REVIEWS Archives - Page 46 of 406

9Jul

By Mary FoggNo Comments

North West

The Brit Fest – Ashley Hall Showground

One for all the family, The Brit Fest is jam packed with musical legends, fun activities, creative workshops, delicious food - and all with a wonderful summertime ambience! It felt like only a short time ago that The Brit Fest, sponsored and powered by Myerson Solicitors was announced, a festival to celebrate world-class music and local communities coming together as an exciting summer festival to get in the calendar! Now those summer dates that many had been looking forward to had arrived! The 5th, 6th, 7th July 2024 would see the first The Brit Fest staged at Ashley Hall & Showground in Cheshire and only a mile away from the picturesque village of Hale. The family friendly event hosted by radio presenters Jenny Powell and Mike Toolan, had a top-class line up of acts that included ...

8Jul

By Karen Morley-ChesworthNo Comments

North West

Brassed Off – Theatre by the Lake

Music is a universal language, and it has been at the heart of many working class, Northern communities for generations. And audiences at Theatre by the Lake get the privilege this month of hearing and feeling how brass band music welded people together, gave them strength and pride. The stage adaptation of the hit film Brassed Off blasts into the Keswick theatre and touches the soul. The actors who have come together for this production, in association with the Octagon Theatre Bolton, and Stephen Joseph Theatre, are more than triple threats, they are triplet blowing brass players, who blend seamlessly in with local bans people from Penrith Town Band. The bandsmen and women give a great musical and acting performance in this production. The story of the ballot on whether to tak...

Your Lie In April – Harold Pinter Theatre

8Jul

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Your Lie In April – Harold Pinter Theatre

A musical about musicians and for everyone, the play is based on the manga by Naoshi Arakawa and operates with a clear respect for the conventions of its source material and culture of origin. With a new English book by Rinne B. Groff, music by Frank Wildhorn, and lyrics by Carly Robin Green and Tracy Miller, the story is told concisely and movingly. Jason Howland’s music arrangement and orchestration is tremendous, and the work is as much a pleasure to listen to as any musical that so highly prizes musicianship. Directed and choreographed by Nick Winston, this production has a surreal gracefulness to it as transitions between scenes and musical numbers coalesce seamlessly and lend a magical quality to every encounter between character and audience. The venue is pushed to its full ph...

6Jul

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Hedda Gabler – Bread And Roses Theatre

Out of all of Henrik Ibsen’s dramatic works, Hedda Gabler remains one of his most notorious. Featuring a supremely complex central character, it’s a realistic play that still leaves a lot up to interpretation — giving director Mya Kelln plenty to sink her teeth into in 13th Night Theatre Company’s new revival at The Bread & Roses Theatre. Set in an ambiguous time period, we follow 48 hours in the life of titular character Hedda (Eliza Cameron), a newly married woman who’s returned from a lengthy honeymoon with her academic husband Jörgen (Jack Aldridge). While navigating the boredom of her new life in a house she hates, the return of Jörgen’s academic rival — and, as it turns out, Hedda’s former romantic interest — Eilert Lövborg (Bede Hodgkinson) sets the character onto a path of m...

6Jul

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Sparks – Jack Studio Theatre

Sisterhood is complicated. Sparks, a ninety-minute play by Simon Longman does not make it any simpler. Directed by Julia Stubbs for the Upper Hand Theatre whose co-founders also star in this production, Sparks stages the reunion of two sisters separated by twelve years without contact and a lifetime of disparate experience. Lisa Minichiello plays Sarah, a young woman without any friends who lives in an apartment without a sofa, works in an office without any purpose, and goes through the first twenty minutes of the play without any lines. Emma Riches dominates the stage as Jess, Sarah’s chaotic older sister who materializes on her doorstep one night with a goldfish and a back bar. The contrast between them is extreme almost to the point of unreality and their distinguishing features ...

6Jul

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Natter – The Edge, Chorlton

My first trip out reviewing shows taking part in the Greater Manchester Fringe 2024 found me at The Edge in Chorlton to see Queerdog Theatre’s Natter. Set in 1980’s Salford, we follow the story of friends and confidantes, Helen and Linda, as they regularly meet up to watch TV, drink tea with biscuits, put the world to rights and share each other’s worries and woes. Presented very much in the vein of Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough’s classic Lancashire matriarchs, they sit head scarfed and heavily busted in front of the telly enjoying Countdown, Neighbours, The Bill and Bullseye, to name but a few. They gossip, they judge, they bathe in denial, initially avoiding the elephant in the room, the subject of Linda’s gay son, then march through with the herd as they tackle the intri...

6Jul

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Medea Gosperia – The Cockpit

I have a mild obsession with Medea, prompted by the realisation that there is not enough time to read, study and analyse The Classics, so probably wise to just focus on one banger until the coffin lid closes on my life. It was Rachel Cusk’s brilliant vision of the Euripides shocker at the Almeida which put me on this path. Kate Fleetwood’s performance and the entire production blew my mind. It moved me as a piece of theatre, but also turned me on to the text. This nouveau fevered enthusiasm led me to the 1969 Pier Paolo Pasolini film with Maria Callas, which gave me full-blown Medea mania. Medea Gosperia is presented as a ‘brand new jazz/gospel opera’ which in many ways, ticked a lot of boxes for me, but led to widespread hoots and horror when mentioned to my peers. It’s fair to s...

I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire – Southwark Playhouse

6Jul

By Zain RussellNo Comments

London

I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire – Southwark Playhouse

‘I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire’ takes audiences on a wacky ride, bringing them into the quaint and intimate setting of Southwark Playhouse Borough, which is creatively transformed to resemble a 14-year-old girl’s room. As you might have guessed, this girl is utterly obsessed with Tobey Maguire. Set in 2004, the play is drenched in nostalgia, featuring hit music from the era with songs by Britney Spears, Vanessa Carlton, Natasha Bedingfield, and Avril Lavigne. The story unfolds in Shelby's basement, which she has converted into her personal hub and shrine dedicated to her Tobey Maguire obsession. From the moment the performance begins, Tessa Albertson, playing Shelby, bursts onto the stage with infectious energy. Her portrayal vividly captures the wild infatuation and manic enthus...

3Jul

By Peter RuddickNo Comments

North West

Boyography – Social Refuge, Manchester

The marketing and pre-show announcements for Boyography promise a unique story about queer love and fluid sexuality in a “post-gay world”. The reality is a lot more commonplace. It starts promisingly. When two boys bump into each other in a school corridor something unspoken and powerful is sparked. The locker room encounter between Oliver (Isaac Radmore) and Jake (George Bellamy) feels inevitable, but Oliver’s reaction is a lot more surprising. Experience would tell an audience that the cocksure and laddish one in a relationship like this would be closeted and outwardly homophobic. Far from it. Oliver has a girlfriend, but he also happily sleeps with boys. It is just sex. After all, “bodies are bodies”. Sadly, the intensely modern idea of young men without doubt who reject la...

3Jul

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Guts! The Musical – Hull Truck Theatre

Hull Truck Theatre’s latest production, GUTS! The Musical, a world premiere, portrays the real-life struggle female fish packers at a local fish factory faced in their battle for equal pay. The stark stage setting of bare, “tiled” walls, soulless strip lighting and little else is what one imagines a processing frozen food factory to be like. The year is 1984 and the aforementioned workers are about to make and change history. Also making a bit of (theatrical) history of their own are the 57 members of the community who answered the call to bring this production to life. Space prevents me from naming them all, but what a fantastic job they each did. The factory in question, owned by a Mr Frank Fish (Andrew Clark) is based in Hull, with all the fishy business, historically, being...