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…
“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,…
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…
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…
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…
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….
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 –…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…