REVIEWS Archives - Page 378 of 417

1Jun

By Chris HughesNo Comments

South East

Giles – Brighton Fringe

The advertising material for Frédéric Blanchette’s comedy, ‘Giles’, showing as part of Brighton Fringe 2021, poses the question: How well do you know your friends? The online play seeks to explore that conundrum through the lens of a zoom date night. Directed by Marianne Badrichani, it features a cast of three: Chris Campbell as Richard, Edith Vernes as Sophie and Sam Alexander as Giles. Sophie, based in Paris, and her boyfriend Richard, located in London, meet regularly face to face via the internet. Richard has invited his best friend, Giles, to one such rendezvous much to his girlfriend’s dismay. Sophie repeatedly tells Richard that she loathes Giles which he finds incomprehensible. When Giles joins the meeting, detailing his Covid related good deeds, the reason for Sophie’s antipath...

We’ll Dance on the Ash of the Apocalypse – Brighton Fringe

1Jun

By Kiefer WilliamsNo Comments

South East

We’ll Dance on the Ash of the Apocalypse – Brighton Fringe

This one act play written and directed by Melissa-Kelly Franklin is a timely piece constructed around the environment and climate change. It tells the story of a young couple played by Maite Jauregui and Danny Horn who are living through a climate apocalypse and their discovery that the woman is pregnant. They wonder if it’s right to bring their baby into this damaged world. There is an awful lot of soul searching to be had. It’s not a bad play and it really does highlight important issues about our response to the environment but the play is also very earnest, sombre, miserable and at times quite self - conscious. There is no denying Franklin’s passion but it just didn’t work for me. Unfortunately the use of slow- no physical theatre to emphasis the change in the couple’s ...

31May

By Gemma PrinceNo Comments

South East

Clean: The Musical – Brighton Fringe

Based on the winner of Brighton Fringe 2019’s Best New Play, Clean: The Musical from Different Theatre explores the lives of a group of women in Brighton’s historic Roundhill area (or Laundry Hill) from the 1880s to today. The story begins in the present with Tasha (Holly Ray) sitting in her old family home which was once a laundry house after many years away living abroad. Tasha looks back on what life may have been like for women in the area throughout history. Throughout the musical, the present-day stories are interwoven with tales from the past, allowing the audience some reflective yet insightful moments. The split-screen editing of the characters shows that these women are connected in their experiences. From mental health and sexuality to women’s rights and grief, Clean ex...

31May

By Luke StephensonNo Comments

North West

Sleeping Beauty – M&S Bank Arena

Live theatre is back after over. A year of wanting and hoping it was amazing to be in an auditorium waiting for the curtain to rise. Sleeping Beauty at the M&S Bank auditorium until the 6th of June. The show had Gareth Gates (Les Miserable and Pop Idol), Bippo who is the comedy relief in the show, and Emma Grace Arends as Beauty amongst a small chorus. The show is approx. 2 hours long with one interval. Watching the show I felt it was rather flat, it’s opening weekend energy is meant to be high but I just felt underwhelmed. The music over shadowed the microphones so some parts of the vocals were lost. Moving on some lines were muddled up and Gareth Gates entered too early for his scene. Bippo however, rescued it well. It came to a point where it was a live rehearsal not an opening w...

No Strings Attached – King’s Head Theatre

28May

By Jessica BattisonNo Comments

London

No Strings Attached – King’s Head Theatre

“You asked ‘who are you then?’ I don’t think I know the answer to that.” The debut play by Charles Entsie marks the King’s Head Theatre’s return to live performances after 436 days. Directed by Aileen Gonsalves, the audience are exposed to, and reminded of, the lengths gay men feel they must go to hide in the closet. Sorcha Corcoran’s skeletal car structure against a concrete backdrop, set in an underground car park, brilliantly highlights the claustrophobia felt by the two men. At very different stages in their lives, they are equally lost in trying to find themselves, “tired of just surviving”. The play is riddled with their anxieties, distraught and pain, despite attempts to suppress. Utilising Gonsalves’s own method, of the audience feeling what the actor does in each moment, ...

28May

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

London

Public Domain – Vaudeville Theatre

There is a fresh breeze blowing through the world of musical theatre from the general direction of Forristal and Clarke. This very on-trend musical does not hold back in its dissection of social media, and as we emerge, bleary eyed from the latest lockdown, it is making a very relevant point. It is all too easy to reach for the smart phone, iPad or laptop to see what is going on outside your front door, when you cannot leave the house, we are sociable animals and need interaction. Hidden, lurking behind this online socialisation is a world of capitalism, where every click is monitored, every search is logged. With this in mind, ‘Public Domain’ attempts to give us a musical, collating the words of others, via Tweets, Instagram posts and You Tube videos. T...

Touching The Void – Bristol Old Vic at Home

27May

By Kiefer WilliamsNo Comments

REVIEWS

Touching The Void – Bristol Old Vic at Home

After a successful and critically acclaimed West End run, David Greig’s tense play based on Joe Simpson’s bestselling mountaineering memoir is brought to the live streaming platform by Bristol Old Vic. Touching The Void is a play about the human spirit and the need to survive under extreme and dangerous circumstances. The story is set in the perilous Peruvian Andes where climbers Joe (Josh Williams) and Simon (Angus Yellowlees) are facing the treacherous descent of the infamous Siula Grande Mountain. Greig’s lean and powerful script plays out like a nail biting thriller as we see both climbers struggle to survive not just the unforgiving weather conditions but the mountain itself. When one of the climbers slips during their descent, all bets are off as the real tension builds and ...

27May

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Here Come The Boys – London Palladium

After more than a year starved of live theatre, it is not surprising that the socially distanced and masked audience for Here Come The Boys is champing at the bit, wildly enthusiastic, and totally up for an evening of sparkling entertainment. And they certainly get that in this show. Here Come The Boys toured to sold-out theatres in 2019 and the performers are clearly as keen to get back into the swing as the audience. The four lead dancers, calling themselves the "Kings of Dance", are Strictly stars present and past Aljaž Škorjanec, Pasha Kovalev, Graziano di Prima and Robin Windsor. They are joined by Nadiya Bychkova representing the ladies, Strictly finalist Karim Zeroual as dancer and MC, and a large dance ensemble. The vibe of the show is Strictly on steroids, a dance p...

26May

By Katie LeicesterNo Comments

North West

Meet Me at Dawn – Hope Mill Theatre

“No matter how bad your heart is broken, the world doesn't stop for your grief or does it?” “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” The stunning Hope Mill Theatre opened its doors to a long-awaited theatre audience eager to get back to watching live performing arts. The Covid safety screening was efficient and slick where the front of house staff guided you through from the box office to the bar area where they had tables with sectioned screens and table service to minimise movement. British playwright, screenwriter and director Zinnie Harris’ Meet Me at Dawn was first performed at the Traverse Theatre in Scotland in 2017 at the age of 48 her plays have been translated and performed in many countries and she has directed for a number of theatres, including the Royal Shakespear...

26May

By Angela KellyNo Comments

South East

The Preacher – Brighton Fringe

‘Philospohical’, ‘existential’ and based on the ‘Biblical book of Ecclesiasticus’ are not common descriptions you would associate with a stand up comedian but these descriptions can certainly be attributed to David ‘Dave’ Davidson in his stand up performance ‘The Preacher’, performed as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival. It’s true that many of us challenged ourselves during the various lockdowns of the past year or so but performing stand up, based on a book of the bible to no live audience was certainly up there with the strangest of challenges. Adapted by Anthony Noack and now performing on line, David ‘Dave’ Davidson was one comic who chose to carry on with stand up whether there was a live audience or not. Perhaps something a Preacher may also do in times of the Bible and spea...