REVIEWS Archives - Page 229 of 548

25Feb

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

JAB – Finborough Theatre

Married for 29 years, Anne and Don think they know each other well. They dance to their favourite music, share too many bottles of wine, muddle along in their empty-nest lives. Anne is an administrator with the NHS, Don runs a niche vintage shop that makes little money, leaving Anne as the main breadwinner. It works for them - until the pandemic hits and the country goes into lockdown. As Covid ravages the world, it also shows up the cracks in the marriage. Anne continues to work long hours from home while Don has to close his shop and lazes around reading the Daily Mail and soaking up far-right conspiracy theories. It's just the flu, he insists. It will go away in a month, he says, parroting what he's read in the tabloids. Irritated by his increasing dependence on Anne, Don's sexism...

The Guildford Poltergeist – Hope Street Theatre

25Feb

By Miranda GreenNo Comments

North West

The Guildford Poltergeist – Hope Street Theatre

Where to start with this play? It’s 1965 and a dysfunctional family of Irish descent (confusingly called Starbuck - a Yorkshire name) have moved from Manchester to deepest Surrey. Following the death of their father, bright seventeen-year-old Tristan must leave school to support his violent, alcoholic mother, Kathleen, and his neuro-atypical, school-shirking sister, Joyce. They’re already outsiders but they’re just about fitting in. Until the arrival of a poltergeist, which brings them infamy and attracts the suspicion of the local community. It also brings them into contact with a paranormalist, the priest, the press and the plod. Playwright Tess Humphrey has a lot to say about, in no particular order: Catholicism, generational trauma, otherness, racism, sexism, neurodiversity, PTSD...

Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch – The Lowry

24Feb

By Alison BainesNo Comments

North West

Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch – The Lowry

Brash, bold and untold, Unfortunate is the story of (arguably) the best Disney villain ever made, Ursula the sea witch. It is the side of the classic 1989 story, The Little Mermaid, as never seen before. The original character was inspired by the triple treat drag queen Divine, so drag culture has been intertwined with the villain from the very start. This musical parody brings the character right back to its roots with an outrageously camp new story. The musical parody dives deep into what really happened all those years ago under the sea. We’re first introduced to a young Ursula Squirt, from a poor family in the depths of the ocean. We see her grow into an intellectual octo-woman and diva. Her relationship with King Triton was not as foretold; they explore their complex relationshi...

24Feb

By Katie LeicesterNo Comments

North West

Smiler – Pyramid Arts Centre

Soup Productions presented ‘Smiler’ at Warrington’s Pyramid Arts Centre written by Michael Pirks and Directed by Michael Ridd. Soup Productions is a relatively small theatre company that established itself in 2017 and has had one previous successful production of ‘Little Red’ which was performed in 2023. It is extremely rare that actors are blessed with new writings and are given the opportunities to use new material as nowadays everything is rehashed or is a reimagined versions of something that already exists. New material is so unique for actors to be given the scope to be a new character that has no stereotype and has only the characteristics from the genius’s head that it came out of. The actor has only the writers’ ideas that they can base and build the character on. The actor ...

24Feb

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Othello – Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

Director Ola Ince rendition of Shakespeare’s dark tragedy The authentic Shakespearean Othello ‘Moorish’ features as a top ranking detective police officer in the London metropolitan force, which offers up the notion that this is not your ordinary version of Othello. The opening scene introduces the characters Othello Ken Nwosu’s and Poppy Gilbert as his wife, Desdemona entwined in love a marriage vows. Shakespearean enthusiasts will recognise the familiar characters of the devious hateful Iago portrayed by Ralph Davis and Cassio played by Oli Higginson. References to police dialogue and officers switching from uniformed police, in body armour merges at times quite clumsily with the Shakespearean text, which at times feels wrong but as the sequence of events un...

24Feb

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

London

Stitches – The Hope Theatre

My 19-year-old son has a teddy, or should I say a rag that used to be a teddy; I also had a favourite teddy (shh, I’ve still got him in a drawer at home), and for most of us, it is the first possession that we learn to care for. Stitches, turns the story around, and the teddy becomes the narrator/obsessive observer of Chloe the baby, Teddy’s baby, and the story is born at Chloe’s birth. Teddy was bought as a present for Chloe, and Teddy has rejection anxiety – will Chloe want me? Am I cute enough? He needn’t have worried, Chloe immediately cuddles him and squeezes his ear - the beginning of a life journey together! Written and performed by Jonathan Blakeley, this play is an exploration of commitment, to love someone through the good times and the bad. It’s ...

Lemn Sissay – Poetry Club at the Coronet Theatre

24Feb

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Lemn Sissay – Poetry Club at the Coronet Theatre

In 2016, I shared a green room with Lemn Sissay. We were both guests on BBC 2’s Newsnight. I’d been roped in at the last minute to discuss ‘bisexual erasure’. Sissay was on the show to highlight National Poetry Day and to mark the occasion, he delivered a blistering and hypnotic performance of ‘Architecture’. It’s a poem about awesome potential, chaos and evolution. Look it up YouTube. One minute and nineteen seconds that will leave you breathless. To be honest, I was more excited about being in a room with this exceptional poet, than being on live television or getting grilled by Evan Davis. Lemn Sissay is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning one-man dynamo. He’s written collections of poetry and plays, while his memoir My Name Is Why was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. His work i...

Grieg’s Piano Concerto – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

23Feb

By Mark HumphreysNo Comments

North West

Grieg’s Piano Concerto – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

“Easy on the banjos!” warned Eric Morecambe when André Previn (or Andrew Preview) famously attempted to conduct the Grieg Piano Concerto in the classic 1971 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special. The one time I ever saw a banjo on stage with the RLPO my Facebook post quoting this zinging one-liner garnered precisely zero likes. It must be a generation thing. For this 2024 performance, Liverpool welcomed back its prodigal son and former Chief Conductor, Vasily Petrenko. Turning from the podium, orchestra poised to start, to acknowledge an errant mobile phone ringtone with a wry raise of the eyebrow, he held the audience in the palm of his hand - comic timing worthy of the much-missed double act themselves. First on the programme was Bohuslav Martinů’s La Bagarre, composed w...

23Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Hir – Park Theatre

Vomiting all over the kitchen-sink dramedy, Taylor Mac’s black comedy shakes a cynical showmanship and irreverent discursiveness into an acidic concoction that’s a good deal easier to swallow than it is to digest. Hir (pronounced ‘here’) is a tough watch. Content warnings for “strong profanity throughout, along with discussions of sex, sexuality, and descriptions and visual evidence of domestic violence, rape and drug abuse” can be found by hunting through the production’s online listing and should be heeded. As bashful as its humour is bleak, the play’s darkest scenes are also its most illuminating. Depicting a vision of the American family life metaphorically and literally set in Malvina Reynolds’ “little boxes” it is a claustrophobic environment with a set not quite big enough for its b...

23Feb

By Damian RiverolNo Comments

North West

The BFG – Theatre Porto

Disley Theatrical Productions are back with their second production, the fantastic BFG. Originally written by Roald Dahl and adapted for the stage, DTP have done an incredible job at bringing this wonderful story to life at Theatre Porto in Ellesmere Port. Directed by Phil Cross, you can see from the off how much work has gone in to bringing this classic to life, but not in any ordinary way. This version invites the audience to dive into this new world with the use of inventive lighting, shadows, puppetry, and a wonderful imagination. You feel like you’ve been completely transported into a whole other universe which is run by Giants, easily losing yourself in that world with the incredible storytelling of this company. It's Sophie’s birthday and she receives The BFG book as her birth...