REVIEWS Archives - Page 310 of 417

Jane Hair: The Brontes Restyled – Hope Mill Theatre

6Apr

By Brian MaddenNo Comments

North West

Jane Hair: The Brontes Restyled – Hope Mill Theatre

A salon in the village of Haworth, West Yorkshire is an unlikely location for a play to be set. However, we soon meet the stylists; Emily, Charlotte and Anne and finally it all becomes clear. This is a modern day look at the Bronte sisters written by Bradford lasses Kirsty Smith and Kat Rose-Martin. From the get go the characters are instantly likeable and have their own unique personalities. However, before going on with the review I must state on the night I watched the production the actor who plays Charlotte was isolating due to Covid-19. However, instead of cancelling the performance the ladies ploughed on and the stage manager stepped up to read the role of Charlotte, and she more than delivered. The action really starts when a post appears online from a ‘Lizzie G’ (any gue...

6Apr

By Riana HowarthNo Comments

London

The Fever Syndrome – Hampstead Theatre

Alexis Zegerman’s new play takes the form of a sitcom with heightened drama, raising thought-provoking questions about science, morality and sociology. The Myers family are united to witness their father receiving his lifetime of achievement award for his contribution towards IVF treatment. Dr Richard Myers suffers from Parkinsons disease and as his children co-habit under one roof, along with his new wife, tensions ensue as they grapple for his inheritance and as wounds of the past are reopened. The play is packed full of different topics for speculation, but perhaps the most pertinent and most interesting is the difference between parenting and raising a child and the physical ability to create new life. The set designed by Lizzie Clachan is grandiose, the interior of a three-storey h...

Anyone Can Whistle – Southwark Playhouse

6Apr

By Samantha CollettNo Comments

London

Anyone Can Whistle – Southwark Playhouse

What is a miracle? What is madness? What is normal? These are just some of the questions you’ll be thinking as you tap your foot to Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ 1964 musical. But this is a musical like no others – this is as surreal as it is subversive, an off-the wall political satire that’s hugely unconventional, but all the more clever for its presentation as a song and dance show with huge layers of meaning. ‘Anyone Can Whistle’ is the story of a corrupt Mayoress, Cora Hoover Hooper (Alex Young), who along with her crack team of adulating men (a greedy but brilliant businessman, the town treasurer and the chief of police) devise a plan to make their bankrupt town money. The plan is simple: fake a miracle, this will then result in people paying pilgrimage to see the said mir...

6Apr

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Sheila’s Island – Liverpool Playhouse

It’s Bonfire night and Sheila (Tracy Collier), Denise (Abigail Thaw), Julie (Rina Fatania), and Fay (Emily Jane Kerr) are Team C in Pennine Mineral Water Ltd.’s annual outward-bound team-building weekend. Somehow, Sheila has been nominated team leader, and, using her cryptic crossword solving skills, has unwittingly stranded her team on an island in the Lake District. Our intrepid heroines find themselves manufacturing weapons from cable ties and spatulas and create a rescue flag with plastic plates and a toasting fork. Questions are asked; truths are told; dirty washing is aired. Is it possible to build an adequate night shelter with a prom dress and a sleeveless jumper? What is Julie’s husband really up to in Aldi? And why are they on this bloody team building exercise when they...

6Apr

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

SIX The Musical – Hull New Theatre

It took just 80 minutes on Tuesday evening, for King Henry VIII’s six wives to tell us how they really felt about their marriages to the Tudor royal. They got their chance when the musical Six came to Hull New Theatre and, boy, they didn’t hold back. In costumes to die for (no pun intended for the three wives who popped their clogs while married to the King), they burst onto the jazzily-lit stage eager to spill the royal beans, not in the language of old, but in today’s speak, thank goodness. At first, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the glorious costumes - they really were fantastic with their amazing shapes, stiffening, glitter, shoulder pads, peplums, platform boots, fishnet tights, glow-in-the-dark ruffles and, on one occasion, modern sunglasses. We all probably know the lif...

5Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

School of Rock – Leeds Grand Theatre

There can always be the danger when a classic movie turns into a stage show that you just can’t get the original star out of your mind. Well, don’t worry as there wasn’t a moment you thought of Jack Black as gifted physical comic Jake Sharp’s big voice and easy charm was perfect for broke wannabe rock god Dewey Finn who pretends to be a substitute teacher in a posh elementary school. In the absence of any teaching ability - or qualification – he focuses on his undying belief in the redemptive powers of rock and roll to form a group to take part in an adult battle of the bands. The gag is that the band is his class of privileged kids who are having their very souls sucked out of them. Step forward the kids in the band who proved to be quite the most talented group of young performe...

Coming to England – Birmingham Repertory Theatre

5Apr

By Priya GuptaNo Comments

West Midlands

Coming to England – Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Dame Floella Benjamin’s award-winning and iconic book Coming to England is brought to life in this touching stage adaptation. It's an inspirational story of ambition, tenacity, and victory. Award winning director Omar Okai has created a show full of magic, joy, hope and happiness. The children’s book is a firm favourite by many, with wonderful illustrations captivating Floella’s own journey of emigration from Trinidad to London. These illustrations are brought to life in the simplistic yet colourful use of props and set design. Such as the rows of light up houses that create the streets of 1960’s London to the cabin style beach huts that reflect Floella’s Trinidadian home. The show explores complex issues and themes of racism, overcoming adversity, and personal triumph. It is an insp...

5Apr

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Hindle Wakes – Lyceum Theatre Oldham

There are a lot of people who would shiver significantly at the thought of a dash up to Oldham (or Owdham to us natives) on a soggy cold Monday night. As a daughter of that fair mill town, I was more than happy to abandon my South Manchester residence and head up t’ th’ills to see the Lyceum’s current production of Stanley Houghton’s Hindle Wakes. Written in the first decade of the 20th Century and just prior to the First World War, this beautifully comic play, which presented one of the first powerful working- class female protagonists, was controversial, shocking and highly contentious amongst both audiences and academics when first produced. Fanny Hawthorn, spirited mill worker and a lass who knows her own mind, spends an illicit weekend away with the boss’s son, who happens to be...

Much Ado About Nothing (2022) – RSC, Stratford-Upon-Avon

4Apr

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

REVIEWS

Much Ado About Nothing (2022) – RSC, Stratford-Upon-Avon

Shown on BBC4 at the end of its run, this is one of Shakespeare’s funniest pieces full of delightful word play and it is often wondered whether it is the missing Love’s Labour’s Won, the latter half of a comic double bill with Love’s Labour Lost. Interpretation is key in theatre to keep it alive for new audiences and certainly there have been no holds barred with this production from director Roy Alexander Weise, indeed if there was ever an attempt to outdo Baz Luhrmann then this would be it with its rich tapestry of sci-fi staging and costume changes outdoing each preceding one to the pulsating medley of Afrobeat, reggae, funk and soul from Femi Temowo. However, as I often find with productions that focus on the sensational and hide behind the music, when you peel away the superfluous ...

4Apr

By Karen Morley-ChesworthNo Comments

North West

Swim – Theatre by the Lake

Sitting in The Studio just a few yards from Derwentwater the urge to run down to the shore and into the icy water is extreme after Liz Richardson’s performance of her play Swim, writes Karen Morley-Chesworth. This is a new version of the production performed at HOME in Manchester and at the Edinburgh Festival before the lockdowns. Originally with a cast of other performers, sharing the experiences of a group of wild swimmers, during the following couple of years, Liz revisited her work and focused on the true-life experience of her and her friend Lisa B. This one-woman performance works beautifully, distilling their intertwined story into the one voice. The setting for this production at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick is simple and effective. A chained curtain backdrop upon which the...