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Hardy and Webb: Mystery at the Museum – Unity Theatre

20Apr

By Miranda GreenNo Comments

North West

Hardy and Webb: Mystery at the Museum – Unity Theatre

There were a couple of mysteries surrounding this production for children. Part of the Liverpool Improvisation Festival, hosted at the excellent Unity Theatre, the first poser was: where was Becky Webb? The second: where were the children? No matter, the audience of adults thoroughly enjoyed this detective romp played with enthusiastic elasticity by Jen Hardy and Mike Burton, in place of Becky Webb. Improv for a beginner audience, the interaction was light but nonetheless introductory to the genre. An audience stooge was asked to play the role of the Chief who informed the detective duo that they were due a day off, whether they wanted it or not, and that they were to visit a museum. Mavis (possibly her real name) came up with the concept of a postal museum; my mate Jane came up with...

20Apr

By Eleanor HallNo Comments

North West

Your Flaws: The Musical – Unity Theatre

This fifty-minute whirlwind came as part of the Liverpool Improvisation Festival, which might look to become an annual event for the Unity theatre, following its launch last year. Alongside Patrick Clopon on the piano, Lee Apsey and Emma Wessleus explained their ‘flaws’, distastes and aversions, and invited us to share our own. As we admitted to being afraid of a range of kitchen devices (i.e. potato peelers, sieves, blenders) and taking umbrage with food combinations (i.e. mint and chocolate), the piano began to twinkle… Engaging with the audience’s culinary offers, the trio embarked on a journey through a haunted restaurant with all characters gifted with strange fears and desires which echoed our flaws back to us. We watch the tortured head chef fight for his Michelin star, a chef lo...

Boys on the Verge of Tears – Soho Theatre

20Apr

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Boys on the Verge of Tears – Soho Theatre

As a society, the debate around toxic masculinity continues to rage and curdle. The emergence of male social media influencers with unhinged and criminal intentions towards women runs in tandem with alarmingly low conviction rates for men who sexually assault women. Just 2 in 100 rapes recorded by police between Oct' 2022 and Sep' 2023 resulted in someone being charged that same year. Let alone convicted. Into this worrying manosphere drops Boys on the Verge of Tears by Sam Grabiner. It offers no solutions, but by opening a a window onto the brutal evolution of boys to men, it certainly shows why we keep ending up here. Boys on the Verge of Tears was selected from 1,500 entries to the Verity Bargate Award, which is sponsored by Character 7, producers of The Night Manager and Culprits. I...

20Apr

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

The Glass Menagerie – Rose Theatre

Directed by Atri Banerjee and designed by Rosanna Vize, this stylized performance of Tennessee Williams’ iconic family drama both juices up and strips down the physical environs of a timeless story, but its enduring appeal is undulled by theatrical innovation. A restaging both faithful to its formidable script and imbued with a magic of its own, this production is truly enchanting. Geraldine Somerville scintillates as the reluctant matriarch Amanda Wingfield whose erstwhile husband “fell in love with long distances” and hasn’t appeared in more than a decade save in his grinning portrait on the family’s mantle. This production’s rendering of the Wingfield family home places this mantle on the invisible fourth wall which is neither broken nor ever explicitly mended in this staging but rat...

20Apr

By Klervi GavetNo Comments

London

Banging Denmark – Finborough Theatre

A fun, modern take on a romcom classic with a sociologist twist… Management consultant Jake Newhouse (Tom Kay) enrols super-duper feminist Ishtar Madigan (Rebecca Blackstone) to help him seduce the gorgeous, Danish, and totally unreceptive librarian of his dreams (Maja Simonsen). Now here’s the rub. Newhouse also goes by the name of Guy DeWitt, a powerful, misogynistic dating coach, pickup artist and deep voiced podcaster who recently sued Madigan for defamation. Unable to prove DeWitt sent his bros-before-hoes trolls out to destroy her reputation, her mental health and her mailbox, Madigan was forced to sell everything she owns to pay the settlement agreement. She now sleeps in the copy room of her university, a shadow of her glorious self - an alcoholic, paranoiac, horny PhD sch...

19Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Wicked – Bradford Alhambra

If you’ve ever wondered how those red shoes came to be sticking out from under Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz this prequel to that classic movie will give you the answer. It goes back to before Dorothy crash landed in the land of Oz ruled by a mysterious wizard to reveal the backstory of Elphaba – better known to us The Wicked Witch of the West - and her nemesis Glinda the Good. Based on Gregory Maguire’s revisionist novel ‘Wicked – The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of West’ rather than L. Frank Baum’s original text we firstly meet Elphaba and Glinda as they start life at Shiz University as sworn enemies. The brilliant twist in this version is that Elphaba's skin is green thanks to an accident of birth so is the outsider and blonde rich brat Glinda is her exact opposite. Bu...

19Apr

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Chicken – Traverse Theatre

Having nearly died in the egg, rescued and raised by a kindly Kerry couple, narrowly avoiding being whisked into an omelette and living ‘claw to beak’ in New York, Don Murphy gets his break. His bird-break. Into the business we call show, following a monumental orgy of Jameson with Michael Fassbender (That Don Murphy? No, he’s a human). Keep up now, we’re talking one of the most determined, resourceful cocks to ever grace the cinematic wests of Ireland and the United States, but fame and success can have a downside. Three exhausting years of 16-hour day shoots leads to the inevitable glitch, a ketamine addiction resulting from a party hosted by evil LA-based Colin Farrell. That Colin Farrell? Enjoyably surreal, entertainingly disarming, this was a true k-hole of a show, so quite ...

19Apr

By Helen JonesNo Comments

North West

Rambert: Death Trap – The Lowry

Following on from the success of their adaptation of Peaky Blinders, Rambert are back at the Lowry with their current tour Death Trap. Consisting of two separate pieces Cerberus and Goat, Death Trap is more contemporary theatre than contemporary dance but is no less engaging and is intensely powerful. Cerberus is an adaptation of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It opens with Aishwarya telling the audience that what we are about to see is her life, from birth to death. She emerges stage right, with a rope around her middle and moves across till she exits stage left. As she exits her Orpheus emerges holding onto the other end of the rope. He is unwilling to believe she is dead and with the assistance of his translator fr...

19Apr

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

F**king Men – Waterloo East

When Tony Award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro first started writing his all-male adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde, he didn’t think anyone would be interested in producing it. So, he gave it what he considered to be an ‘un-producible title’: F**king Men. As the title of this review gives away, the play not only went on to be produced, but it was a runaway success. Debuting in London over 15 years ago, F**king Men became a fringe classic, and DiPietro’s updated version is back for a six-week run at Waterloo East Theatre until 26th May. Drawing back the curtains on the interconnecting sexual encounters between ten different men, F**king Men offers the audience a glimpse into the lives of modern gay men navigating sex, love, and monogamy in a world that still too often discri...

Is This Thing On? – Contact Theatre, Manchester

19Apr

By Bo WarnerNo Comments

North West

Is This Thing On? – Contact Theatre, Manchester

Is This Thing On? Was written by Megan Keaveny and Ellie Campbell and follows flat mates Mary and Liz, a musician and a poet, as they battle over integrity, ownership, the spotlight and who’s turn it is to buy the f*king toilet roll. It is MissMatch’s debut into the theatre scene. The pair has clear chemistry, great energy and pace throughout. Their friendship feels believable, and some funny moments pepper their description of sexual exploits as they are introduced. There are ambitious choices made with the use of loop pedals and music, movement and spoken word. However, this is a story that lacks purpose and focus. Too much, and yet too little is tackled, and while the story tries to tackle serious and weighty themes along with personal conflict, the result is unfortunately muddied...