REVIEWS Archives - Page 181 of 339

Truus’ Children – Manchester Jewish Museum

13Sep

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Truus’ Children – Manchester Jewish Museum

Special Eyes Productions documentary tells the extraordinary story of the largely unknown Dutch resistance heroine Truus Wijsmuller (1896-1978), who managed to rescue more than 10.000 people from the hands of the Nazis in the years immediately before and during the Second World War thanks to her unprecedented perseverance, tact, and courage. Most of them were between 2 and 18 years old. This September, as part of European Days of Jewish Culture and Heritage 2022, in cooperation with Margaret and Richard Jacobi, and with the support of the Dutch Embassy in the United Kingdom, the story of a remarkable lady who did what everybody could have done, but nobody did, is being shown. This improbable story, hidden for almost 80 years, comes to life in great detail in ‘Truus’ Children’. When ...

13Sep

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Yellowman – Orange Tree Theatre

Written by Dael Orlandersmith, this beautifully written two-hander is a masterpiece in storytelling of epic proportions. Whilst incredibly simple in design, the work is also superbly complex and intricate in nature, as Orlandersmith has interwoven duologue, storytelling, and testimony to narrate, in a poetic style, the intricacies of love, hate, bigotry, loss and difference that has haunted the African-American communities for hundreds of years. ‘Yellowman’ tells the story of two childhood friends. Alma and Eugene have grown up together. Alma, a dark-skinned African American girl, with a gin-sodden mother and dreams of a life beyond the confines of their small town. Eugene is lighter skinned, mixed heritage, educated and from a wealthier background. The story is one of raw contrasts, a...

Gabriel Byrne: Walking With Ghosts – Apollo Theatre

13Sep

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Gabriel Byrne: Walking With Ghosts – Apollo Theatre

It would be fair to say that my approach to Gabriel Byrne’s show was cautious and slightly disdainful. Reading from a best-selling memoir is de rigeur for a book launch, but is it really theatre? As someone with three Irish parents (don’t ask), my blood pulses with Celtic pride, but I’m wary of romantic stereotypes, fuelled by sentimental Americans or Irish hustlers looking to make an easy buck. Walking With Ghosts brings Hollywood dazzle to London’s West End, but is this A-list glitter a symptom of celebrity mania, filling theatres with gawping fanatics? Gabriel Byrne has starred in more than 80 feature films and been directed by Ken Loach, David Cronenberg, the Coen Brothers and Wim Wenders. Those creative choices throughout his career suggest a thoughtful artist, rather than a red-c...

Twopence To Cross The Mersey – Floral Pavilion

13Sep

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Twopence To Cross The Mersey – Floral Pavilion

Adapted by Rob Fennah from Helen Forrester’s million-selling book and directed by Gareth Tudor Price, Twopence To Cross The Mersey is a period drama set in the early 1930’s during the Great Depression. Helen’s (Jenny Murphy) spendthrift father (Mark Moraghan) has been declared bankrupt forcing the family to leave behind the nannies, servants, and beautiful middle-class home in the south of England. With little more than the clothes they stand up in, the family take the train to Liverpool where they hope to rebuild their shattered lives, although mother (Lynn Francis) is plagued by other doubts, but it is not the wealthy port that used to exist as the city too has changed and fallen on harder times. With the parents looking for work, Helen is taken out of school to look after her sib...

The Importance of Being Earnest – Leeds Playhouse

13Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Importance of Being Earnest – Leeds Playhouse

With this lively revival Sir Peter Hall Director Award winner Denzel Westley-Sanderson wanted to bust the myth that Black history started with migrants coming down the Windrush’s gangplank, and instead employs wealthy Black Victorians to reinvent this eternally witty study of manners and the corrosive nature of rigid societal conventions. It works because it actually reinforces the reality that conforming to pointless social niceties only reinforces baseless prejudices, no matter your ethnicity, as love rivals the dissolute Algernon and his social climbing friend John seek the hands of two women who are blissfully unaware they aren’t who they say they are. Throw in a snobbish matriarch, a deceitful governess, a randy vicar, plus knowing servants, and you have all the elements of a clas...

Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula The Sea Witch – The Lowry, Salford

13Sep

By Brian MaddenNo Comments

North West

Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula The Sea Witch – The Lowry, Salford

Many musicals have now been inspired by Wicked - creating a spin-off of a well-known tale and flipping it on its head. Unfortunate is similar, where it takes the story of The Little Mermaid and makes Ursula (the villain) the protagonist. She is now a feminist and self-confessed ‘tough bitch’ to give the character a backstory. The musical was first performed at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has now been revamped into a full-length production. Before going into the review, I must state on press night the role of Ursula was played by Allie Dart due to cast illness. Dart was absolutely fantastic; you’d never know she was an understudy. She completely embodied Ursula and made her a wickedly likable character. And perhaps she wasn’t evil after all and just misunderstood? Anyo...

13Sep

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Rehab The Musical – Playground Theatre

Inspired by the personal experiences of writers Grant Black and Murray Lachlan Young, ‘Rehab The Musical’ is a brutally open and honest, dark comedy window into the world of addiction, the journey of recovery, and the bravery of the many different characters who check themselves into rehab. Set in 1999, at the dawning of a new millennium, this new musical tells the story of young protagonist Kid Pop (Jonny Labey), a child star and manufactured pop artist, who as they often do, gets caught up in a hedonistic world of alcohol, drugs and parting, and ends up on the front pages of the tabloid press in a compromising situation. Up in court on drugs charges, Kid Pop is sentenced to 60 days in rehab, a punishment which, for Kid Pop anyway, is seen as a walk in the park. However, as articulate...

The Glass Menagerie – Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

8Sep

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

The Glass Menagerie – Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

Thomas 'Tennessee' Williams is widely regarded as one of the great American playwrights, the quality and extent of his output in the middle of the last century ensuring that his work still continues to form a staple diet for professional and amateur theatre all over the world. The Royal Exchange have chosen his first (and most autobiographical) play to kickstart its Autumn/Winter season, and after recent upheavals and some very odd programming decisions by this Mancunian institution, it is a welcome and sparkling return to form. 'The Glass Menagerie' is famously a 'memory play' told from the flawed perspective of the narrator Tom (Joshua James), unpacking his tense relationship with Mother Amanda Wingfield (Geraldine Somerville) and sister Laura (Rhiannon Clements) as they struggle to ...

Tim Peake: My Journey into Space – Liverpool Philharmonic

7Sep

By Jenn McKeanNo Comments

North West

Tim Peake: My Journey into Space – Liverpool Philharmonic

What does a man from West Sussex have in common with Tom Cruise? The fact that his life seemed to be following the films that Cruise was starring in. There are not many people who have no idea who Tim Peake is, in this day and age, but very few probably know his story. That will soon change, as he has just released his autobiography ‘Limitless’. However, reading someone’s story is not the same as hearing them tell it, their excitement about their favourite moments and the genuine fear that they’ve experienced. Peake is no different. It was so fascinating to hear his story, in his words, spoken by him. The evening was split into two halves. The first half was about how Peake made his way to becoming an astronaut, his humble beginnings, his earlier jobs, the astronaut selection proces...

Derren Brown: Showman – The Alexandra, Birmingham

7Sep

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Derren Brown: Showman – The Alexandra, Birmingham

I promised Derren I wouldn’t tell you anything. Well, it wasn’t just me - there were about fifteen hundred of us. All sworn to secrecy which, to be fair, doesn’t allow me much scope to tell you about the show, but let’s have a bash anyway. So, Derren Brown has been beguiling, bewitching and bewildering us with brash bravado and unashamed chutzpah for over twenty years offering a self-proclaimed blend of "magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection, and showmanship” and last night at the Alex in Birmingham he certainly provided examples of all of those in equal measure. He proved himself a master of reading body language and facial ticks to an uncanny and unsettling, Sherlockian level. He sniffed out someone’s childhood accident after a few minutes of looking them over. Did he read it o...