REVIEWS Archives - Page 83 of 409

14Mar

By Gemma PrinceNo Comments

London

Gingerline – The Grand Expedition

Immersive dining trailblazers Gingerline have returned to London with their show The Grand Expedition. The culinary journey started off as a secret project in Tottenham back in 2019 before travelling the world, visiting cities such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Seoul. The Grand Expedition is back, bigger and better than before with a full-scale re-imagining of the original story. The team takes you on an edible journey that transports you around the globe with five courses of delicious dishes, telling a story while appealing to your senses with colourful sights, sounds and tastes. As we queued up outside the secret location, the crowd was a mix of Gingerline superfans donning aeronaut-inspired costumes and immersive dining newbies. After we entered the venue, winded and ducked ...

A Most Pressing Issue – New Wimbledon Theatre

14Mar

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

A Most Pressing Issue – New Wimbledon Theatre

If you imagine a prison, it probably doesn’t strike you as a place teeming with comic potential. Add in the fact that the prison is on fire, and you’re probably visualising a very dark segment on the News at Ten rather than a comedy. But somehow, Tim Harris manages to turn this rather bleak scenario into a very funny 60-minute show in A Most Pressing Issue, playing this week at Studio at New Wimbledon Theatre. At the centre of this caper is Penton (Harris), the prison’s arrogant and sleazy warden who is desperately on the pull, and his nice-but-dim assistant Orly (Matt Williams, who also collaborated on the script). As the pair plan out how they can woo women — while also dealing with the minor inconvenience of the prison somehow catching fire — the two actors show off their brill...

14Mar

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Blue Beard – The Lyceum, Edinburgh

In the early 1400s, a French nobleman, Gilles de Rais, was found guilty of kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering children. He got away with his heinous crimes for longer than he should due to high birth rate and fear, amongst the lower classes, of retribution, should they speak up. This true story became the legend of Blue Beard and the children he murdered morphed into a series of murdered wives, whose mutilated bodies Blue Beard hid in the cellar. The fairy tale explores and warns of the perpetual fear, always in society, of abuse and cruelty forced upon the innocent and the weak. Emma Rice has reworked this famous Bartók opera into a modern-day musical, balancing fresh, boozy, party-loving female confidence against the scales of ongoing malevolence towards specific, known, w...

13Mar

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Macbeth (an undoing) – The Rose Theatre

She didn’t know what she was headed for, and when she found out what she was headed for, it was too late. Macbeths come undone. Playwright and director Zinnie Harris’s new and old work, Macbeth (an undoing) sets out to prove that what is done can in fact be undone rather than merely redone. Shakespeare’s Macbeth is arguably overdone, especially at the moment. From Ralph Fiennes to David Tennant, powerful male actors can’t take their grubby hands off it. Audiences too never seem to tire of it. It’s an enduring story, full of sound and fury, and rife with juicy monologues for actors to sink their fangs into. The juiciness of the plot even translates well into foreign adaptations and lubricates applications to very specific historical metaphors. However much of its adaptive appeal rests on wh...

Locomotive for Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit – Theatr Clwyd

13Mar

By Coral MourantNo Comments

North West

Locomotive for Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit – Theatr Clwyd

All aboard the murderous train for a fast paced, laugh a minute ride! Amateur detectives, this is your time to shine and find the culprit. With this production, the company of Pinch Punch has managed to add more fun to the “murder mystery” trope, with a slick and silly show for all the family. The detective leads the audience through a tale of murder, mayhem and… whatever you want it to be! That’s the fun of this show, it is totally dependent on the audience’s input. Whether it be choosing a character’s occupation, the train destination, or who the tragic victim may be, it’s all up to you. The actors boast that they have never (and will never again) perform this show, and they take on whatever the crowd comes up with. Even the characters themselves were forged from snippets of audience ...

Priscilla Queen of the Desert – Stockport Plaza

13Mar

By Philip EdwardsNo Comments

North West

Priscilla Queen of the Desert – Stockport Plaza

Sometimes, reviewing theatre productions can be a bit like pulling hens teeth. You sit there, you get acted at, you clap then you leave. All very nice, but you can’t say very much about what you’ve seen. Then there are the nights when you get blown away by a production. A production so good, you can’t stop saying things about it. I saw one of those tonight. By any criteria you can name, this production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was a joy from start to finish. I guess you will know the plot by now. Three drag queens schlep across Australia in an old bus, (the titular Priscilla). They encounter the sort of people who don’t take naturally to people who are different. They are despised, assaulted in the vilest way. One finds romance, one a family but they all have adventures they wo...

The London Improvathon – Wilton’s Music Hall

13Mar

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

London

The London Improvathon – Wilton’s Music Hall

After taking time to catch up on sleep and sustenance, it is comforting to reflect on what a special event the London Improvathon is. I covered the whole show but had breaks to grab a couple of hours sleep and to eat, so you could consider me to be a lightweight in comparison with these improvathoners. For cast and audience, there is an invisible bond that forms over the fifty hours, the commitment to perform, or to watch the equivalent of twenty-five shows back-to-back, binds the two together, and the final bows are met with celebration. For those who do not wish to commit to fifty hours, there was an option to buy a two-hour episode ticket. The history of the Improvathon goes back to 1993, when the first Canadian Improvathon took place, and then some years later Ken ...

13Mar

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Murder in the Dark – Floral Pavilion

As the audience opens their programmes for tonight’s performance, they are greeted with a simple plea – do not spoil the show for others. With that in mind, what can be said about the show is that it absolutely won’t be what you expect. I’m just not sure that’s a good thing in this case. We start with a simple premise. Faded pop star Danny (Tom Chambers) and his young girlfriend Sarah (Laura White) arrives at a ramshackle cottage with a handily unreliable power supply and no wi-fi, having crashed his car. They are taken under the wing of the eccentric owner Mrs Bateman (Susie Blake) and soon joined by the car’s other passengers; Danny’s estranged brother William (Owen Oakeshott), ex-wife Rebecca (Rebecca Charles) and his uninterested son Jake (Jonny Green). Directed by Philip Fra...

Richard, My Richard – Shakespeare North Playhouse

13Mar

By Jan MellorNo Comments

North West

Richard, My Richard – Shakespeare North Playhouse

Fantastic! Gripping! Awesome! Mesmerising! Stunning! I could end this review there - describing the thrill of watching this truly inspirational play, the first from the historian author Philipa Gregory, but I won’t - as I need to share this amazing piece of theatre. As you may know, Philipa Gregory is a historian who has written novels covering the history of England’s traumatic times during the War of the Roses. Of these times, when the dissolving Plantagenets were to be overthrown by the Tudor dynasty, a certain great playwright, William Shakespeare, felt inspired to share his views of these treacherous years and penned Richard III, convincing his readers and theatregoers into believing that this king was an evil, disfigured, murderous, tyrant. We have all believed this of Richa...

13Mar

By Grace AnnabelNo Comments

North West

Come From Away – Liverpool Empire

This evening, I was honoured to have been invited to the first ever UK tour of ‘Come From Away’ - Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s show that has truly moved the masses, telling a remarkable tale of human spirit in times of tragedy. ‘Come From Away’ is set in the wake of 9/11 and follows the lives of air passengers from all over the world who were grounded in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland. It shows how the close-knit community welcomed strangers into their lives with open arms in a time of desperate need, and how unlikely friendships and bonds were forged for a lifetime. This show can only be described as uniquely thought-provoking. As the show begins, the scene is set with such simplicity, with the stage only comprising of a large wooden panel lining the entire back wall of th...