being delivered…
Circa’s self-titled show should come with a health warning. The feats that these seven Brisbane based artists perform induce a feeling of pain just watching. One can’t help think that the human body shouldn’t be able to endure the things these talented acrobats inflict on themselves. The seven-strong company takes us on a physical, but…
There’s a tricky dilemma in reviewing Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit, Red Rabbit. While by its very nature, live theatre differs slightly in each performance, here the uniqueness is a key part of the concept. Soleimanpour has some ground rules. The actor must not have performed the show before, is asked not to research the play…
A proposal is being investigated to set up a trust to run the apex and the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds through a single management team. The trust would retain the unique identity of both venues, but make significant efficiency savings through a single management team, shared box office and marketing. The results of…
In among the machinery of government on Whitehall, it seems oddly appropriate that Yes, Prime Minister has now found a new home at the Trafalgar Studios. How many Civil Servants will end up on a fact-finding mission to the show though is questionable, with Alan Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s stage update of the classic TV…
You know those moments where you hid behind the sofa while watching Doctor Who as a child? Well with The Crash of The Elysium there’s no sofa to hide behind as you’re thrown deep into the midst of a real life adventure. Like any good adventures there are elements of surprise around every corner and…
The Theatre Royal Norwich today have announced that Rufus Hound will star in the award-winning production of One Man, Two Guvnors when it visits Norwich from December 4-8 following in the footsteps of James Corden, who recently won a Tony Award for playing the same role. Rufus is one of the best-known and well-loved comics…
Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, Neal Street Productions and Kevin McCormick today announced that their production of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will open at the London Palladium in June 2013 after a preview period. The new stage musical will be directed by Sam Mendes, with a book by David Greig and new songs…
With just four weeks to go before thousands of festival goers descend on Henham Park for the 7th Latitude festival, organisers are hoping that the sun shining down on site as they launch the final line up is a good omen. For Melvin Benn, founder and creator of Latitude, the seventh anniversary of Latitude already…
Yesterday I blogged about The Royal Court’s decision not to offer members of their ‘Friends’ scheme priority booking for Jez Butterworth’s The River. Rev Stan also shared her thoughts on the subject and both of us contacted The Royal Court voicing our concerns. Today Kevin West, Sales Manager for The Royal Court, has provided a long and…
In tough economic times for the arts, membership schemes provide much needed support. Not only do venues benefit from the income such schemes bring but it engenders a sense of brand loyalty from customers in a highly competitive market. As loyal supporters of your venue you want to keep members on side but it looks…
It’s been nearly 20 years since the last major UK revival of Wonderful Town but, while the piece may – on some levels – now be showing its age, one doubts it’s ever been heard with such lavish sound. Leonard Bernstein’s neglected score may be 60 next year but it still soars. This is a…
The fenlands of East Anglia are an unsettling area. The vast expanse of big skies and dark earth seeming somewhat unnatural to visitors. It’s an area that has undergone considerable change as man drained the land to create some of the most fertile land in the country. Dan Canham and Silent House have used interviews…
To begin at the beginning, so starts Dylan Thomas’s epic narrative poem Under Milk Wood, detailing 24 hours in the life of a small, fictional fishing village. It’s also an appropriate line in which to kick off Ipswich’s 12th Pulse Fringe Festival. Bristol-based poet Jack Dean has updated Thomas’s epic poem to his home city….
A Suffolk theatre will be swapping the stage for the TV screen as it features in a BBC documentary. The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds will feature in Arts Troubleshooter, a two-part series which see arts expert Michael Lynch visit two arts organisations facing challenging times. The second episode of the series will focus on…
The sun may yet to have made a meaningful appearance on the coast this year, but Southwold and Aldeburgh Summer Theatres are looking ahead to a bright summer, with the announcement of their summer season of plays. Opening the season on July 11 is Dave Freeman’s farce A Bedfull of Foreigners, which will play in…
Lowestoft’s Marina Theatre is encouraging Coronation Street fans to book tickets to boo one of the Street’s biggest bad boys, announcing Nigel Pivaro will be leaving his character Terry Duckworth in Weatherfield to take on the role of Abanazar in the Suffolk venues’ pantomime, Aladdin, this winter. The iconic character of Terry Duckworth has become…
Comebacks after acrimonious splits are becoming something of a showbiz trend. Take That and Steps just two examples of acts burying the hatchet for a return to the limelight. Neil Simon looks at a more theatrical reunion. After 43 years of working together, legendary comedy duo Willie Clark and Al Lewis haven’t spoken for 11…
There’s nothing like publishing a top ten list to get a debate raging. As soon as the list hits the page (or screen) people start to disagree and produce their own lists. So when Michael Coveney listed his ten favourite theatres, it was only a matter of time before other contenders started to be proposed….
Shakespearian scholars may have to revise their thesis for, if we are to believe Ed Hall’s vibrant staging of The Winter’s Tale, Delia Smith’s now infamous Carrow Road touchline cry of ‘let’s be having yer’ is in fact a long lost line from The Bard. Then again, any production that also includes the line ‘take…
A leisurely Sunday morning. Coffee, bacon rolls and new writing. What could be better? HighTide have assembled a team of writers either based in, or inspired by the area, to write a series of micro plays. Given rehearsed, script in hand, readings, the series of ‘Brunch Plays’ allows an audience to see the germ of…
Some reviews are difficult to write, not because there isn’t anything to say about a production, but, because the fact that the element of surprise is so central to the success of the piece, that to say anything that would weaken the whole experience. So it is with Bad Physics’ The Adventure. Forget sitting in…
With an expanding ageing population and lengthening life expectancy, the subject of how we care for the elderly is a subject close to many. Of course, the experience and expectations change over time and in Laura Poliakoff’s Clockwork we jump forward 80-odd years to see what sort of future today’s 20-somethings face in old age….
The black mud on the foreshore of the River Thames conceals many secrets. Across the centuries the mud has swallowed up the unwary, depositing their remains and belongings years later for treasure seekers. For three teenage Essex lads, the twists and turns of the mighty Thames offer both hopes and frustration. The shipping that sails…
Love thy neighbour, they say, but when your neighbour turns out to be a vagrant who lives in a van first outside your house and then in your garden it makes that love difficult. Though this may seem a wonderful fictional creation by Alan Bennett, The Lady In The Van is surprisingly one of his…
To sleep, perchance to dream. Though in Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce there’s little chance of sleep. In three bedrooms, across one night, recriminations and repercussions keeps the occupants awake most of the night. In one, Kate and Malcolm are getting ready for a housewarming party, a second sees Jan getting ready to attend that party,…
‘How can the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds enrich life and change lives?’ That’s the question that the Suffolk venue is inviting the public to discuss at an open-day in June, as it gives attendees the chance to shape the future of the theatre. The theatre is putting itself in the hands of the public by…
The New Wolsey Theatre has joined forces with the RSC Open Stages and is holding open auditions for an ambitious production of Romeo And Juliet to be performed at Ipswich Town Hall in September. Open Stages is a project that embraces, develops and celebrates amateur theatre. Over 260 amateur companies have signed up to produce…
Last week I looked at the highlights of the Pulse Fringe Festival. Head up the A14 though next weekend and you’ll find Cambridge’s The Junction awash with new and experimental work as part of their Sampled Festival of Performance. Taking place across just two days, it’s a more condensed affair than Pulse, however, don’t be…
Is a theatre show ever ‘locked down’ or does it develop over time as the cast dig deeper and gain more of an insight into the piece? Theatre practitioners will often tell you that a show is never finished and that it matures over time as the company become more aware of each other’s timing…
The movie to stage route is a well-trodden path, with some ventures more successful than others but, when it works, it can manage to provide a show that not only reflects the original film but stands on its own merits as a piece of entertainment. Such is the case with Sister Act. Based on the…
Producers have this morning announced that the West End run of The King’s Speech has posted closing notices and will now end its run on May 12th. The show had originally been booking until July 21st. The King’s Speech started life as a stage play but never made it to the stage, instead being diverted…
Colchester’s Mercury Theatre has today announced the appointment of a new leadership team for the Essex venue. Daniel Buckroyd will take up the role of Artistic Director, while Theresa Veith will join as Executive Director. Both will take up post in early July. In announcing the appointments today, Richard Bailey, Chairman of Colchester Mercury Theatre…
One of the pleasures of festival going is spending time beforehand perusing the line-up and picking out those events that you just can’t miss. Of course if you are reviewing it becomes a bit more complicated and you’re not really supposed to have favourites, however, some bits of marketing blurb just jump out at you….
What do you call a gathering of nuns? A convent, a habit, a wimple? Whatever the terminology, staff at Norwich’s Theatre Royal are praying for a sea of black and white to take over the venue on Wednesday, as an attempt is made to smash the current world record for the most people dressed as…
Can you separate a single performance from the theatrical whole? It’s a quandary posed by Sydney Theatre Company’s Gross und Klein (Big and Small) being performed at the Barbican Theatre as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Much attention has been given to the piece, often around the appearance of the one of the…
Historic Egypt. Warring couples, intrigue, power struggles and even murder. Though set against the backdrop of the ancient temples this isn’t the tale of some Pharaohic dynasty, but the passengers on 1930s Nile cruiser Lotus. For newlyweds Simon and Kay Mostyn, Egypt seems the perfect destination for their honeymoon. Simon’s jilted fiancée Jacqueline, however, seems…
Just weeks ahead of this year’s HighTide Festival, organisers have announced a second London transfer. Vickie Donoghue’s debut play, Mudlarks, will now play at London’s Theatre503 following a run at the Halesworth based festival. Mudlarks will join HighTide’s production of Ella Hickson’s Boys in London, which has already announced plans for a run at the…
The route from film to stage is now a well-established one but, for The King’s Speech, the journey is slightly more complex. Originally written as a stage play, it was never produced but instead jumped straight to the big screen. Following the huge success of the film, the journey has now gone full-circle with the…
Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers, won’t drown. So says the Walker children’s father at the start of Swallows and Amazons, as he sets them off on an adventure in the Lake District. Staging such an evocative and well-loved story could so easily hit the rocks but this touring version of The Bristol Old…
Liberté, égalité, fraternité, a rallying cry for change in Revolutionary France. The overthrow of French aristocracy has proved a fertile ground for inspiration of dramatic works from the serious to the comedic. Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, for example, looked at an enigmatic hero, determined to rescue the nobility from under the revolutionist’s noses. Pimpernel…
With a title like Hello Cruel World, Gretchen Peters’ tour, named after her latest album, was never going to be an evening of riotous laughter. Surprisingly though it does provide an uplifting evening, fuelled by Peters’ infectious warmth and personality. When any artist has such an expansive back catalogue as Peters –seven hit albums and…
Are you exclusive? Rule one of the marketing handbook suggests you should try and use a wide mix of appropriate channels to promote your product. Tailored, of course, but never relying solely on one outlet. Sound advice – in the constantly evolving world of communication, the way we communicate with our potential audiences needs to…
Murder, greed and exploitation – all those things we hold near and dear. So opens Kander and Ebb’s look at the merry murderesses of Chicago. Though set in a jazz-soaked 1920s, the obsession with fame and the cult of celebrity could easily be today. The media manipulation and spin an uncanny precursor of current culture….
Life can often seem a bit of a conveyer belt, endless meetings, family gatherings and commitments piling up to form a non-stop barrage. It’s a feeling repeated in Gecko’s Missing, as conveyer belts move performers in and out of focus. It’s a device Gecko has used previously in The Race, but here developed to a…
There seems to be a line of strong women in Islington at the moment. No sooner has the Matriarchal Bernarda Alba left the Almeida Theatre, the feisty Neapolitan Filumena takes up residence. While though the former was obsessed with maintaining moral standards, the latter has a more relaxed approach. For Filumena is a former ‘working…
Musicals never cease to amaze on the breadth of their subject material. A musical about a man who gets trapped while exploring a cave and slowly dies while attempts to rescue him fail may seem an unlikely song and dance show, but is it any more bizarre than roller skating trains, singing nuns, or a…
Norwich’s Theatre Royal have announced a number of major productions for their new season from August to December, alongside runs of major musicals Oliver! and Dirty Dancing previously announced. The line-up includes some of the biggest names in theatre, with dance, drama, comedy and musicals among the schedule. Matthew Bourne’s Play Without Words opens the…
I’ve always thought a stage show about an understudy promoted to lead role would make a good plot – oh wait, 42nd Street has been there, done that. Life, though, has imitated art as, following James Corden’s departure to open the show on Broadway, One Man, Two Guvnors producers have taken the rare step of promoting…
There’s one thing guaranteed to strike fear into the hardiest of theatre workers. Forget first night nerves, harsh reviews and the fear of the ‘Scottish play’ – the stage mother will bring most people out in a cold sweat. Anyone watching Mamma Rose will soon understand why, a chilling determination to ensure their child shines…
For neurologist Doctor Jacopo Annese, memory is described as pages of a book. Each event recorded by the brain on an individual page and then added to the library of your brain. What happens though if your brain misfires and loses those pages. For Henry Molaison, experimental brain surgery in the 1950s in an attempt…
Back in October 2011 I reviewed Chichester Festival Theatre’s sell out production of Sweeney Todd. It was clear then that this show was destined for a life beyond its Sussex run; the star casting of Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton just one clue to its future potential. As widely predicted the show has now landed…
You can’t choose your family, so the saying goes. The same can also be said about your neighbours. For residents of Richmond Road, somewhere in the vicinity of Romford, those neighbours include Beverly, an overpowering creature who brow-beats both her husband and her neighbours by sheer force of will. There’s an extra character here in…
As the houselights dim the cast are unsure of the show they are about to perform. Characters undeveloped and words unknown. No, not an example of bad planning but the bravery of a company who improvise a brand new musical from scratch each night, based on audience suggestions. For their 341st musical, the Showstoppers company…
Ok, so it has more neon pink that Grease, more hair references than Hairspray and more camp than La Cage aux Folles but, try as you might, it’s hard not be won over by the sheer feel-good factor of Legally Blonde. Without ever having seen the original film it is hard to make comparison as…
Ever had that feeling in theatre that you’d rather be watching paint dry? Well in Nick Payne’s Lay Down Your Cross, for a few minutes at least you can do just that. Lay Down Your Cross takes realism to a whole new level, dialogue here is played out in real time, every pause, every stutter,…
Imagine you have just opened your ‘Arts PR’ text book and you are faced with the following scenario… You are a national (and international) touring company. Your latest production has been touring for a while but has had a couple of weeks break. The spring section of your tour kicks off its first of six…
Freedom is in peril. Defend it with all your might. So proclaims the Ministry of Information poster that forms the backdrop for Private Resistance. For an extended family in 1940 rural Essex the peril is all too real, the horrors of war are coming close to home and, once Hitler’s forces have invaded, their way…
Laura Brown recently published a blog on AP about the changing role of PR contacts in our fast-shifting media landscape. Laura reflects on the PR question: ‘who is your best contact?’ It has made me think about the view from the other side of the PR fence – someone who receives those press releases. In…
A true measure of the success of any musical based on the back catalogue of an artist is if someone unfamiliar with that music can still enjoy the show. While fans of Ian Dury and The Blockheads will undoubtedly revel in the nostalgia of Graeae Theatre’s Reasons To Be Cheerful, even those unfamiliar with his…
HighTide Festival Theatre have announced the appointment of Holly Kendrick as their new Executive Director. Currently Director and CEO of the National Student Drama Festival, Kendrick will join HighTide in July. Kendrick has led the NSDF since 2006, during which time she has produced five annual festivals in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and for 2012 has…
Beware things that go bump in the night, things may not be all they‘re cracked up to be. In the darkened manager’s office in the eaves of London’s Lyceum Theatre, Henry Irving has just finished entertaining the Prince Of Wales with his Faust. His manager, Bram Stoker, is working on a manuscript about a Transylvanian…
Small is often beautiful in theatre and such is the case with Vertigo, not one but two shows woven into a cohesive whole. The story goes that, due to an error, two young actors were booked to perform their show called Vertigo at the same venue at the Edinburgh Festival. Rather than compete the two…
The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds has announced that Colin Blumenau will leave his role as Artistic Director at the Suffolk venue at the end of July. Blumenau joined the theatre in 1996 and led the theatre’s major project to restore the venue to its original Georgian glory in 2007. He has also directed or…
Not everything is always black and white. Facts about an event can be manipulated to suit personal agendas and racism can flow in many directions. In an inner city secondary school, teacher Amanda steps in to break up a fight between students. In the process, she is assaulted though is reluctant to report perpetrator Jason…
A woman’s place is in the home. Well it is when your father has just died and your mother expects you to spend eight years mourning his death. Relocated from Catholic Spain to Iran, Emily Mann’s new translation of Lorca’s final play helps build an overbearing feel of repression and tension. Bernada Alba is determined…
When a theatre new writing festival was first announced, based in Halesworth, a small Suffolk market town, some outside the region thought it was doomed to fail. Suffolk and East Anglia as a whole, though, have a strong tradition of creating art and now the HighTide Festival has grown to become one of the country’s…
Plans for a major fundraising initiative for the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds have been shelved, it has just been announced. Colin Blumenau, the venue’s Artistic Director, had planned an ambitious challenge of riding from Land’s End to John O’Groats, via Bury St Edmunds. En-route Blumenau was due to visit famous Georgian sites along the…
“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.” For many, Bill Shankly’s quote could sum up Liverpool. A city of intense football passion and rivalry, loyalty to one of the city’s two football teams are instilled from birth. Football has brought the city…
Route 66, the fabled American highway immortalised on film and in song – a fitting backdrop for a new rock musical, especially one produced in association with legendary motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson. Sadly this is one show that arrives with two flat tyres, a stalled engine, and turns out to be the stage equivalent of watching…
Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls is widely regarded as a classic of 20th Century theatre, an examination of the sacrifices women over the centuries have had to make to become successful in a male dominated environment. However despite this status and the critical plaudits this revival has achieved it is hard, on this showing, to see…
A 75 minute one man show about homelessness. Not a topic that seems destined to provide many laughs but in Pat Kinevane’s mesmerising one-man show for Fishamble, we get laughs and tears in equal measure. Life is tough on the streets of Dublin if you are homeless. Tino McGoldrig (short for Valentino) emerges from under…
Renowned for her portrayal of Shakespeare’s most famous female roles, Dame Ellen Terry’s own life had more than its own fair share of drama. Married three times and involved in several other relationships, she was a woman who lived life to the full. Now as her stage career has come to the end she embarks…
How much is art really worth? Do the Grand Masters justify their price tag? In a darkerned flat hangs a recently purchased Gainsborough, bought for a snip at over $5million. The owner though doesn’t intend to admire the painting for long – in the morning he intends to destroy the painting for the media notoriety…
As part of Menagerie’s Hotbed Festival, eight authors were invited to create eight new monologues especially for the festival. The brief was open but with a suggestion of a ‘looking back and looking forward’ theme. The monologues are presented in two batches during the festival. Death Of A Cyclist Writer: Steve Waters Performer: Emma Beattie…
As part of Menagerie’s Hotbed Festival, eight authors were invited to create eight new monologues especially for the festival. The brief was open but with a suggestion of a ‘looking back and looking forward’ theme. The monologues are presented in two batches during the festival. Mind Detox Writer: Esther Shanson Performer: Laura Pyper Director: Patrick…
For many aspiring musical theatre actors, Les Miserables’ Bring Him Home is often sung with the alternative lyrics ‘God It’s High’, reference to the vocal dexterity required for any tenor who has to master the anthem. For Alfred Giovanni Roncalli Boe, thankfully better known as Alfie, the song however has become something of his calling…
Good and evil. In a dark prison cell the boundaries are blurred. Not for young Lizzy Malkin though. Tortured and charged with being a witch, she finds herself imprisoned with the source of her torment, Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins. Both face a crisis of faith. Malkin can’t believe that a God would allow her innocent…
The wide open spaces, the fresh air, the big skies of the countryside, equally as unsettling to city dwellers as the confines and busy-ness unsettle rural visits to urban life. For city dwellers Ash, his girlfriend, Joy, and her sister, Beth though, the unsettling nature of a deserted coastline is nothing compared to the waves…
One of the trials for any writer is getting their new work from page to stage. Until you take the written word and hear it spoken it’s difficult for any playwright to really know if their idea works or not. Although writing is something of a solitary craft it needs the input of others to…
Real Mean Wear Tights – so proclaims the tour tshirts on sale in the foyer but, for the eight strong group of dancers in Balletboyz The Talent, tights are nowhere to be seen. Instead jeans, hoodies and silken breeches form the dress code in a production determined to shake up dance’s traditional image. The Talent…
In the middle of a weekend celebrating the power of new theatre writing, what actually is the situation for new writing across the county? In a lively debate chaired by Guardian theatre critic Lyn Gardner, a panel of playwright Mike Bartlett, Paines Plough’s Artistic Director James Grieve, and Liverpool Everyman’s Literary Manager, Suzanne Bell, together…
Ipswich based Amateur company Gallery Players have staged something of a theatrical coup, obtaining the first UK rights to stage Howard Goodall’s musical Love Story after it’s critically acclaimed run at both the Chichester Festival Theatre and its subsequent transfer to the Duchess Theatre in London’s West End. The show was nominated for three Olivier…
This week The Stage newspaper published its annual Stage100, a list of those seen as the most influential people in theatre this year. The list is compiled by a panel of judges but, this year, their list has caused some comment with its focus on London and the West End in particular. Lyn Gardner in…
I’ve already put pen to paper (keyboard to screen?) looking at some of my ‘must sees’ for 2012 but those shows have been outside the West End. With increasing prices, ‘premium’ seating, restoration fees, booking fees, handling fees etc. before you even start to think about transport, programmes and a second mortgage to buy an…
Openness. Honesty. Transparency. It sounds like a political manifesto mantra but as the industry increasingly comes under public scrutiny for value for money how open and honest should we be? I’m not talking about dodgy deals here or financial mismanagement but wonder how honest, open and transparent our arts coverage is? There have been many…
2011 is all done and dusted so what does the 2012 theatrical year offer. Andrew Lloyd Webber may be predicting a ‘bloodbath’ for London theatre during the Olympics but, while the ‘greatest show on earth’ may or may not have an impact on London theatre attendance, there is much to look forward to in 2012…
“Statistics can be made to prove anything – even the truth.” ~Author Unknown Ok, so statistics may be unreliable but what end of year round up is complete without them. 1 reviewer 189 productions 59 venues 127 Plays 31 Musicals 20 Shakespeare Productions 11 Pantomimes 3 Festivals 1 tent, 1 Camper Van, 1 water polo changing…
Surely if some research is carried out A Christmas Carol would take the crown for the most adapted festive novel of all time. Countless films, stage plays and musicals have been inspired by Dickens’ ultimate Christmas tale. It’s a story that remains timeless and a classic tale not only of the festive season but also…
People often, wrongly, believe pantomime is simple. The staging, slapstick, anarchy and apparent ease in which things go wrong give the impression that it is an easy, end of term genre that can be thrown together. In fact it is the complete opposite. To create a world in which characters have the space to be…
It’s not often that The Rocky Horror Show anthem ‘The Time Warp’ features in a pantomime but, for Norwich Theatre Royal’s Sleeping Beauty, its inclusion is just one sign of a production packed with inventiveness. In these tough economic times for the arts it’s heartening to see a festive show packed to the rafters with…
The sets have been packed away, the lights de-rigged, costumes washed and the actors moved on to learning their next set of lines (or scouring The Stage for that elusive next audition). Unlike some award ceremonies that drag on for days with awards for best use of vegetables, outstanding performance by a second trombone and most…
Forget us critics, for a true barometer of a productions success you should always watch the reactions of the children in the audience. At 10.15am on a chilly Wednesday morning the Marina Theatre Lowestoft is full of expectant faces of school children as the Jack And The Beanstalk company give their all at a frankly…
There are those that believe the House of Commons is just like a pantomime and so perhaps it’s not surprising to find the honourable former Member for Maidstone making her stage debut in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. In what has perhaps been the headline grabbing casting of the panto season, Ann Widdecombe follows…
‘When I am old I shall wear purple’ It’s the little old ladies you should watch out for beneath that frail, mauve-clad exterior lies an inner steel as a group of thieves soon discover in Graham Linehan’s thrilling adaptation of The Ladykillers. The classic Ealing comedy now transfers to the stage though, rather than trying…
Theatre goers on the Suffolk coast are facing up to the chance that their local seaside theatre may be closing next year. Suffolk Coastal District Council, owners of the Spa Pavilion in Felixstowe, are asking for companies for proposals for the 892 seat venue after the council agreed it can no longer afford to fund…
We are gathered here today to celebrate the 35th birthday of Bobby the eternal bachelor. Or his he? Does he really want to get married or is being single his default state? While his friends are all married, to various degrees of unhappiness, Bobby remains resolutely single. Sondheim’s Company has always given directors a quandary…
Some plays are so constrained by one immortal line that it becomes virtually impossible to do anything new with the piece. Directors can either play safe and deliver that showstopper dialogue in the traditional manner or risk the wrath of an audience who will feel cheated by doing something radical. For The Importance Of Being…
If you go down to the woods today… you may find two abandoned children, a psychotic stepmother and a cannibalistic witch. Not, then, your usual festive fare but in New International Encounter’s adaptation Hansel and Gretel, one that complements the festive season perfectly. A long time ago, in a land far, far away (or Central…
As a venue or production company you most probably spend a lot of time trying to find out what your audiences want and expect from you. Well I’d hope you do. But what about that odd minority group who regularly visit your venue, see perhaps more productions than the majority of your audience and who…
In a rehearsal studio at the Junction in Cambridge a group of actors are rehearsing their Christmas show; nothing unusual there, and a scene that is being repeated in theatres up and down the country, but suddenly there is a snatch of Norwegian, a couple of lines in Spanish and a smattering of German. This…
Freedom. One simple word but a minefield of opinion and consequences. A driver for human rights but conversely often the excuse given for war, Freedom is not easy to definitively define. This emotive word provides the link for two pieces of work by the New Wolsey Theatre’s Young Company. The first half a staging of…
It’s not over until the fat lady sings, or in this case a man, dressed as a lady, dressed as a cooking range – it can only be one thing, panto time and far from heralding the end, Dick Whittington proves to be deliciously devilish start to the festive season. Young Richard Whittington has heard…
Guitars, saxophones and drum kits aren’t normally the first thing that spring to mind when you think of pantomime but, for Ipswich audiences, the New Wolsey’s Rock ‘n’ Roll panto has become something of a tradition over the last 10 years. Over that past decade the format has occasionally seemed to run out of steam,…
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, carollers singing, snow falling and Charles Dickens. Christmas wouldn’t be the same without any of this traditional festive images but Dickens will never quite be the same again after Eastern Angles irreverent alternative to conventional panto fare. Budding author Oliver Nicklefield has engaged a troupe of travelling actors to…
Love is a many splendid thing, love lifts us up where we belong or love hurts – take your pick. For while some dream of the perfect life with the tall, dark, handsome, successful man, others are drawn to the sleazy bad boy who treats them badly and yet they still come back from more….
While in the course of reviewing one often ends up seeing plays seen before, it is less common to see a new piece of work twice in 6 months. All dramatic works, even established plays, go through a period of development during their lives but for new writing this development work is often carried out…
‘And did those feet in ancient time. Walk upon England’s mountains green’. Well on the green hills of Yorkshire it’s not feet that concern a group of courageous women but more revealing parts of the anatomy. Baring (nearly) all for a calendar isn’t the normal perceived behavior for a WI group but when one members…
As they bring their tenth birthday season to a close, and rehearsals begin for their annual ‘rock n roll’ panto, Robin Hood, Ipswich’s New Wolsey Theatre has just announced details of their new Spring Season. After the tenth birthday season, the spring season marks another major milestone for the 400-seat venue. At some point during…
Two sides to every story, two sides of a coin and for Dr Jekyll two personalities residing in one body. The man of research and science and the inner beast driven by lust, fury and passion. Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella is surprising brief, a mere collection of short stories, but it has provided the inspiration…
Every so often the rumour circulates that the British Musical is dead, however, it’s rare that one comes across a new musical so well-crafted that it leaves one struggling for enough suitable superlatives. If Richard Taylor and David Wood’s adaptation of The Go Between are any marker, fears for the future of British musical theatre…
What is regional theatre? In some quarters it is seen as somewhat of a derogatory term with the focus on London based theatre seen as much more important. Others see the wealth of work taking place outside of the M25 as a vital breeding ground for theatrical creation. Yet despite the huge amount of work…
Beware the quiet ones. The most chilling and dark murderers tend to be those you would never suspect and, in Jonathan Kent’s sublime revival of Sondheim’s Gothic opera, Sweeney Todd, the demon barber journeys from the everyday to maniacal with alarming quiet. Sondheim’s darkest musical takes a look at a wronged barber who quietly plots…
Better the devil you know. But when that devil is in ourselves, and a dark inner demon that leads us down a tortured road, is it wise to listen to that voice? Gari Jones’ solo show is a dark, abrasive examination of the inner voice of a deeply disturbed individual. How much is real, how…
The most chilling tales in the aftermath of war and conflict often come from the civilian population. Across the centuries we hear repeated anecdotes of suffering from the women and families far away from the front line. Euripides captured the suffering of Cassandra, Hecuba, Clytemnestra, Polyxena, Helen and the rest of the unfortunate Women of…
The one journey we all face is that inevitable journey towards our final moments. It’s a journey that every man must take, or here that Eve Ryman (think about it!) takes. A woman who finds the sum of her life’s work being examined and tested as she faces death. A collaboration between six women and…
There may be trouble ahead, but while there’s moonlight and music and love and romance, let’s face the music and dance. And dance away any troubles they certainly do in a spectacular that doesn’t put a foot out of place. Irving Berlin’s musical first aired as the 1935 movie vehicle for Fred Astaire and Ginger…
Rogues, vagabonds and thieves, and that’s just the legal profession in 18th Century London town. Allegedly based on a true story, Ken Campbell’s Jack Sheppard is full of larger than life characters that inhabit the shady corners of a crime-ridden London. Carpenter Jack Sheppard (not to be confused with the lead in TV series Lost)…
The phrase ‘lost classic’ is often enough to strike fear into any theatre critic. Often there is a reason these plays have been sitting on the shelf but just occasionally that cynicism is unfounded and the discovery turns out to be a true gem. Such is the case with Eclipse Theatre Company’s vivid reclaiming of…
Horror and comedy are inexorably linked. How often in a supposed gothic horror do you find yourself sniggering at the absurdity of the situation? Laughter is of course also an outlet for nervous tension and in The Keeper’s Daughter’s new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, laughter plays a key role. Part Victorian melodrama, part gothic…
Our society is an ever shifting medley of characters shaped by the influence of cultures from around the world. In the past this influence has come from the countries historical roots as a major seafaring and trading nation, but now it’s just as likely to be shaped by economic migration. Despite centuries of migration communities…
Fame is fleeting. Ask most people who was first to fly across the Atlantic and they’ll probably say Charles Lindberg. He was in fact only the 104th person to fly the Atlantic. Eight years earlier, two Englishmen made the maiden nonstop flight from Newfoundland to Ireland. Their names may now be remembered only by ‘weirdoes,…
Long before Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me threw five mis-matched party guests together, Mike Leigh had beaten them to it, creating the cocktail party from Hell. Abigail’s Party may now be over 30 years old but, in Two Rivers Theatre Company’s production, Leigh’s brutally dark comedy remains as fresh as ever. In late 1970s…
For an address that doesn’t actually exist, 221b Baker Street is one of the most recognisable addresses in London. Recent films and TV adaptations have of course added to the allure, but in truth the appeal of one of literatures most famous fictional detectives has never really gone away. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original novels…
There are certain constants in theatre. Latecomers will always have tickets in the middle of a row, the person behind you will always have the noisiest of sweets to unwrap, and a glance at the cast biographies in the programme will reveal several ex-cast members from The Bill. Now that esteemed TV drama has come…
It is the moment theatre-goers dread, those ominous slips of paper in the programme and the announcement of ‘due to the indisposition of…’. When the show in question is only a three-hander and has an acclaimed international cast, the sense of foreboding is only heightened. One also feels sorry for the understudy, doubtless nervous already…
Our destiny may be written in the stars and, for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, it seems their fate is certainly being guided by the wider cosmos. Suitably for this pair of ‘star-cross’d lovers’, Night Light Theatre’s thrilling adaptation, moves the action, from its traditional Verona setting, onto the celestial plane; the fateful couple guided across…
Although best known for the classic film starring Paul Newman, Cool Hand Luke actually started life as a partly autobiographic novel by Donn Pearce. Now, 46 years after the novel was first published, the story makes its way to the stage in its first ever theatrical adaptation. Comparisons to the film are likely to be…
In the now infamous words of Ann Widdecombe, there is ‘something of the night’ about West Yorkshire Playhouse’s King Lear. In what, in many ways is Shakespeare’s darkest play, this is appropriately a nocturne Lear, played out in moonlight and shadow. In a pagan land influenced by seasons and nature it seems an apt setting…
In many ways it’s a headline writers dream – naming your new play Terrible Advice is just asking for unflattering headlines. In the end, the play itself isn’t terrible, but it gets uncomfortably close. Saul Rubinek’s debut play follows the complex, interwoven lives of two couples. Stanley and Jake are best friends and are dating…
If a show is rarely performed, there is usually a reason. Stephen Schwartz has had many successes over the years but The Baker’s Wife has never shared that success, short-lived runs in the UK failed to garner an audience, while the show has never been presented on Broadway. With a recent string of successful small-scale…
There’s something nostalgic about seaside funfairs, you know what’s coming, it may be a bit of a bumpy ride along the way and its never going to compete with the brasher theme parks. In many ways the same can be said regarding All The Fun Of The Fair, resuming a national tour after a run…
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, declares Shakespeare’s Henry IV, but it’s the Bard’s King Lear that provides the redemption for the troubled head of King George III in Alan Bennett’s historical epic. It is now 20 years since the play was first staged at the National Theatre and it’s been rarely performed…
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas goes the saying, and in Rupert Goold’s exuberant transplanting of the neon-lit Nevada Strip instead of the original Venetian backdrop, the dark dealings played out in the Merchant of Venice seem ideal to remain behind the casino doors. Except Goold chooses to play the racism, romantic fantasy and…
A Bomber’s Moon – a bright full moon that sheds light even on the darkest of nights. It’s an appropriate title for a play that sheds light on the pain of growing old, the darkness of a life ending and the regrets that haunt those twilight years. Jimmy is a World War II gunner, shot…
You can choose your friends but not your family. Despite the blood ties it’s surprising that clan gatherings don’t come with a health warning. Or at least that’s the impression Alan Ayckbourn would give us with his bleak look at the familial festive gathering. Hostess Belinda is frantically trying to marshal her husband and assembled…
There’s two sides to every story. Dick Turpin. Romantic hero or thief and murderer? As history passes and tales get embellished what’s real and what has been embellished to fit the agenda of the storytellers themselves? Just a few days short of the 306th anniversary of his baptism we still owe much of what we…
Okay, a caveat to start. Being a wee toddler when Marc Bolan was at the height of success before his tragic death in 1977, the music of T.Rex has never really featured high on my list of musical choices. True the big well-known numbers appear on the radar and I’ve nothing against the music, it’s…
911. The American number to dial in case of emergency. 9/11 – a date indelibly seared in the minds of those who witnessed the terrorist attacks in New York. At the time of the attacks, breakfast was being served in the Windows On The World restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower of…
As the song goes ‘We Built This City On Rock and Roll’ but, for new musical Rock of Ages, it proves to be a flimsy foundation. A tribute to the big-haired 80s rock power ballads, Rock of Ages lands at the Shaftesbury Theatre fresh from success on Broadway. The show, while having a loose plot…
All the worlds a stage, and the current touring cast of The Globe Theatre’s As You Like It have certainly taken the Bard at his word, taking their Elizabethan booth theatre up and down the country playing in stately homes, gardens and castle grounds. As autumn sets in, they head indoors, bringing the Forest of…
All that glistens isn’t gold and, in the case of flamboyant line dancing costumes, it could easily be Rhinestone. Sadly, with new musical comedy Rhinestone Mondays the promise of sparkle also turns out to be equally hollow. Over five Monday evenings, a line dancing club desperately try and get their cowboy boots synchronised ahead of…
Ruthless property developers buying up every spare scrap of land to build the latest office block. Before the recent economic downturn it could easily be a tale of today, but 50 years ago this was a relatively new threat facing our cities and one that gave a young Cliff Richard a vehicle on which to…
One of the frustrations with Shakespeare is, despite his prodigious output, there are often scenes and characters we fleetingly see in his works that we yearn to hear more about. Vividly drawn sketches who appear as mere supports to his better known characters but whom one feels have a fascinating back-story of their own to…
Are you aged 25 – 65? Do you go to the theatre? If so, why? A cursory glance as some marketing strategies could easily make you think that you are not the target audience for some theatres. With a huge focus on gaining a young audience and then a further focus on the senior citizen…
This is no place for Shakespeare quotes the Joker during Batman Live, and he may be right, but the Bard would have likely relished the opportunity to stage such a large scale spectacle in the O2 Arena. In a production that cost a reputed £7.5 million to stage and has been in the planning for…
Bill Kenwright’s tour of Lloyd Webber and Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is the stuff of theatrical legend. While Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap may be ensconced for ever in the West End, Kenwright’s touring version of the biblical rags to riches tale has been touring the regions for the over 20 years, breaking…
Awards can be a double-edged sword for productions. While the acclaim can boost box office sales, it does also set expectations high. New York’s Lincoln Centre revival of Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific swept the board at the Tony Awards and sold out in New York for over two years. Its transfer to the UK…
Think of America’s Deep South in the early 20th century and the struggle for race equality often springs to mind. Alongside black rights, however, there was a lesser known, but equally abhorrent discrimination at work – anti-Semitism. Jason Robert Brown’s Parade looks at the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager, accused of the…
There is an odd moment in Cabaret when the audience is uncertain if it should applaud a song or not. It’s no reflection on the cast or the production but rather a deliberate move by the composers to unsettle their audience. Indeed, in Suffolk Young People’s Theatre production of Kander and Ebb’s look at the…
Oh we do like to be beside the seaside, and in Red Rose Chain’s delightfully inventive Twelfth Night, the seaside has been brought into the heart of Rendlesham Forest. In what is now their twelfth annual summer residency in the forest, what else could the company stage but Shakespeare’s comic masterpiece? The forest clearing has…
Never work with children or animals. Extend that to dragons, house elves and precocious children and you have to admire CBBC’s Dan and Jeff’s (Dan Clarkson and Jefferson Turner) bravery. As the film franchise of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series draws to a close, the intrepid duo revive their madcap romp through all seven HP…
When James Grieve and George Perrin took over as Artistic Directors of touring theatre company Paines Plough in February 2010, it must have been with a certain amount of trepidation. Certainly, the company had a 37-year history as a foremost exponent of new writing that the pair had to live up to and, with such…
There’s something chilling about sitting alfresco in the Suffolk sunshine on a Sunday morning, being snowed on by (fake snow) and watching a 2000 year old play about family murder and matricide. Sophocles’ Electra has been given a gripping adaptation by Nick Payne and brought to Latitude by the Gate Theatre. In a festival environment…
A run-down tenement, swarming with cockroaches, arts clubs, collages and children roaming free. No, not a summary of the Latitude Festival camp sites but 1927’s festival steeling performance of their latest work The Animals and Children took to the streets. Showing that their thrilling Between the Devil and The Deep Blue Sea was more than…
Take three companies renowned for comic theatre, one lively festival audience and a late night slot and you’ve got the ingredients for something rather special. The Lyric Hammersmith, Spymonkey and Peepolykus join forces to present Joel Horwood’s Jekyll and Hyde(ish), and adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale. Though you’ve not seen anything quite like…
Amid the sunshine of the Latitude Festival there’s something darker lurking in the theatre tent, a double bill from Clean Break Theatre Company. Chloe Moss’ Fatal Light takes a chilling look at the death of a young woman in prison. Played in chronological reverse, we start with a young policewoman struggling to inform the mother…
Time seems to become irrelevant on a festival site, days merge into one and it takes a bit of effort to remember what the day is. Day 4 of Latitude must mean it is Sunday and the last chance to experience the delights of the 2011 programme. It all starts so well, blue skies, light…
The metrological merry go round continues, Thursday mud, Friday sunshine – Saturday? Must be back to rain, and rain it did. There must be some unwritten correlation between festivals and mud. Glastonbury seems to be in a permanent mud bath and, for day 3 of Latitude 2011, it seemed Henham Park was aping its bigger…
As the rain falls at Latitude an actress in pink wellies is waiting for her fellow cast members to arrive at the Cabaret arena. It is less than three hours to showtime but for Sarah-Louise Young and the rest of the Showstopper team they aren’t quite sure what shape that show will take. It’s not…
While festival-goers may be worried about the mud, for artists performing at the Latitude Festival 2011, the fluctuating weather gives a whole new set of concerns. For Sadler’s Wells, performing a number of pieces on the open-air Waterfront Stage, the climate conditions take on a more pressing need. Emma Gladstone, producer and programmer for Sadler’s…
This is more like it. After yesterday’s early rain, the summer returns with blue skies and soaring temperatures at Latitude. While yesterday was all about wellies and mud, today it is suntan lotion and avoiding sunburn. Welcome to the vagaries of the great British summer. There’s a chill in the air however for the day’s…
So the traditional British Summer plays it usual card and, as thousands of festival goers head to Suffolk, the skies darkened and the Heavens opened. So began the sixth Latitude Festival in Henham Park. The ‘Aussie Earl’ described it as light British rain but, whatever the terminology, it was clear that the de rigour footwear…
Immersive theatre requiring audience participation is always a risky option for theatre companies, you hope and pray for an engaged audience but its always a gamble – will the audience participate or with the infamous British reserve kick in and see them sit there in silence? non zero one’s The Time Out pushes this concept…
Its not just festival goers who are packing up their camping equipment ahead of this weekend’s Latitude Festival at Henham Park. Theatre companies are cramming in those vital last minute rehearsals to ensure everything is ‘all right on the night’. For many companies, it is their first visit to Latitude and something to look forward…
Well this is the week. Across the land tents are being dug out of lofts, a desperate hunt for tent pegs and a frantic search for instructions on how to put the tent up. For newcomers, it’s a tread through the veritable minefield of camping stores for a new tent. One man, two man, tepee,…
It never rains but it pours, and at Chichester Festival Theatre, there’s no shortage of precipitation in their exuberant staging of Singin’ In The Rain. Given that arrival in Chichester was marked by torrential downpours it seems an apt choice. The 1952 original MGM musical has become an iconic piece of cinematic history and the…
Childhood is supposed to be the happiest times of our lives. These formative years also shape the person we become in later life. Given the hardship and abuse suffered by Noel Tovey as a young child, it is surprising he’s here at all to tell his remarkable life story at the age of 77. That…
In her recent blog post Lorannah proposed an idea for the Inaugural Interval Awards. The idea is inspired. Come December we all frantically try to recall the multitude of productions seen over the previous twelve months and come up with our definitive ‘best of’ lists. There’s a problem though – as Lorannah says “By the…
To paraphrase the Michael Crawford show, Some Brothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. For a show that is already on its fourth title, I’m not suggesting Road Show changes its name again but it certainly sums up life for Addison Mizner. Stephen Sondheim’s latest show has had a lengthy gestation period. Various versions have appeared since 1999…
A simple split-second decision can alter our lives irrevocably; what may seem the most innocuous of life choices can have major repercussions. For Joe Casey, growing up in Camden prospects seem bleak but the choice he makes on the night he turns 16 will shape both his and his girlfriend’s future. It all seems such…
The opening event of an arts festival is the one vital show to launch an event with flair and sets the tone for the whole event. A tough gig but pull it off and there’s that much-valued ‘WOW’ factor. This year’s Ip-Art festival, Ipswich Borough Council’s multi-disciplinary arts festival kicked off tonight with Music of…
The Devil has all the best tunes and, in Shakespeare’s Globe’s first staging of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, he also has a cracking play. Arguably Marlowe’s most famous play also holds a unique place in theatrical history, the only play of the period to explicitly cover religion, a surprising move given Marlowe’s atheist credentials. Wittenberg…
The Shakespearian equivalent of the joke about waiting for a bus then two coming along continues. After the raft of Hamlets and King Lear’s playing concurrently recently it’s now the turn of Richard III to invade our stages. Propeller bringing their widely acclaimed, all male version, to Hampstead, and Kevin Spacey starring in the final…
With a collaboration producing some of the world’s most popular musicals, a retrospective of the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein was never going to be short of source material. Walter Bobbie’s 1993 Broadway musical review A Grand Night for Singing takes a two-hour journey through some of the duo’s extensive back catalogue. Originally staged in…
Church and State, two institutions that have shaped and divided nations for centuries; forces that dominate history. Epic subjects for an epic play and they don’t come much more epic than Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean. Receiving its English stage premiere, this pared down version from Ben Power still runs for 3 hours 30 minutes –…
You have you actors, you have your script, the costumes and set are ready, and the props are all sorted. All systems go then for your first performance? Forgotten anything? It may seem a simple thing but what about a cast list? How will people know what your show is about and, more importantly, who…
We may still be waiting for summer to arrive but in theatre land, thoughts are already turning to autumn and winter. It is a challenging time for venues as they come to terms with a shifting funding landscape while trying to ensure their programme will meet increasing audience expectations. The topic is one Simon Daykin, Executive…
It’s more than just a music festival the advertising material proudly proclaims. Now in its sixth year at Henham Park, the Latitude Festival most certainly is. Music, comedy, literature, theatre and children’s entertainment all combine to create a unique festival. Speaking at this year’s media launch, Melvin Benn, founder of Latitude is undeniable excited about,…
Any theatrical event is a bit of a juggling act, coordinating a plethora of diverse skills to make a whole entertainment. The latest arrival into the West End takes the notion one step further, literally keeping multiple items in the air at any one time. The Flying Karamazov Brothers, a quartet of American comedians, musicians…
A monster of a musical, yes the headline for Shrek The Musical almost writes itself and, while the producers may be hoping for a monster hit, sadly this green beast is a monster for all the wrong reasons. Ok, so perhaps the target demographic is slightly out of my age range but it’s hard to…
In a central Peterborough park people come and go. A man offering children sweets, children playing, a bride on her wedding day, fathers, daughters, joggers – all human life is here. Nicola Werenowska’s latest play, Standpoint, looks at the impact a chance encounter between two of these transient visitors to the park has on each…
The road to freedom is never easy; despite the best of intentions, there is always going to be setbacks. When you’re just 24, trying to follow in your father’s illustrious footsteps, and have the expectations of a nation on your shoulders, the road is going to be even more difficult. For Charles Edward Louis John…
Five dinner guests, hidden agendas, brutal honesty and what could easily be the dinner party from hell – no, not TVs Come Dine With Me but Future Ruins’ Exterminating Angel. It is difficult to write a definitive review for this piece as, within a pre-defined structure, the actors are free to improvise the dialogue. It…
Life is a Cabaret old chum, come to the Cabaret. Sally Bowles has never been to a Cabaret quite like Cabaret Whore though. Four of Cabaret’s most celebrated divas have been brought together on one bill to celebrate the splendours of the art form. Each has their own unique take on Cabaret, each desperately trying…
Lights, camera, action. Everyone loves the movie business but what happens when you have over run your budget and schedule, a rival producer is poaching your cast, the actors are fighting and/or drunk and the neighbours are shooting at you. For director Okafor, this is all part of daily life working in Nollywood, the Nigerian…
A show that is improvised from scratch each night is virtually impossible to review. The show on any given night will be so different that comparative notes seem irrelevant. One can, however, look at the concept, construction and ability of such a piece to entertain. Made Up, to mis-use the catchphrase of a well know…
Some of the most surprising journeys turn out to be the most fulfilling, and although the yellow VW camper van parked in front of the New Wolsey Theatre doesn’t leave the site, in Laura Mugride’s Running On Air audiences are taken on a journey of self discovery and immense charm. The camper van is both…
The morning after the night before. That moment when you try to remember who you are, where you are and, more worryingly, what exactly did you get up to the previous night? Party Piece, a first work by the New Wolsey Theatre Young Associates, a group of young people actively seeking a career in the…
In an age when family tree research has become a hobby of choice for thousands, are we able to connect all those names and dates for our ancestors with the historical context of the time? The past is never dead. It’s not even past – so quoted poet William Faulkner but, for many people, researching…
One man, a table, a chair and an audience gathered round to hear to separate stories, loosely linked by a theme of air crashes. Part literary reading, part performance poetry, Chris Thorpe’s High Speed Impact Test Number One, may just put you off flying for life. The intimate setting makes for a real connection between…
Leaving Only A Trace is a vivid performance that combines traditional Southern-Indian dance and music with a powerful premise. A young British Asian man, portrayed by Shane Shambhu, must leave behind his home and cultural heritage to seek a new life. In a world where cultures increasingly combine, it’s certainly topical ground. Bringing traditional dance…
The senses are powerful and infinite: that is the message given by Deaf Men Dancing’s latest performance, Sense of Freedom. This is apparent from the moment the performance begins. Without a prop in sight, we are hit with a quick succession of fluid routines set to the Pet Shop Boys version of ‘You Were Always…
In an era when we covet the latest technological advances, the West End musical is going all retro. First Betty Blues Eyes took us back to austerity Britain and now Lend Me A Tenor arrives into town from Plymouth with a glorious homage to the golden age of MGM musicals. The show itself, with book…
Four writers, four plays, eight actors, four directors all in less than an hour. Authors have been challenged to create a play than runs shorter than most intervals in an average play. Not an easy task but the premise of Soho Shorts, collaboration between the Pulse Fringe Festival and the Soho Theatre. The teams have…
The 11th annual Pulse Fringe Festival is now well underway and, as we approach the middle weekend, it’s a good opportunity to reflect on the first week. During week one, 24 different productions encompassing dance, drama, comedy, and film took place across the Ipswich in a multitude of locations. Some were polished, finished work, others…
In many ways it seemed inevitable; David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s onscreen double act in Dr Who bore more than a passing resemblance to Benedict and Beatrice that a production of Much Ado About Nothing could never be far behind. The star pairing has, of course, garnered a media storm and is set to be…
A shock title for a play can is usually a portent of unsatisfying things to come. It’s often as though the writer is over-compensating for a lack of substance within by packaging the piece in attention-robbing expletives. Is this the case for Greg McLaren’s Doris Day Can F*ck Off? Perhaps not – it’s clear that…
There’s an ethical problem posed at the start of Matt Ball’s one man show, Roy’s Wallet. Although the show looks at his grandfather’s life and memory. At 89, Roy’s memories are beginning to fade and he doesn’t know his grandson is doing this show. Ball plants the question in the audience’s mind asking is it…
There is always a quandary in reviewing shows in how much of the plot to give away. You need to give enough flavour of the piece without spoiling any plot twists or devices for future audiences. Holly Bodmer and Dot Howard’s Would Be Nice Though gives the critic even more of a headache. The entire…
In the Second World War, loved ones waited nervously at home, waiting weeks, months, or even years for news of their soldier’s fate while fighting overseas. Now in the digital age news reaches those families almost instantaneously. Email, text, Skype, blogs and mobile phones bridge the gap to home but is such immediate contact always…
Forget all your troubles, forget all you cares and go Downtown. So encourages Petula Clark in her seminal 1965 smash hit. If you go down to the New Wolsey Theatre for Paul T. Davies’ new play of the same name, however, you’re not going to get an ode to New York but rather a clumsy…
After the lights dim and the audience leaves what remains? In a deserted auditorium a ghostly singer, a musician and a solitary audience member run through one final cabaret performance, a performance that is likely to replay through eternity. In Empire, François Testory creates a dark, shadow world where the boundaries between reality and make…
In this age of super injunctions, the issue of privacy and what we actually know about celebrities and each other has renewed impetus. How do we really get to know someone? From their public image? From what we read or perhaps nowadays a radical approach – actually talking to them. The Others by Paper Birds…
Paris, the city of love. Scenes of countless romantic encounters, dreams, and even the odd broken heart. The city also represents a spirit of hope, never more in evidence during the darkest hours of the Second World War. Its 1945 and Christianne, a young Parisian girl is waiting at the Gare du Nord trying to…
What defines a life? At the end of our days what do we leave behind? What happens to those possessions when we die? Fifteen years ago Chris Dugrenier arrived in the UK. Now in her new one woman show Wealth’s Last Caprice, reflecting on composing her last Will and Testament, she decides to identify her…
In any conflict there are always forgotten victims. While military and civilian deaths and injuries make the news, the longer lasting effects on survivors often remain overlooked. Silent Shout’s first production, A Dream From A Bombshell, takes a look at the impact of the Vietnam War on its civilian population. The War has of course…
Space travel and loneliness are already becoming front runners for favoured themes for this year’s Pulse Fringe Festival. Hard on the heels of Captain KO and the Planet of Rice, comes another early work in progress, Escape Velocity (bye bye bye) by Barometric. The same dilemmas from the earlier show apply in reviewing a work…
Are buildings purely bricks and mortar or do they contain remnants of memories within their walls? Walk through any neglected or derelict building and you can often imagine past events that took place within those crumbling structures. In 2009 dancer Dan Canham visited a dilapidated theatre in Limerick. He made a film interviewing those with…
One of the joys of any arts festival is the multitude of events happening on any one day and those spur of the moment decisions that result in you seeing an unplanned show. On the first day of the Pulse Fringe Festival, theatre company Inspector Sands shared the first showing of their latest creation, A…
Browse any bookshop and you’ll discover a multitude of guides on how to improve your leadership skills, how to succeed in management, and endless other guides to the ‘rules’ of business. What about if you don’t just want to move up the office food chain but actually aim for world domination? If you are secretly…
Street theatre – the very phrase can strike terror into the heart. For every wonderful performance there is a plethora of dodgy mime artists, metallic spray clad statue artists and mishap jugglers. Bootworks Theatre, however, have reinvented street theatre and with their latest creation Babyboxes have dragged theatre out of its traditional home and out…
We’ve all been there, that moment at the start of any training course when delegates are asked to introduce themselves in one minute. What are the key facts that make up our lives and how do we condense that into a minute? Inspector Sands’ latest work, A Life In 22 Minutes, looks at that very…
Fringe shows always cause some conundrums for critics. Often works are in the very early stages of development. It is, of course, unfair to review them as finished products but the critical process can aid a show’s development with constructive comment. It is with that caveat that this is written. Captain KO and the Planet…
In 2002 John Osborne entered a competition on John Peel’s Radio 1 show. His prize was a box of records from the vast collection Peel kept in his shed. Osborne won and a box of disks was duly delivered from John Peel’s Suffolk home to Osborne’s Norwich flat. This seemingly innocuous event is the jumping off…
What is the future for regional theatres and how do they compete with London? A big question and the subject for The Big Debate, the opening event in this year’s Pulse Fringe Festival. Chaired by Rob Salmon, the New Wolsey’s Associate Director, an assembled panel an audience gathered on a newly created performance space on…
Skiffle bands and slapstick are not usual partners for classic 18th Century Commedia dell’arte; however, they are perfect for Richard Bean’s hilarious update of Carlo Goldoni’s 1746 classic The Servant of Two Masters – ingeniously transposed to 1960s Brighton and renamed One Man, Two Guvnors. The plot itself is pure farce and, as such, doesn’t…
Amid all the furore over the current arts funding crisis, there has been a lot of talk of the arts embracing wider corporate business acumen. It makes sense; the arts, while historically adept at making slim budgets stretch, is not alone in facing tough business decisions. And that’s the key word – business. While it…
Often Chekhov’s plays are seen as something of the time, period pieces that, while well crafted, can be difficult to relate to modern day. The Cherry Orchard, however, with its tale of financial problems, the challenge of facing up to debt and the consequences when that debt needs to be repaid, seems never more topical….
There’s a strange sense of déjà-vu watching the stage adaptation of Victoria Wood’s hit TV series, dinnerladies. There is strangely also a sense of sympathy with the actor who feel constrained into mimicry rather than being able to bring their own interpretations to the role. The show is so identified with its original actors; Wood…
It may seem the very height of respectability, row upon row of identical bungalows all with their neatly manicured, if very small, gardens. Tupperware parties, tennis clubs, neighbourhood watch – all one big happy community. Behind the blinds, however, it’s another story. Willy Russell’s One For The Road may be one of his lesser known…
The familiar notes of Britain’s longest running soap run over a panning shot across the rooftops of a Manchester terrace. As part of its 50th Anniversary celebrations Corrie has come to the stage. Does Bet feature? What about Hilda and her ‘murials’? Does Ken get another wife? Does Minnie Caldwell’s cat make an appearance? We…
A young girl falls in love with a Royal and gets married. No, not Kate Middleton but Anne Boleyn. Her doomed love affair with Henry VIII is well known but, in Joanna Carrick’s new play for Red Rose Chain, Fallen In Love, we get to see the more personal side of Anne and her close…
Novelist and Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has now turned his hand to playwrighting. His first play, Incoming, receiving a world premiere at the HighTide Festival is a promising debut. Steph is packing up her belongings ahead of a move to a new house. It’s a traumatic and emotional experience for her as the home holds…
Two households, both alike in dignity. In fair Verona, where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny. Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. Replace Verona with Westminster and you could have the tag line for Nicked. This isn’t Shakespeare, though, but a new musical looking at Deputy PM Nick Clegg’s…
Whatever happens to our teenage dreams and is it ever wise to revisit your past? Twenty four years ago Molly was going to be happily married with kids and free of her stammer, Ray was going to be a heart surgeon. A kiss on the boardwalk full of hope and promise. Now, nearly a quarter…
There seems to be an obsession with water at the Young Vic recently. Audiences for The Beauty Queen of Leenane had to brave a wall of water to get to their seats; children where drenched in And the Rain Falls Down, and now there is a watery set for I Am The Wind. Perhaps Thames…
Your only son is getting married in a few hours, you’re all dressed up and ready to go. So what do you do next? Well, if you’re Betty Derbyshire, a 50-something doting mother, you head to the loft and barricade yourself in. Ok not typical Mother of the Groom behaviour but Betty is suffering something…
Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’ still frustrate scholars and directors over 400 years after they were penned. All’s Well That Ends Well is one such piece, classed in the problematic class due to the fact it’s never entirely clear what category it fits into, nor does the plot really work as a testament to the power of…
Some plays seem destined to give theatre marketing departments a headache. How, for example, do you sell a one woman show based on the murder of the actress’ elder sister? Sometimes I Laugh Like My Sister is that very challenge but, far from being a depressing evening, it turns out to be an evening of…
We’ve had musical theatre, we’ve even had chic flic theatre but now it seems nerd theatre has truly landed. Last year Canadian actor Charlie Ross impressed Bury St Edmunds audiences with his One Man Lord Of The Rings, a condensing of Peter Jackson’s opus into just over an hour. Now he returns to the Theatre…
Imagine watching the end of Gone With The Wind and Rhett Butler turns to Scarlett O’Hara and says “Frankly, my dear, I don’t really care”. Close but not quite. It’s the same with Hamlet:1603 a rarely staged performance of the First Quarto Hamlet. The story is there but much truncated and many of the famous…
Spring. A burgeoning of new life and things that have lain dormant re-awakening. Not only in nature but in Ted Hughes’ translation of Franz Wedekind’s 1890 play, Spring Awakening, it is the sexual awakening of a group of teenagers that provides the dramatic drive. In a world of repressed emotions, where talk of sex is…
The RSC is cannily sitting on the fence with the first new show in its restored Swan Theatre – the non-committal subtitle for Cardenio is Shakespeare’s ‘lost play’ re-imagined. Now while much scholarly debate will surely ensue over is this play based on Shakespeare’s long lost masterpiece and, indeed, given the amount of hands involved…
Is love all we need? The Beatles would have us believe so but can love also be a destructive force? In Mike Bartlett’s epic Love, Love, Love, we get an panoramic vista at one couple’s relationship across 40 years. Here the course of true love certainly doesn’t run smooth. In 1967, 19-year-old Sandra is on…
Stage and Church have been intrinsically linked over the centuries. Occasionally in conflict over content and ideology, there is also something overtly theatrical involved in many religious rites; the tradition the ceremony and the oration of the sermon all containing elements of performance. In this Easter week, it is therefore perhaps appropriate that George Dillon…
National Theatre. Its very name implies it should reflect life in communities all across the nation. It also has a remit to challenge and provoke thought. In its latest production, London Road, a verbatim play with music based on interviews with Suffolk residents coming to terms with their road becoming infamous for the home of…
Jason Robert Brown may not be as famous as, say, Andrew Lloyd Webber to UK audiences but his work is slowly gaining the reputation it deserves here. His rich material is also providing opportunities for local groups seeking a change for the traditional cannon of Rogers and Hammerstein. Appeal Theatre Group are one such company…
Who has responsibility for customer service in your organisation? If you produce your own product it may seem straightforward but, if you are a receiving venue, perhaps the boundaries are less clear. Add in ticket agencies, producers and production companies, and the situation blurs even more. Does it matter? Well in these times of increasing…
After years of American imports and jukebox musicals, at long last the British musical is fighting back with a show about austerity Britain and a forthcoming Royal Wedding. Belts are being tightened, spending reviewed and parties being thrown to celebrate the royal nuptials. This isn’t 2011, though, but 1947 and Betty Blue Eyes, a musical…
Still waters run deep in Wastwater, Englands deepest lake and there are also dark secrets buried just beneath its shadowy waters. The lake is the inspiration, and provides the title, for Simon Stephens’ new play, but instead of being set in the Lake District, for some reason the action takes place in various locations around the…
We’ve all been there, receiving a long list of instructions from our mothers that give us a long list of horrors that await us should we fail to follow her advice. It’s this basis that forms the jumping off point for Charlotte Keatley’s debut play My Mother Said I Never Should. Taking a look at…
Sometimes in our everyday grey lives all we need is a little injection of colour. That’s certainly the case for Bet and Al. They’ve been married for 25 years and virtually all the joy has been drained from their lives. He’s unemployed and spends most of his time taking refuge in the garden shed, she…
“Work In Progress” – a veritable minefield for the theatre critic. While acknowledgment that the finished piece may bear little resemblance to this early showing must be made, part of the process is to gain feedback on what works and what doesn’t is part of the development process. It’s with this caveat that this is…
In a day focussed on how Arts Council cuts may impact the future of theatre, it is perhaps sadly appropriate that Suffolk Youth Theatre open their 17th and potentially final public stage production. There’s a sense of coming full circle as the company return to the production that they first staged back in 1995, Stephen…
What is a theatre review, and what is a theatre critic? They may seem simple questions but topics that seem to be vexing many people at the moment. Is there a difference between a theatre reviewer and a theatre critic? Should reviews only be positive and not cover any negative aspect of a production?…
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey was her first completed work, yet it shows a writer already on top form. A biting look at social manners and the dangers of mixing fact and fiction, it provides strong material for a stage adaptation. Tim Luscombe makes full use of Austen’s source material, bringing her vivid characters colourfully to…
After a period when the Great American Musical seemed to rule supreme, the British musical is making a comeback and, instead of relying on the staging gimmicks of the past, now plot, music and lyrics thankfully seem to be central. A musical adaptation of the 18th Century comedy She Stoops to Conquer may seem an…
Thanks to the popularity of shows like Lark Rise To Candleford, quaint bygone rural life seems to be in vogue. It’s not a new phenomenon though; novelists have been turning to tales of country folk for years – the Brontes, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy among others who visited the Genre. Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel…
Behind the glitz and glamour of Broadway there lies a darker, seedier underworld. Well at least there was in the 1950s world of Damon Runyon. His collected short stories, based on real life characters, paint a vivid picture of life in New York away form the greasepaint and bright lights of the Great White Way….
One of the joys of theatre is that it can give you a wider understanding of other cultures apart from your own. Even if you don’t belong to that community, good theatre can immerse you, even if for only a couple of hours, into that community and give you a greater knowledge of their hopes,…
In a world where film adaptations for stage often bring scorn, it is time to celebrate Kneehigh and their glorious re-invention not only of film to stage adaptations but the musical theatre genre. Based on Michel Legrande and Jacques Demy’s 1964 classic French film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg looks at life and love in the…
Does the fact that you can’t remember your past actions absolve you of any responsibility for them? Alice is a young soldier serving as an interrogator in Guantanamo Bay; her best friend is a medic who was forced to flee Iraq at the age of eight and is using her time in the army as…
Is our future life decided by nature or nurture? How much do our surrounding effect the route we take in life? That’s the question that Willy Russell has been putting to audiences. Blood Brothers has been a highly successful musical, running in the West End for the last 23 years but, prior to the musical,…
It’s a sobering thought: on average one person dies every half a second and every hour and a quarter someone commits suicide. That means that, during the time it takes to watch Anaglogue’s Beachy Head, one tragic soul will have taken their own life. The show itself looks at the impact of one such tragic…
What does it take to be human? Is it the ability to love or to lie? That’s the central question posed in Nick Dear’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Frankenstein. In what has become one of the years most sought after tickets, director Danny Boyle returns to the theatre but in doing so pulls…
“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive”. Sir Walter Scott’s famous line could so easily be the subtitle for J.B Priestley’s first play, Dangerous Corner. First performed in 1932, Priestley takes a carefully constructed look at how one seemingly innocent throw away line can unearth a hornetss nest of…
They say there’s no point in reinventing the wheel but in their adaptation of Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations, English Touring Theatre has succeeded admirably. Great Expectations is a classic rite of passage saga, looking at poverty, class and the desire to escape traditional roles. Tanika Gupta’s reimagining of the tale, moving it from 1840s England…
Theatre itself has always proved a rich source of material for playwrights. Backstage antics, over the top ‘luvvies’ and the often surreal workings of the industry giving writers plenty of inspiration. Paul T Davis has tapped into this vein to create The Green Room, three monologues that interlink and overlap as we peer into the…
2011 is going to be a year packed with terrence Rattigan. In the centenary of his birth, theatres up and down the country will be presenting his work in celebration. The first major London revival of the year is also Trevor Nunn’s first offering as part of his residency at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Set…
Barbershop four part harmony and the battle between Heaven and Hell may seem unlikely bedfellows but the two subjects gel perfectly in musical comedy Barbershopera: Apocalypse No! God has decided that the human race should be wiped from the face of the earth and another species be given the chance to make a better job…
Those living along the east coast often have a love/hate relationship with the North Sea. On one hand it provides a vital source of income, traditionally through fishing but, nowadays, increasingly through tourism. On the other, for every calm there is a storm just around the corner that can easily claim lives. This complex relationship…
You may think you know Classical mythology and the takes on warring gods but, after Pants On Fire’s gloriously witty updating of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, you’ll never be able to look at the tales in the same light again. Transposing the tales to Second World War Britain, complete with cut glass accents, tea dances and air…
The very best theatre transcends age barriers. While WhyThe Lion Danced is on paper a children’s show, it proves to be an engaging and entertaining show for all ages. Young Tom lives in the family Chinese takeaway but struggles to understand some of the customs of his ancestral homeland. As Chinese New Year approaches, the…
The uniquely American phenomenon of Spelling Bees, where students are one by one eliminated as they attempt to spell such words as Weltanschauung seems an unlikely subject for a musical comedy but, in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the Donmar Warehouse has shown that the comedy works just as well for a UK…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is arguably Shakespeare’s most adaptable play. Dream’s magical and mythical elements lend themselves to imaginative staging and, in the hands of one of the country’s most imaginative theatre companies, Headlong, the pairing seems ideal. Director Natalie Abrahami has chosen to set the action against an early 1950s Hollywood film set where…
After the glut of Sondheim stagings, concerts and celebrations to mark his 80th birthday last year, Southwark Playhouse has waited until the glut died down to produce Company as their first ever musical. It’s an inspired setting as the bare brick of London Bridge railway arches easily conveys Manhattan loft living. Company really works well…
There is perhaps a danger when going to see a show that has received almost universal rave reviews that the actual product can never quite live up to the hype. Clybourne Park has received a raft of glowing reviews for both its original run at the Royal Court and now for its transfer to the…
There has been something of a virtual explosion over the last 24 hours to a post by Matt Trueman on the Guardian blog regarding the subject of previews and bloggers. As perhaps was the intention it has provoked fierce response with strong views being aired on both sides of the debate. I have thought long…
2011 seems to be the year for Much Ado About Nothing. The much-publicised David Tennant/Catherine Tate production, the Shakespeare’s Globe staging and, first out of the blocks, the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds. Director Abigail Anderson has embraced the intimacy of the Regency playhouse and produced a chamber version of Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes….
In these times of arts cutbacks and financial woes, the RSC are not stinting on fake blood. There production of Julius Caesar may look traditional but this isn’t a sanitised vision of Rome. Here we get blood and guts by the bucket load. Although set in period there is something strangely topical about this Julius…
How many playwrights does it take to draft a piece on global warming? According to the National Theatre it takes four but sadly Greenland, the end result, is not something any of the quartet will be listing on their greatest achievement lists. There is so much potential here, an emotive topic, first class writers, the…
A bloody massacre has descended on to small town America. A shooting at the local high school has left 16 dead and, as the media frenzy begins, 15-year-old Vernon Gregory Little finds himself at the centre of the storm. His best friend carried out the shootings before turning the gun on himself and, without a…
Theatre at its best stirs the emotions, tugs at the heart strings, and leaves an audience mentally challenged and enriched. Theatre can be engaging and only hit a few of these things but all too rarely you see a play that shakes your very core. Five is one such play. As we reach the 66th anniversary…
It is a welcoming trend to see local companies tackling new musical material. Sure, classics such as The Sound of Music and Oklahoma! have their place but there is a wealth of new material out there that deserves to be seen. Jason Robert Brown’s The Last 5 Years is one such jewel. A one-act, two-hander…
King Lear is giving Hamlet a run for its money as play of the moment right now. We’ve have a rush of Danish princes and now it’s the turn of mad Monarchs as a raft of Lears take to the stage. Much like the Hamlet productions it is unfair to compare wildly different interpretations, how…
You don’t go to a Caryl Churchill for an easy ride. Her trademark is to use complex structure and dialogue that require an audience to work to follow plot and character. Her 1994 piece The Skriker is perhaps one of her most surreal works. Outwardly it seems that a malevolent spirit is causing havoc with…
Sir Peter Hall’s 80th birthday present from the National Theatre was the opportunity to direct his Daughter Rebecca in Twelfth Night. It’s a piece Hall has visited four times in his long career but in this production more than ever he focuses on the text over staging. Staged on an almost bare stage in the…
After the success of her previous works Rabbit and Tribes, a new play by Nina Raine was always going to be something of a theatrical event. Add in that she is also directing and making her debut at Hampstead Theatre and the expectation grows. Sadly, and perhaps because of the anticipation, her latest offering Tiger…
Despite what TV shows such as Friends would have us believe, life for 30-something American’s doesn’t always end happily ever after. Gina Gionfriddo’s Becky Shaw arrives at Islington’s Almeida Theatre after success off-Broadway, and while the comedy may be American it transfers well to a UK audience. Here is the ultimate case of happy families…
For the last 25years the RSC has been reaping financial rewards from the commercial success of Les Miserables. While never going to be on this scale, Matilda could prove to be an equally rewarding production as its life beyond Stratford seems assured. Matilda A Musical may be aimed fairly and squarely at the Festive family…
It has not been a good couple of days for the Bard and the new fangled interweb. Perhaps the ghost of Will Shakespeare has been haunting various theatrical servers, but for good or for bad it does show that the lad from Stratford still has huge box office draw. Friday saw the RSC open priority booking…
Ok, the fact that the Christmas tree was decorated with bacon should have been a sign that Get Santa! wasn’t going to be your normal traditional Christmas show. Given that it’s being staged at the Royal Court and written by an author better known for his hard-hitting works it shouldn’t be a surprise that, while…
To balance the look back to 2010, it is now time to look forward to 2011. Well to be fair the first half of 2011, as though there is some detail for later in the year, in reality shows come and go quickly so I’m sure there are more delights waiting to be discovered. In…
So we’ve had the look back at the 2010 theatrical year and, as we move in to 2011, what are our hopes for the New Year? Here’s a list of resolutions that one can only hope venues, producers and fellow theatregoers stick to in 2011. In no particular order here are the pet hates from…
So as is traditional this time of year it is time to sit down over a glass of festive sherry and a warm mince pie to reflect on the hits of the year and shiver at the memory of the turkeys. On reflection, it’s been a mainly positive year with plenty of contenders for praise…
Well that’s another theatrical year done and dusted – 149 shows seen in 41 different venues during 2010. Shows ranging from classics to new work in progress, venues ranging from the Albert Hall and the open air through to a cold war aircraft hanger. 2010 has been an interesting year theatrically. While the spectre of…
Peter Pan On Ice is a strange hybrid of ballet, drama, circus and, of course, ice dance. It’s miles away from the traditional pantomime but, as arctic conditions sweep the country, it seems remarkably appropriate. JM Barrie’s classic tale of the boy who never grew up is turned into an ice ballet by a troupe…
Pantomime is a uniquely British phenomenon that often confuses tourists. You can see why, men dressed as women, principle ‘boys’ and audience heckles all contrary to usual theatrical etiquette. Perhaps Potted Panto should be compulsory viewing for all tourists in this festive season as within its jam packed 95 minutes of manic mayhem it also…
Reviewing a show by young people is always a potential minefield. If you go for the ‘aaahh factor’ you run the risk of being accused of being patronising and if you review as a professional adult show you risk getting accused of being hard-nosed and unsympathetic. So it is something of a tightrope walk reviewing…
From a director who is know for his hi-tech productions, Rupert Goold’s RSC production of Romeo and Juliet is strangely traditional. Well traditional with a twist. For this is a Romeo and Juliet for our times, while the ensemble are in period dress our lead protaganists are in modern dress, Romeo on a guided tour…
What was once seen as the young upstart of panto land is now 10 years old. The New Wolsey Theatre’s Rock ‘n’ Roll panto takes traditional panto tales and adds in a group of versatile actor musicians and a smattering of classic rock and pop numbers. This year it’s the turn of Jack And The…
In these times of fiscal prudence and a national obsession with glamour and celebrity, a tale of temptation by the twin evils of gold and glamour is strangely topical. Mother Goose is the panto for our times and, in the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds production, it’s never been better. Fairy Fortuna and Demon Discordo…
It is now 40 years since Jenny Agutter waved her red bloomers on screen to stop a rail disaster. As well as the classic film, Edith Nesbit’s novel has been immortalised on TV and stage but now we get offered the stage musical version of The Railway Children. It seems a natural choice, Nesbit’s tale…
Eastern Angles can always be relied on to turn the traditional Christmas show on its head and, on this occasion, it’s a case of ‘In Cod We Trust’. Gills Around The Green, Julian Harries’ and Pat Whymark’s 12th festive offering for Eastern Angles is a fishy affair. It’s the usual surreal offering so any attempt…
It has been a vintage year for Tennessee Williams. His early Spring Storm revived in a stunning production at the Royal & Derngate Northampton and then the National Theatre and now his first major commercial success receives a touching revival at the Young Vic. It is an immensely personal show, perhaps Williams’s most autobiographical, echoing…
As unemployment continues to cast a spectre over many and the ideal of job security with a job for life becomes increasingly rare, Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman has never been more timely. As Willie Loman faces unemployment after 34 years working for the same company, his life begins to unravel. Ghosts of the…
In a rare outing, Alan Bennett’s epic play The Madness Of George III is currently touring the country but the only madness that sticks in one’s memory is that of the show’s designers. The wig designer, for example, seems to have raided a fancy dress shop to come up with tonsorial topiary that resembles an…
A caveat first – this review is based only on Act 1. It is extremely rare that I leave a production midway through a performance but, sadly, this production joins those ranks. A stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s supernatural thriller should be dark, full of other-worldly elements and chills. Sadly Sell A Door Theatre Company’s…
In 1949, George Orwell’s bleak vision of the state control in the 1980s seemed almost unthinkable. In his vision of 1984, government spin, PR speak, and CCTV surveillance would become prevalent, now while thinks haven’t become as dark as his novel envisaged many of his predictions were uncannily accurate. It makes the piece timely and…
These days we’re used to the image of National Lottery winners collecting a huge cheque but, in the 1960s, attention was focused on the Saturday football results rather than lottery numbers. The chance of matching eight score draws kept many hopes alive. When impoverished Yorkshire couple Keeith and Viv Nicholson win £152,319 on the Pools…
The second of the Donmar Warehouse’s concert celebrations for Sondheim’s 80th birthday turns attention to his 1970 score Company. This one was a hit for the Donmar back in 1995 and as with last weeks Merrily We Roll Along features many of the cast of that production. Also like Merrily Company is not your traditional linear…
As the country struggles with financial hardships it’s a timely revival for the National Theatre of Ena Lamont Stewart’s look at the 1930s depression. Set in a rundown Glasgow tenement, life is tough for the Morrison family. Eleven family members are crammed in the tiny, dank, dark kitchen and bedroom set up. Dad is out…
What does community actually mean? Does your nationality reflect the country you live in, the country you were born in, or even the country your parents were born in? Based on interviews with residents of Peterborough, Eastern Angles’ latest production, Lincoln Road, attempts to tackle these questions. Author Danusia Iwaszko takes this look at multicultural…
Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, two giants of the American civil rights movement held radically different approaches to the cause. Their beliefs and methods differed wildly but both were working towards a common goal. Jeff Stetson’s play The Meeting imagines what would have happened had the two met to discuss their beliefs. It…
The phrase Jukebox musical has become something of a derogatory term, for every hit such as Mama Mia there is a Desperately Seeking Susan or All The Fun of The Fair. The source material helps, if your songs are story lead there’s obviously a much stronger chance of them working in a dramatic format. Even…
Tell Me On A Sunday has gone through many revisions over the years, and the current touring version is classed by Andrew Lloyd Webber as the ‘definitive’ version. Now the composer should know best but it is hard to see his reasoning. Back in 2003 he made a similar proclamation when Denise Van Outen took…
Stephen Sondheim’s birthday celebrations continue with the much-anticipated Donmar Warehouse concert revivals of two of their many associations with the composer. Next week sees two concert performances of Company but first up it’s the turn of Merrily We Roll Along. For many this is one of Sondheim’s ‘problem’ scores, closing on Broadway just 16 performances…
On the surface life is all happy families in the Crompton house in Bolton. Run with military precision by patriarch Rafe it’s a home where financial prudence is key, a rule not helped when Mother is not good with figures and a chain of borrowing causes many a headache. Scratch the surface though and there are tensions just waiting…
Stephen Sondheim’s Passion is perhaps one of his more complex works, a deeply dark tale with no conventional numbers, it is not an easy viewing. As part of its birthday tribute to the octogenarian composer, the Donmar Warehouse turns out a ravishing production. Given the intimate nature of the score, it works well as a…
Given the glut of Danish princes theatres have experienced recently, it is difficult not to compare one Hamlet against another. Obviously each production is a stand alone product and therefore any comparison is perhaps unfair. The latest entry into the Hamlet market is John Simm, taking to the Sheffield Crucible stage in his first Shakespearian…
Horror is a tough act to pull off on stage; for every Woman in Black there is a damp squib such as Ghost Stories (still somehow managing to pull them into the Duke of Yorks). While the movie horror genre seems to go from strength to strength, the theatre is still struggling to follow suit….
After the epic War Horse, Handspring Puppet Company return to the National Theatre with a much more intimate, and deeply personal offering. Or You Could Kiss Me turns from the equine to the human, following the story of how two of the founder members of the company met and fell in love. Alongside the autobiographical…
John Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice And Men may now be over 70 years old but is still as fresh and gripping today as when first penned. It’s one of those rare pieces that works equally well as a book, film or stage play and Serendipity Theatre Company’s latest offering brings this potent mix of human…
Enlightenment – a. The act or a means of enlightening or b. The state of being enlightened. Sadly Edward Hall’s debut as Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre does neither. Shelagh Stephenson’s latest play Enlightenment kicks of Hall’s tenure at Swiss Cottage. Billed as a physiological thriller it looks good on paper; parents struggling to come…
Is Hamlet overload syndrome a recognised theatrical disease? Tennant. Law, Simms, Kinnear and soon to be Sheen all taking on the great Dane. David Tennant may have garned the most column inches, despite missing a large chunk of his London transfer but Rory Kinnear now stakes his claim as one of our leading stage actors….
Who do you think you are? No, not the popular BBC genealogy programme but what could easily be the subtitle for Carol Churchill’s The Number. Churchill’s two-hander looks at the impact when a son confronts his father after he discovers that far from being unique he is actually one of ‘A number’ of clones. How…
How time flies; back in 1994 I worked at Hampstead Theatre as a lowly Assistant Stage Manager on Dead Funny in their wonderfully intimate, but let’s be honest, glorified shed of a theatre. Despite the ageing building, the theatre built a reputation for quality shows, a large number heading down the Jubilee line into the…
As Nigeria celebrates 50 years of independence, Eastern Angles turn their attention from rural East Anglia to Africa in Palm Wine & Stout, a Nigerian coming of age story. A young mixed race British man, Taiye, and his mother are on a journey to Nigeria to meet Taiye’s father and trace his Nigerian ancestry. It’s…
So another 3 months have passed and despite it technically being a quiet period another 34 shows under my belt. This was supposed to be summer so it was time to brave outdoor theatre, although this year these alfresco theatre shows offered wind and rain rather than sunburn. Its also a season of increased amateur…
You have to admire the bravery of the folk at the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds. When you have the only surviving Regency playhouse in the country, the last thing you would normally do is start altering the fabric of the building, removing seats and making the auditorium into ‘theatre in the round’. Before the…
There are several things that strike you when revisiting Les Miserables as part of its 25th Anniversary production but the overriding thought is how this show has not only finally come of age but is also intrinsically linked to age and ageing. How many of those who saw the original production in those early days…
School-days are supposedly the happiest days of our lives and, for those of us who left school far too many years ago to recall, still provide some vivid memories. Despite changes in fashions and teaching practices, the same character traits still inhabit our classrooms. The bullies, the nerdy, the under-achievers, the ones lacking self confidence…
You’d have thought with public confidence in MPs at an all time low with tales of floating duck houses, employment of illegal immigrants and second home flipping, any comedy based on the political machine would seem tame in comparison. Alan Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s stage update of the classic TV series Yes, Prime Minsister, now…
After his huge hit with Hair, Galt McDermott turned his attention from the Vietnam war to the Second World War and a musical adaptation of William Saroyan’s novel The Human Comedy. It was a flop on Broadway, closing within a couple of weeks in the 1980s. A brave choice then for the Young Vic to…
Some plays are forever linked to a certain performer; others remembered for an immortal line. The Importance of Being Earnest faces a double challenge, forever associated with Dame Edith Evans and her formidable delivery of the ‘A handbag?’ line. It features in the subconscious so much that it’s almost possible to hear an audience’s intake…
We’ve all been there, sitting at a wedding reception listening to a never ending speech thanking a cast of thousands. Market research supremo Frances is now going through just that inner hell, the problem being it’s her brand new husband making the speech. If That’s All There Is follows a surreal journey of the wedding…
An unusual start but let me first declare a tinted view for this production. As someone who was injured in an IRA attack, any play that examines the Troubles was going to touch a raw nerve. Richard Bean’s new play, The Big Fellah, spans nearly 40 years of the American-Irish relationship with the IRA –…
Time to hug a blogger? It has been an interesting couple of weeks for theatre bloggers. A few months ago, spurred on by some healthy debate about regional arts coverage, the Guardian Stage blog started an equally vigorous discussion on the rise of regional theatre bloggers. In a shameless piece of name dropping, I am…
While for a time musical theatre went through the ‘bigger is better’ phase, recent productions have shown that small can be equally beautiful. Playing at the tiny Union Theatre in Southwark, The Remains of The Day turns out to be a charming musical piece. Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of English country house repressed emotions, immortalised in…
It’s a brave move to stage a piece of aerial circus work outside in September. A last minute change, from the New Wolsey Theatre stage to outside on their terrace, adds an element of risk to Ockham’s Razor’s The Mill. This being a show you wouldn’t want to perform in the wind or rain, seeing…
Comedy partnerships that last a quarter of a century are few and far between but, for Sue Ryding and Maggie Fox, their comedic duo Lip Service is still going strong after 25 years. Lip Service Best Bits, a celebration of some of their finest shows is the theatrical equivalent of a TV clip show, quickfire…
As the recent productions of Spring Storm and Beyond The Horizon show, first works by well known authors often give a fascinating insight into how a writers own distinctive voices developed. The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds production of Michael Frayn’s first published play, The Two Of Us, also shows a writer finding his voice for the stage, but unlike…
It has been something of a year for long overdue UK premiers of work by classic American authors. The National has had a huge hit with Tennessee Williams’ Spring Storm and now we get a rare premiere of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Their version of State Fair was written for the big screen and…
The Bard has been a bit like buses lately, a glut of Hamlets (Tennant, Law, Simms and Kinnear) followed by a rush of King Lears. Sir Ian Mckellen gave us his Lear a couple of years ago, Sir Derek Jacobi is about to play the role at the Donmar and currently at the RSC Greg…
The theatre summer school model is always going to be a challenge, rehearsing and staging a full blown musical in just two weeks. Now in its eighth year, the Spa Pavilion Felixstowe’s Summer Youth Project is one of the region’s most established projects. This year turning its attention to the stage adaptation of the 1980s…
A three hour plus play spanning the 1960s to the 2520s is never going to be easy work, and while Earthquakes in London is not perfect it gets pretty darn close. It ia brave, epic and full of theatrical invention. Mike Bartlett has crafted a grand saga that sweeps across the years but also manages…
A few years ago I received my first ‘hate mail’ following a newspaper review where I suggested that a play may have needed more rehearsal times. A fellow audience member disagreed strongly with my verdict, as they are entitled to, and was quite vocal in telling me what she thought of me. Now that things…
Cole Porter’s classic Kiss Me Kate is a bit like a vintage wine, despite its age it still feels as fresh and hilarious today. It may have been written in 1948 but is still ranks as one of Porter’s finest works. It is also deceptively complex, despite the superficial light and frothy appearance. The lyrics…
So the London love affair with Stephen Sondheim continues, with a gloriously ravishing prom dedicated to the Maestro. Tickets were snapped up within a couple of hours of going on sale and queues for day prom tickets began in the early hours of the morning so there was a huge sense of anticipation in the…
Life is bleak in the desolate farm house in rural Ireland, its cold, its damp and for Maureen and her mother Mag, any glimpse of happiness is one to be grabbed. The only problem is both are too busy fighting the other to notice. Martin McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane is receiving a much overdue…
At once both classical and immediate, Moira Buffini’s new play, Welcome To Thebes, is a shining example of what the National Theatre does best. The fact that this epic play, with a large cast and impressive staging features as part of the £10 Travelex season, also show what can be done with an imaginative take…
There’s something ‘State of The Nation’ like about Henry V, the rousing speeches, the overtly patriotic call to arms, and the distillation of what actually it is to be British. It makes it one of Shakespeare’s most adaptable and accessible plays. Perhaps it also says much about the British psyche, with audiences willing to brave…
Bigger is not always better. Back in the 1980s Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects Of Love grew into a major, technology packed, mega musical at the Prince of Wales. Perhaps it was a symptom of the time when helicopters, falling chandeliers and trains were the in fashion of musical theatre. Although having a successful run and…
Danton’s Death has a reputation for being long, wordy, and not easily accessible unless you are up-to-speed on the political backdrop of the French Revolution. Yet it seems to be a perennial favourite with the National Theatre, now staging their third production of Georg Büchner epic. With the Donmar’s Michael Grandage making his NT directorial…
Unplanned trips to free performances can be a hit and miss affair but in this case proves worth taking a chance. As part of the National Theatre’s Watch This Space Festival, acrobatic dance company Mimbre have taken up a week’s residence in the outdoor Theatre Square. Sprung is one of a number of pieces the…
One man, a bare stage and 20 minutes. A challenge for any author to manage to convey a coherent story under this extremes but even more challenging when you are also the actor. So one has to admire Mark Ravenhill for attempting just this with his monologue The Experiment. This is one of those performances…
In their first full scale musical, Traflagar Studios are giving Wolfboy, a hit from last years’ Edinburgh fringe its West End debut. Though given the backing track is pre recorded you do wonder if the Musicians Union would agree this is a full scale musical. It’s a dark, disturbing piece, but then again any show…
There is always a danger when a show’s publicity machine has ramped up the hype to such a level that expectations will not be met. Ghost Stories advertising material boldly carries a health warning about the show’s extreme terror and advises those of a nervous disposition to stay away. This pre-show tension is further enhanced…
There’s a marked contrast between last week’s offering as part of the new Wolsey Theatre’s Open season and this. Last week Gallery Players offered a moving contemporary musical Rent, while this week Appeal Theatre company head back to the 1950s for the classic The Pyjama Game. Famously filmed with Dorris Day and recently revived on…
Much has been made of the fact that The Late Middle Classes is indeed late coming into the West End, having been bumped first time around in favour of Boyband The Musical (anyone actually admit to remembering that show?). Does it deserve a West End run – well possibly although this production does make a…
A good measure of the success of any Shakespeare production is a glance around the auditorium to watch the faces of any children in the audience. This A Midsummer Night’s Dream had the rapt attention from all ages from small children to more senior members of the audience. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre touring version of The…
Over the years Gallery Players have never been afraid of tackling challenging pieces but even then tackling Jonathan Larson’s rock musical Rent was an ambitious leap. Thankfully it’s a leap worth taking and turns out to be a highlight of the theatrical year. Larson’s update on La Boheme follows a year in the life of…
A sense of belonging is a powerful driving force and is at the heart of Eastern Angles latest site specific production Bentwater Roads. The company the ‘Hush House’ on the former cold war Bentwaters air base, a building that was used to test engines on A10 tank buster planes. It proves to be a wonderful…
With no previews, no press night, and no charge for tickets, the Young Vic and Headlong’s co production of Elektra was intriguing. As this was free would it be a cheap and cheerful production? No, in fact it turns out to be a fully realised, visually impressive and beautifully acted production worthy of a long…
Well another 3 months have passed so time to round up the second quarter of 2010 and the best and worst shows I’ve seen during those months. It was 43 shows seen over the three months, a total boosted by a couple of festivals; the outstanding High Tide Festival and the eclectic Pulse Fringe. As…
It was George Washington’s favourite play and possibly the first Broadway Musical so The Poor Soldier comes with a strong pedigree, so why is this possibly the first professional production in a couple of hundred years? Presented as part of the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds’ Restoring The Repertoire initiative to resurrect classics of Georgian…
Having never seen the film it is based upon it is impossible to say how the stage version compares but as the only authorised adaptation of one of Ingmar Bergman’s films, Through A Glass Darkly holds a unique place in theatrical history. Now receiving its World Premiere at the Almeida Theatre, Jenny Worton’s adaptation brings…
It’s apparently taken 16 years since her last performance there for the Norwich Playhouse to ask Maria Friedman back to perform again, but it is worth the wait as she delights the audience with a combination of her one woman cabaret shows. The West End and Broadway star has won acclaim for her solo shows…
Having already been awed by Laurie Sansom’s production of Spring Storm, it’s pair, Beyond The Horizon, had high expectations to live up to. This early Eugene O’Neill however more than comfortably steps up to the mark, although comfortable viewing it is not. O’Neill was never one to cast a rosy tint over life and Beyond…
After watching or should that be enduring Paradise Found there is one question that just screams at you; WHY? On paper it all looks so good, take Broadway Directing Royalty Hal Prince and Susan Stroman; add in some Broadway musical theatre legends and stage the show at the hit factory that is the Menier and…
58 shows, 14 venues, over 17 days – Ipswich’s Pulse Fringe Festival 2010 was, as always, an eclectic mix of shows, some good, some bad and some indifferent. That’s what festivals are for, venues and audiences alike take a risk, some work and some don’t. Some are work in progress that need, and value, the…
The dispossessed spirits of Hinge and Bracket have crossed the Severn Bridge into Wales and the result is a drug fuelled, piano toting, cardy wearing example of care in the community gone horribly wrong! Sue is a (wo)man on the edge and in taking to her piano she takes us on an hour long musical…
A National Theatre of Greece and Cyprus Theatre Organisation production in association with British Theatre company Imitating the dog performed in French – confused? Tales from the Bar of Lost Souls is visually impressive but somewhat confusing. Using a mix of film, mime and a French soundtrack to follow the life of a dying man…
If you go down to the woods, sorry basement of the Spiral Car Park, you’re in for a big surprise. Walking down the deserted underground car park at night howls of wolves echo through the lot and strange faces peer through fire escape doors. On arrival in the deepest section of the car park some…
What are you selling, who needs it and why? That’s the secret to business success according to one of the characters in Rain From A Dry Sky, a rehearsed reading as part of the Pulse Fringe Festival. It’s a question that should be posed to the production as well though, as it’s not clear what…
Ok, so I’ve long waited for a theatre to be brave enough to stage the whole August Wilson play cycle, so was thankful that the Young Vic have staged one of the ten plays. Joe Turner’s Come And Gone, the second of his decade-by-decade plays looking at black American life, is set in a 1911…
There is an interesting letter in tonight’s Evening Standard bemoaning the fact that recent visits to the Donmar Warehouse have resembled “John Lewis on a Wednesday Afternoon”. The author also notes “Yes it’s great to have mailing lists so the oldies can fill their time with theatre visits booked months in advance, which means financial…
Dec 8 1980, a date Beatles fans will never forget – the day Mark Chapman shoots John Lennon in New York. There have been countless books, dramatisations and conspiracy theories over what drove Chapman to kill Lennon but Richard Hurford’s new play Catcher takes us back a few hours to Chapman’s hotel bedroom and his…
Well it’s a first for me, a Christian comedy sketch show on the Ten Commandments –the Pulse Fringe Festival certainly offers a variety! Performed by the group Four Monks and A Nun (though strangely only performed by three ‘monks’ and a ‘nun’). Yazz Fetto, Kevin Moore, Shaninga and Helen Marasha take us on a comic…
When at the end of a show all you can hear is a minute of audience quietly sobbing you know you’ve just watched something special. Everything Must Go or The Voluntary Attempt to Overcome Unnecessary Obstacles is a deeply personal, deeply moving and utterly gripping examination of a father and daughters love. Through a seamless…
It is always a dilemma how to review a work in progress, especially one in the early stages of development. You can’t really critique the staging or performances and the script you hear now is likely to change considerably by the time the production process is completed. It is with this dilemma in mind that…
Three playwrights penning one play could easily be a recipe for a muddled disaster but in True Love Waits Evan Pacey, Kenneth Emson and Marcelo Dos Santos create three interwoven monologues that gel perfectly. Unseen Daniel White, the ‘corporate killer’ is on death row in Atlanta. Three women pen pals are writing to him for…
There are occasional moments when reviewing theatre when a production just astounds you with its ability to convey the rawest of human emotions. Sus is one such production. In a current short tour prior to a run at the Young Vic Barrie Keeffe’s 2008 play receives a timely and powerful revival. Set on election night…
Solo plays seem to be a developing theme through this years’ Pulse Fringe Festival. It’s an encouraging sign that writers are exploring the potential of small scale theatre. Let’s start with a confession, I have never heard of Roger Deakin or his novel Waterlog, so in some respects it was starting from a step back…
Located about 21 miles of St Davids Head in West Wales is The Smalls Lighthouse. This remote outpost was to cause a change in policy that impacted all lighthouses until the recent remote operation made lighthouse keepers redundant. After events here, lighthouses would now require at least three staff. The reason for this rule change…
Arriving at the Ipswich Council Chamber audience members are handed a white forensic suit to wear and a pair of paint covered goggles. So Reykjavik isn’t going to be your traditional theatre experience. Nor is it a play about the banking crisis or Eyjafjallajokull, but a powerful and emotional exploration of love and memory. This…
Sitting in the lofty height of the back of the Olivier Circle for London Assurance a Sondheim song kept running though my head. ‘A weekend in the country’ could have easily been written about this period romp. In its first major revival for many a year, Nick Hytner has called on some of the National…
If you think you’ve seen all of Tennessee Williams’ work think again. 27 years after the author’s death the National Theatre stages the London transfer of Northampton Royal & Derngate’s European Premiere of Spring Storm. The play, written in 1937 lay forgotten in papers until its rediscovery in the 1990s but this is the first…
Well after a few hours sleep I haven’t calmed down. Where to start? Well just because you can doesn’t mean you should. This offensive, obscene and badly conceived piece ranks as the worst show I’ve ever endured. Last night’s second Pulse Fringe offering was the excruciating debacle Sex Idiot by Bryony Kimmings, billed as a…
Now under new management, champions of new writing Paines Plough are presenting a series of shows around the country asking local writers to examine their local environment. For the Ipswich leg of Come To Where I’m From we are treated to four short views on life in East Anglia. Perhaps worryingly for the East of…
A mad dash across town for the second show in this year’s Pulse Fringe Festival. The New Wolsey Theatre has been exploring the fusion of Circus and Theatre to create a new physical theatre style. Using the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice the team have created a multimedia 30 minute spectacle that holds attention throughout….
Well I’m confused. When is a play not a play? For me a basic requirement is some form of dramatic progression or tension. For the opening show in this year’s Pulse Fringe Festival we are offered a rehearsed reading of The Siege (although we are told in the introduction that it is now called Bunny)….
The weather may be telling a different story, but with festival season upon us summer must be finally here. Here in (what will hopefully remain) sunny Suffolk we are gaining a reputation for our festivals. The long established Aldeburgh Festival has been joined by the Bury St Edmunds, High Tide, Latitude, Harvest at Jimmy’s and…
So should I stop going to the theatre? If I do go should I limit myself to booking a restricted view seat at the back of the theatre? Why am I asking? Well I’m 6’2 tall and from the comments I’ve started receiving from fellow audience members it seems this is far too tall to…
One of the joys of drama is that it can be both therapeutic and educational. In Between The Cracks elements of both are there; a collaboration between The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds and Suffolk Mind and shaped by those with experience of Borderline Personality Disorder. Given the potential it is therefore a shame that…
Theatre is in many ways like cooking; bring a range of disparate ingredients together to create something sublime. Miss one ingredient out or use an inferior ingredient and the result suffers. It’s a analogy that holds true for Up On The Roof, the 1987 ‘musical’ currently being revived at The New Wolsey. The recipe looks,…
With the televised leader’s debates currently generating huge public interest, it is an interesting time to examine the relationship between the state and television news. How is journalistic freedom compromised if you find yourself working for a state controlled television station? That’s the starting premise of Serge Cartwright’s debut play at the HighTide Festival. Drawing…
Post apocalyptic drama has been a staple for many writers over the years but Beth Steel’s stunning debut play Ditch can claim space among the best of them. Some never explained catastrophe (global warming?) has befallen civilisation with most of the country left under water. The Government has collapsed and a group of surviors have taken…
It’s an inspired piece of casting. Cast a son of Birmingham who made his name playing a much loved TV character in the 70s and 80s to play an equally loved Birmingham born TV comic and actor of the 50s and 60s. Paul Henry may have become a household name playing Benny in Crossroads (the…
It was the second night in a row for Jacobean plays and not a situation that was approached with whole hearted joy. When the news that it was a complex story spread over 3 hours the heart sank even further. Thomas Middleton’s work is perhaps less well known than the work of his contemporaries but…
So a moral dilemma, young people are the future of theatre and so any production that manages to get twenty 15-20yr olds onstage in a Restoration comedy should be applauded. What to do then when the production just fails to work? Give an honest review that reflects my opinion or make allowances based (patronisingly?) on…
Recent productions from Graeae have been somewhat a hit and miss affair. Flower Girls had dramatic potential that was lost in a confusing production while last year’s Snow White never quite hit the mark. Thankfully with Signs of a Star Shaped Diva, Graeae have returned to top form. In this comic and moving piece we…
There is a lot of history associated with Hair, back in 1968 it was the first West End production to feature full frontal nudity, the first mixed race musical and certainly the first to include a song entitled Sodomy. Now revived at the Gielgud, the show is once again making history, importing the entire Broadway…
There are some shows you just have to shrug your shoulders on and just admit they are not for you. Sadly for me The New Wolsey Young Companies latest offering Woyzeck falls into that catergory. While you have to admire the enthusiasm and courage to try something different, the sum of the parts just didn’t…
Some ideas are just doomed to failure from the outset and thankfully West Yorkshire Playhouse have scrapped their idea to allow audience members to use Twitter from some seats during performances. While there is much debate on how to draw in new audiences are we really so addicted to our mobile devices that we cant…
In 2000, the normally secretive world of the Russian Submarine fleet found itself the centre of the world’s media attention. Following an explosion in one of its torpedoes, the Russian Submarine Kursk sunk to the bottom of the Barents Sea with the loss of all 118 crew. The chilling fact that many survived the initial…
Before Mamma Mia became a global smash, another musical penned by ABBA’s Bjorn and Benny was winning fans. Kristina från Duvemåla started life in 1995, becoming a huge Scandinavian hit. In the intervening years the show also gained a large loyal following of English fans who have, until now, had to console themselves with the…
A quartet of new writing, a first round of a competition, and a new theatre to stage them in …so something of night of firsts here. The Sitcom Mission at the New Diorama Theatre is an intriguing idea – a competition that attracted over 500 entries to write a brand new sitcom. The shortlisted 16…
An espionage thriller that starts off at a church fete with a cross dressed fortune teller is always going to be a bit of a surreal evening and The Ministry of Fear – a stage adaptation of Graeme Greene’s novel by Theatre Alibi does take some unexpected turns. Set in the Second World War it’s a…
So Love Never Dies won’t be heading to Broadway this November after all. Really Useful have announced that the production will be delayed until ‘Spring 2011’ on medical orders. http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/27792/love-never-dies-delays-broadway-run-until Given what can only be at best described as ‘mixed’ reviews, it is perhaps an opportunity for the creative team to go back to the…
It’s one of the most hotly anticipated shows in years, has received just as much coverage for the negative reviews online as for the show itself and has split critics down the middle. Andrew Lloyd Webber himself has gone on record to say that people should wait a month before seeing a new musical so…
Before Northern Rock, RBS and the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the financial markets were shocked by the 2001 collapse of Enron, the golden boy of the USA Energy Market. The rise and the spectacular fall of Enron has now been turned into one of the hottest tickets in town in a new play by Lucy…
The Jekyll and Hyde tale is well known, a monster transformed out from a well respected individual – and an apt way to start this review of European Arts Company and Rhonda Cynon Taf Theatres touring production. What the company manage to do is turn a classic tale into a monster creation all of its…
So the first quarter of the year has already been and gone and its 20 shows down. Some I’ve sat through some good, some average and some just darn right bad theatre in the last three months. So time to hand out both the bouquets and the brickbats, for the best and the worst, of…
Okay – in this day and age of open and honest communication I need to declare an interest in this subject. Having spent many a happy year working in various box offices, it’s a subject close to my heart. This week The Society of London Theatre has just published findings showing that, since 2003, online…
When first produced Alan Bennett’s Enjoy was a rare flop. It marched back into the West End last year with a record breaking advance but still received what can best be described as ‘mixed’ reviews from the National Press. Many of the critics seemed to take issue with the fact that for them this wasn’t…
Gallery Players have long had a tradition of presenting new work and with Adam Gwon’s musical Ordinary Days they manage to trump the National Theatre. Adam Gwon is one of America’s up and coming musical composers and if this piece is anything to go by is surely a front runner to succeed Stephen Sondheim when…
Its 3am in the morning and two middle aged work colleagues have stumbled into bed together in a small, cramped New York apartment. Diner cook Johnny has fallen in love with waitress Frankie but she is more cautious, not even sure she wants to see him again. As dawn slowly breaks will their love blossom…
Today sees the birthday of the greatest musical theatre composer of his time. Over the years he was redefined the landscape of Broadway and the West End and has reinvented the genre. His songs have become instant classics and his scores admired by those outside of theatre. This year he is being celebrated by shows…
Why is it that I now seem to remember a production or venue more for the fellow audience members than for any artistic endeavours onstage? Now audience etiquette does evolve and bad behaviour is by no means limited to theatres – just don’t get me started on cinema audiences but I do wonder why some…
There are not many Shakespeare plays I haven’t seen over the years but for some reason Measure for Measure has escaped me – until now that is. In his first Shakespearian production as Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre, Michael Attenborough tackles what is seen as one of The Bard’s ‘problem plays’. It may be…
Like many I studied Cider With Rosie at High School and, while the basic premise sticks in my mind, it is with shame I have to admit I haven’t picked up the book since. Now having seen the marvellous Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds production I am inspired to dig out a copy and re-read…
There are some shows that should just be put down to experience and never spoken of again – Forever In Your Debt is one of those shows – we shall mention it here but lets never speak of it again. It’s hard to describe exactly what Forever In Your Debt is or, to be precise,…
In his latest blog for The Stage, Mark Shenton discusses the future of Theatre Critics. Now having reviewed for the local press this is a subject close to my heart. Now I know that in the views of some publishers ‘the arts’ are lurking on their priority list somewhere just below WI cake sales and…
So Andrew Lloyd Webber isn’t happy that people have been blogging about Love Never Dies before it officially opens tonight. Given that punters have been paying up to £90 for ‘premium’ seating (or even more if booked via a ticket agency) and that his Lordship states the show is a work in progress what did…
For only the 2nd time in their history, Eastern Angles have staged an ‘off the shelf’ play instead of one especially commissioned for them and it turns out to be a poor decision. Instead of a locally inspired play we are transported to a Greek island and a widow’s journey back to her birthplace. On…
An oversight I know but lets start with a confession – I have never seen Sweet Charity on stage or on film. I blame having to light a rendition of Rhythm Of Life at college that left me in a cold sweat. So it was into the dark at the Chocolate Factory for their latest…
Well theatre professionals see Macbeth as a cursed play so its brave of the RSC to stage a new sequel of the dreaded Scottish Play. It turns out however to be a brave and bold move, in David Griegs’ epic Dunsinane they have found a play that not only adds something to the Bards original…
There is often a suspicion that there is more interesting drama backstage than onstage in many productions and in Michael Fryan’s classic comedy Noises Off the backstage drama is certainly more watchable than the terrible production of ‘Nothing On’ that the company are desperately trying to tour to the poor unsuspecting theatre going public.For anyone…
It’s always good to support young, up and coming, writers and so its a trip to the National to support some whipper snapper called Stephen Sondheim! Seriously though its hard to believe that the maestro is 80 years old this year and shows no signs of retiring. There are few people that can truly be…
The nemonic Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is ingraned into the minds of any music student but in Tom Stoppards collaboration with Andre Preven the phrase takes on a wider metaphor. A play for actors and orchestra sees a full size symphony orchestra fill the stage while two political prisoners are ‘imprisoned’ in a mental…
It sounds like a made up event – Hans Christian Andersen arrives as an unexpected guest at Charles Dickens’ Kent home but this isn’t one of those ‘6 people you invite to your dinner party’ fantasies, it actually happened. Andersen’s English – Out of Joint Theatre Company’s latest touring production focuses on this unlikely meeting…
There is always a danger in adapting classic novels for the stage that the audience will have such a strong vision of the novel in their mind that any stage adaptation will fail to live up to that image. When the novel has been filmed on numerous occasions the problem is compounded. It is against…
Ok – just to protect me from Sam Jackson’s lawyers let me say from the outset this review is not linked or authorised by anyone connected with The Lord of The Rings – better to be safe than sorry. Given the epic scale of the books and the subsequent films how do you condense these…
Gavin Robertson has created a whole new theatrical genre – geek theatre. Outside of a Sci Fi Convention never has there been a auditorium buzzing with comments about the obelisk on stage during the preset being of the wrong proportions. Its one of those shows – if you spend far to many hours in front…
There are some moments in theatre when you just have to take a chance. A £10 ticket offer on Facebook for top price seats was just one of the moments. A family show by the RSC at the end of January not a must see but reviews outstanding and a bargain ticket so why not….
A new Alan Bennett play for the National Theatre is always guaranteed to get bums on seats and The Habit of Art is no exception – all performances sold out shortly after going on sale. So is this likely to be another History Boys? Unlikely but that doesnt mean its bad, Bennet has to have…
Darth Vader does Tennessee Williams screamed the headlines as the sell out Broadway all black production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof hit London. And yes as soon as James Earl Jones opens his mouth it is clear the voice of the Sith Lord has indeed landed, but that’s were any resemblance to Star…
For those whose only theatre experience in Southwark entails just The Globe or Chocolate Factory should head to the arches under London Bridge Station and The Southwark Playhouse. Sheridan’s Rivals is not an immediate choice for a sell out show on a cold Wed January evening but perhaps thanks to a certain Celia Imrie being…
As one of the few people on the planet who has never seen the Hitchcock film version of Rope this was one with no preconceived expectations. The intimate space of the Almeida Theatre in Islington has been transformed for this production into ‘theatre in the round’ – well more octagonal than round but you get…