REVIEWS Archives - Page 442 of 549

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...

Tandem Writing Collective – Traverse Theatre

4Apr

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Tandem Writing Collective – Traverse Theatre

Established, run and directed by playwrights, Amy Hawes, Jennifer Adam and Mhairi Quinn, Tandem puts on new scripts by the three writers, performed script in hand here by Debbie Cannon, Vivien Reid, Lucy Goldie, and Calum Barbour, with musical accompaniment by Aaron McGregor (who composed all the music with the exception of one piece) and Lucia Capellaro. In “Divide and Conquer” a mother-in-law and furloughed son-in-law deal with forced cohabitation during a Covid lockdown. In “Tying The Knot” (which is based on some real events), a woman hires an online ancestry website called whoami.com to find out about the family she was adopted from with disturbing results. “Heartbrain” is a monologue about life and leasing with your heart. "Swing 'Till You're Winning” follows an understudy who loc...

2Apr

By Clare ChandlerNo Comments

North West

The Oracle – The Future Yard

A building that reimagines the role of a live music venue seems the perfect setting for an arts organisation pushing the boundaries of classical music. Tonight, the collaboration is further enhanced by the contribution of South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, an artist who is redefining the parameters of his instrument. As Selaocoe explains, in South Africa mastering ‘Western’ instruments is a form of protest as you can put your culture on top. This layering of cultures, timbres and sounds is evident throughout The Oracle as pieces by Stravinsky, Rameau and Vivaldi sit alongside Selaocoe’s own compositions. An oracle is a form of divination, providing a message for the wellbeing of the community and there are moments of this programme that are sublime as it explores Afrofutur...

2Apr

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Les Misérables – The Lowry

Reviewing 'Les Misérables' is in some ways a useless task. The show is entering its thirty seventh (!) year in production and has been seen by well over seventy million (!!) people during that time. It was famously panned by the critics at the opening but has subsequently proved to be one of the most popular 'critic proof' musicals with sell out audiences all over the world, Now, Boublil and Schonberg's iconic show lands at The Lowry for six weeks having already sold virtually every ticket, once again those visitors will not be disappointed with this fresh staging of a spellbinding masterpiece. The titanic struggle between Javert (Nic Greenshields) and Jean Valjean (Dean Chisnall), set against the backdrop of post revolutionary France, culminating in the Paris Uprising of 1832, forms th...

1Apr

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Opera North: Carmen – Hull New Theatre

“Enjoy the screaming ab-dabs!”, were my opera-hating husband’s parting words as I headed for the Hull New Theatre on Thursday evening to watch Opera North’s production of Carmen. I’ve seen several of this company’s operas, in the line of duty, but never Carmen, so, blocking out hubby’s words, I vowed to watch with an open mind. Before “curtain up” an Opera North representative took to the stage to explain that there were Ukrainian and Russian cast members, who were all horrified by the current events in the Ukraine, and would we please be upstanding while the orchestra played the Ukrainian National Anthem. It was a reflective and sombre start to what turned out to be a colourful and riotous production. Set in 1830’s Seville, Spain, the opening scene featured drunken soldiers am...

Allan Stewart’s Big Big Variety Show – King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

31Mar

By Melissa JonesNo Comments

Scotland

Allan Stewart’s Big Big Variety Show – King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

Actor, singer, comedian and all-round impresario, Allan Stewart swore he would never bring his variety back to the King’s Theatre in 2020. But a lot has changed since then, in ways no one could image. We live in a world where panto runs can be cut short, which for the likes of Allan Stewart fans is a devastating world to live in, indeed. Bringing back one of Edinburgh’s best loved shows was the perfect tonic. As the curtain rises, we’re joined by the legend himself with the fantastic Andy Pickering and his orchestra. Andy Pickering’s orchestra hold the pace all evening, delivering hit after hit with prowess. Tonight’s show, is as you would expect it, filled with Easter egg surprises. After Stewart’s big opening number, we’re joined by panto legend Grant Stott, fresh from ongoing s...

Nothing in a Butterfly – Omnibus Theatre

31Mar

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

London

Nothing in a Butterfly – Omnibus Theatre

Omnibus Theatre and Dorty Mooth Theatre jointly present this play supported by the Synergy Theatre Project. The Synergy Theatre Project works with prisoners, ex-prisoners, and young people at risk of offending with a belief that theatre can be transformative and challenges the perceptions of both prisoners and society. The writer and performer Ric Renson has benefitted from this project and has previously performed in The Invitation at the Secret Theatre, and Blackout for the Synergy Project. This time Renton has turned his hand to writing this, his first play. Nothing in a Butterfly is an auto-biographical play about Renton’s own life, set in Tyneside. Renton plays himself in this hard-hitting play, leading the audience along the path of his life beginning with him almost jumping...