REVIEWS Archives - Page 131 of 565

10Feb

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Madama Butterfly – Empire Theatre

Ellen Kent’s current revival of her original production adds layers of tone and colour to further enhance this sensitive and moving portrayal of Puccini’s devastating tragedy about a young geisha who falls in love with an American naval officer. Marriage broker Goro (Ruslan Pacatovici) shows US naval lieutenant Pinkerton (Davit Sumbadze) around the home he will share with his bride-to-be in Nagasaki, although American Consul Sharpless (Iurie Gisca) warns him of the tragic consequences that may follow. The Butterfly duly lands in the form of young Japanese girl Cio-Cio-San (Elena Dee) supported by maid Suzuki (Yelyzaveta Bielous), and they are married by the Commissioner (Vitalii Cebotari). Her love makes her willing to sacrifice everything which sees her disowned by her uncle, a Bonze (...

10Feb

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

The Years – Harold Pinter Theatre

This is a very engrossing and imaginative dramatisation of Annie Emaux's partly autobiographical book. It charts the progress of a woman's life chronologically from 1941 to 2006. The woman is unnamed, as are all the men and women that she comes into contact with. The play uses five actresses of different ages to sequentially play the different periods of her life as she experiences childhood, adolescence, early sexual encounters, including a rather horrific abortion, and then moves through marriage, motherhood and divorce. The changing social mores, political events, technological changes and the evolving consumer society of those 80 years are the accompaniment to the changes in her own life. The Years was formerly presented at the Almeida Theatre to great critical acclaim. The stagi...

8Feb

By Katy GilroyNo Comments

North West

Beyond the Barricade – Floral Pavilion

There’s nothing like quite the magic of the musicals to brighten up a cold and grey Friday in February, and when the UK tour of Beyond the Barricade stopped off in New Brighton, it was set to be a fantastic evening. The UK’s leading musical theatre concert tour, which has been running since 1999, is usually made up of Andy Reiss, Katie Leeming, Sarah Ryan and David Fawcett – but with David unwell, the group had called upon theatre legend Norman Bowman to step in. As the name suggests, there is a strong Les Misérables theme to the show; all four group members, and Norman too, have played principal roles in the mind blowing musical based on Victor Hugo’s heart wrenching story. Beyond the Barricade opened with a Les Mis number, sung by the quartet, before diving into a world of both cla...

8Feb

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Heaven – Southwark Playhouse

Of all the events in the social calendar, there are few with such potential to cause rifts, drama, and an onslaught of confusing emotions as a family wedding. In Eugene O’Brien’s Heaven, it’s this event that offers us a lens through which to observe the floundering marriage of long-time spouses Mal (Andrew Bennett) and Mairead (Janet Moran). While both characters are featured throughout, we never see them interact, instead hearing their differing accounts of Mairead’s sister’s wedding through a series of alternating monologues in which both characters speak candidly to the audience. As well as painting a colourful picture of the wedding, dancefloor scraps and dodgy speeches included, Mairead and Mal give the audience highly personal and often vulnerable insights into their lives and ...

8Feb

By Stephanie WiswallNo Comments

North West

Exposed – Hope Street Theatre

Exposed (written, produced and performed by Laura Tellwright and wonderfully directed by Faye Caddick) is a painful but powerful performance which documents the ups and downs of life through the depths of grief. Don't be fooled into thinking this performance is going to be depressing and morose. Although, yes, you do need tissues in parts, this story really does have you crying, laughing and crying laughing. Very rarely do I see an audience so captivated, entranced and mesmerized. Yes, all similar words but I feel it needs to be shown just what an amazing performance this really is. You feel every emotion, you understand those emotions, you can relate with what is happening on stage, from the raw grief to the comedic take on dating, therapy and sometimes grief itself. By the e...

8Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Shellshocked – Leeds Playhouse

When a shellshocked army veteran walks into an artist’s studio it starts a dark game of cat and mouse that ends with a really neat twist. Wesley has survived the horrors of World War II and desperate for work as he recovers from his PTSD he seeks a job with local artist Mr Lupine, who seems determined to humiliate his wannabe apprentice at every turn. But just much abuse can damaged hero Wesley take? Philip Stokes directs his own words, setting his compelling two hander that has echoes of Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth in his native Leeds. Over a tense 70 minutes he offers a mediation on the nature of war, loss, honour and what it takes to be a great artist rather than a mediocrity like Lupine. Lee Bainbridge takes a break from his day job as the Playhouse’s Building Manager to pl...

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake – Birmingham Hippodrome

8Feb

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake – Birmingham Hippodrome

This elegant old bird glides into the Hippodrome after swooping across the world for nearly thirty years and proves itself to be in turns vibrant engaging, compelling and comic. Matthew Bourne first envisioned and delivered his barn-storming creation to the world back in 1995 way before most of the cygnets in tonight’s performance were even hatched and it maintains and sustains its artistic integrity, vision and panache without a single feather out of place. Bourne has given the world something stunningly unique and intelligent which remixes the familiar tropes and tunes of the Tchaikovsky ballet rearranges, reimagines and reupholsters them in a breathtakingly new, yet recognisable, manner using the swan imagery as a metaphor for our young princess’s sexual awakening coupled with a thri...

Murder on The Orient Express – Sheffield Lyceum

6Feb

By Tracey BellNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Murder on The Orient Express – Sheffield Lyceum

Trains, tension and covered tracks! As Agatha Christie’s 1934, now famous novel steamed into the Sheffield Lyceum this week and it’s all aboard the Orient Express. Adapted by Ken Ludwig for the stage, this is the premier UK tour after its US launch in 2017. Directed by Lucy Bailey we travel with Christie’s famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot on the luxurious Orient Express in the Winter of 1934, as he makes his way back to England. The journey is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift and an American Tycoon is found violently murdered in his cabin, with the door locked from the inside. A myriad of suspects happen to adorn the first class carriages. Using his ‘little grey cells’ and forensic evidence, Poirot must solve his most difficult crime but, there is more at stake than just the ...

6Feb

By Alison BainesNo Comments

North West

Here You Come Again – Opera House

Here You Come Again… yes, it is indeed another musical featuring the hit songs of country icon Dolly Parton. If it wasn’t enough to bring Dolly’s movie, 9 to 5, to the stage, here’s another Dolly musical to wet your whistle. If you’re expecting a musical about Dolly’s life and music, then you may be thoroughly disappointed. Instead, the plot takes us back to a time that none of us want to re-live… the COVID-19 pandemic. Kevin, played by Steven Webb, finds himself on the wrong side of 40, heart-broken, living back at home in the attic of his parent’s house, unemployed and in a bit of a ‘p-hole’ (that’s a pity hole for those who have not yet seen the show). Just when things hit rock bottom for Kevin, the queen of country herself, and Kevin’s idol, appears to show him the way. Who bette...

5Feb

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

Vanya Is Alive – Omnibus Theatre

Vanya is alive is a unique play, telling the story of political censorship and the realities of war in Russia today. In its current form, it is calling out for a more complete staging, with moments of excellence not translating into a production that fully explores its own potential. The play focuses on Alya, whose son Vanya is captured and killed in the war, and her journey of political awakening that follows this. This tragedy is explored through a central conceit, namely that in Alya's society, the sentence that began this paragraph is not permissible, indeed it doesn't even exist. Instead, Aliya is told that her son is "absolutely free". In this way characters speak and emote through antonyms. It is an interesting idea, and at times can be incredibly moving. We are told how Alya ...