Latest Articles - Page 23 of 684

8Mar

By Dylan MooneyNo Comments

Scotland

Medea – Traverse Theatre

Eurpides’ Greek tragedy, Medea, is revived once more by Kathy McKean, arguably bringing more life to the title role, putting Medea front and centre in her own story. This adaptation stays true to its source material while also modernising to fit with today’s usual audience. Her husband, Jason (Jonny Panchaud), gained the golden fleece while Medea (Nicole Cooper) has largely been forgotten. Left at home to look after her two sons, assisted by the Nurse (Isabelle Joss), Medea begins to play a dangerous game of revenge after Jason falls in love with the Princess and daughter of King Creon (Alan Steele). Cooper’s performance as Medea is truly incredible. From the moment she enters the stage, she commands attention, bringing a great sense of naturalism to this well-known Greek tragedy. Sh...

6Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Macbeth – Octagon Theatre

Over four hundred years since it was written and first performed, Shakespeare’s Macbeth still proves to be the quintessential study of guilt, paranoia and vaulting ambition. With this modern-dress version of the tragedy, Director Mark Babych produces an accessible and clear rendition of the text that emphasises the domestic trauma of the central couple at the expense of the wider political context of the play. When watching and reviewing any Macbeth, my interest always centres around the decision a director takes to emphasise certain key themes inherent in the text. Will they choose to focus on the political, martial or domestic elements that conspire to push the eponymous character from warrior hero at the outset towards bloody regicide and insecurity, culminating in his fatalistic dea...

Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Assembly Roxy Upstairs

5Mar

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Assembly Roxy Upstairs

Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a play that wears its cleverness cheerfully on its sleeve and occasionally waves it about like a philosophical flag. Absurd, witty and quietly unnerving, it takes two minor characters from Hamlet and places them centre stage in a universe where the rules of narrative appear only partially understood. For any company, let alone one mounting its very first production, it is a formidable undertaking. Yet Gutter Theatre of Edinburgh, present the play at The Roxy Upstairs, approach the challenge with a pleasing mixture of ambition and good humour. The play famously opens with a coin tossing sequence in which probability appears to abandon the building entirely. From that moment onward Stoppard’s world of existential ...

5Mar

By Dave SmithNo Comments

London

Our Town – Rose Theatre

Michael Sheen is the Artistic Director of Welsh National Theatre, and this is their inaugural production, co-produced by Rose Theatre themselves. Sheen has put his money where his mouth is, funding WNT himself. They begin with an American classic, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. While this may not sound innately Welsh - the tale of a quintessential American town - it is said that Dylan Thomas was familiar with both Wilder and his play when he wrote Under Milk Wood. So, we take ourselves to Grover’s Corners, a small town with a Welsh accent somewhere, well let’s just say somewhere. The Stage Manager guides the audience through the story, introduces us to a number of the inhabitants and we jump back and forward in time to follow their trials and tribulations. Sheen himself plays the Sta...

5Mar

By Kevin EcclestonNo Comments

North West

War of the Worlds – Liverpool Playhouse

At Liverpool Playhouse, War of the Worlds is not presented as a conventional science-fiction spectacle. Instead, the innovative theatre company imitating the Dog transforms The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells into a striking exploration of storytelling itself. The result is a production that feels urgent, intelligent and technically daring. From the outset, the audience is made aware that they are watching a story being constructed. The stage resembles a film studio as much as a theatrical set: cameras are visible, miniature buildings sit on tables, and projected backdrops loom across large screens. Rather than hiding the mechanics, the company places them centre stage. This transparency becomes one of the production’s greatest strengths. As scenes of invasion and destruction unfold, w...

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Drama Studio, Sheffield

5Mar

By Nathan DunnNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Drama Studio, Sheffield

The Company brought Oscar Wilde’s philosophical gothic great ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ to Sheffield’s Drama Studio this week, and audiences lucky to attend are in for an impressive, arresting night of theatre. This particular adaptation was born from the brain of George Shore, who co-directs this piece with Mark Todd. Shore’s script is refined and full of wry humour. In many cases the world-building is contingent upon the script, and here Shore exercises expressive vernacular with all the appropriate didactic bombast of Wilde’s upper-class late Victorian realm. I really enjoyed Shore’s reliance on subtext in dissecting the narrative, leaving an air of mystique surrounding the picture and the terms of Dorian’s negotiation with it. It’s a pointed, concise text that Shore has crafte...

5Mar

By Zain RussellNo Comments

London

Double Indemnity – Richmond Theatre

Double Indemnity is a thrilling stage adaptation that dives deep into the darker side of human nature, exploring how lust, greed, and temptation can drive even the most ordinary people toward murder. The play captures the essence of classic noir storytelling, asking the audience to consider just how far someone might go when love and money become intertwined. The story follows insurance broker Walter Huff, played by Ciarán Owens, whose seemingly routine job takes a dangerous turn when he meets Phyllis Nirdlinger, the wife of one of his clients. Phyllis, portrayed by the wonderful Mischa Barton, quickly draws Walter into an illicit affair. What begins as flirtation soon escalates into something far more sinister, as the two begin plotting the murder of Phyllis’s husband in order to claim...

5Mar

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Broken Glass – Young Vic

Unlike Arthur Miller’s heralded classics, Broken Glass is not a play that turns up on the syllabus or tests the skills of the nation’s amateur dramatic societies. As one of Miller’s later plays (1994), it’s not the best example of his genius. It’s a complex oddity that mixes history, symbolism and the challenges of identity into an itchy and overly ambitious psychodrama. The play was first performed in Connecticut in June 1994 and had its UK premiere in August of the same year at the Lyttelton Theatre. It bagged the 1995 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and was nominated for a 1994 Tony. The play has an undeniable history of mixed reviews, but this particular production drew curious anticipation thanks to the presence of director Jordan Fein. Young Vic scored a coup by getting F...

Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts – Festival Theatre

5Mar

By Dylan MooneyNo Comments

Scotland

Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts – Festival Theatre

With the first stage appearance of the famed detective, Inspector Morse - House of Ghosts is an original story inspired by Colin Dexter’s well-known character, this time penned by Alma Cullen and directed by Anthony Banks. A murder mystery staged live, this show intends to keep audiences thrown with red herrings and guessing the culprit until the last minute. In this new story, set in 1987, Rebecca (Eliza Tealer), dies suddenly during a performance of Hamlet. Thankfully for her, and the play’s plot, Inspector Morse (Tom Chambers) just so happens to be in the audience and quickly launches an investigation. What at first seems like a standard murder case quickly becomes a story of secret and deceit spanning Morse’s own life 25 years ago. Assisted by DS Lewis (Tachia Newall), Morse is left...

Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile – Grand Opera House York

4Mar

By Phoebe Olivia Sian HobsonNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile – Grand Opera House York

Oooooh la la, what a magnificent performance! J’adore Lucy Bailey’s portrayal of Agatha Christie’s renowned murder mystery ‘Death on the Nile’, a truly nail biting and explosive narrative well told, by none other than Hercule Poirot himself (Mark Hadfield). The famous who done it on stage, lived up to its beloved reputation and more, despite the familiarity of the story the anticipation and action still swallow you whole, slowly and then all at once, the same way that the moon encapsulates that last bit of sunlight at sunset. Lucy Bailey’s take, stays both quintessentially Agatha Christie and humble, unravelling the murder case but at the same time humouring the audience with the obviousness of the plot. Mark Hadfield playing Monsieur Poirot fascinated the audience in fi...