Alex Rivers Archives - North West End UK

The Merry Wives of Windsor – Shakespeare North Playhouse

2Aug

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

The Merry Wives of Windsor – Shakespeare North Playhouse

If Shakespeare chose a modern company to perform his work then it would undoubtedly be The Pantaloons; I’m equally sure he would be thrilled with director Steve Purcell’s adaptation of a play that had The Pantaloons stamped all over it when it was first written. Roguish knight Falstaff (Alex Rivers) is down on his luck and reliant on the good will of the Host (William Ross-Fawcett) of his local tavern to keep him in good spirits of any kind! When he informs servants Nym (Jodie Micciche) and Pistol (Andrew Armfield) that he intends to seduce Mistress Ford (Micciche) and Mistress Page (Armfield) they refuse to deliver his letters, so he throws them out. When the letters eventually arrive via Mistress Quigley (Micciche) the two ladies laugh over their similarity and decide to get their rev...

6Aug

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

The Comedy of Errors – Speke Hall

A Shakespearean comedy set around two rival states and two sets of mismatched twins is brought to life in this bright adaptation from Steve Purcell, who also directs, with its central theme of mistaken identity the perfect vehicle for Mark Hayward’s production to explore a number of popular theatre forms in this consistently funny farce that piles error upon error at an increasingly frantic pace. If the challenge of the doubling up of not one but two sets of twins whilst keeping the audience on-board as the only ones who know what is happening on stage wasn’t enough, throw in an open-air venue, forecasted bad weather, and plane disruption from the adjacent airport, and I had everything crossed for the much-reduced cast of four playing all of the roles. I needn’t have worried as with ...

Bleak House: A Radio Play – The Pantaloons Go Online

14Feb

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

Bleak House: A Radio Play – The Pantaloons Go Online

Charles Dickens first penned the satirical Bleak House as a 20-episode serial following which it was published as a novel in 1853. With its array of characters connected through the tale of a family waiting in vain to inherit money from a disputed fortune in the settlement of a lawsuit that has gone on for so long that no one knows what it’s about anymore, and despite criticism from the legal profession, it was eventually to influence judicial review and reform in the 1870s. Considered by many to be Dickens greatest work and the forerunner of the detective novel, given the abuse of power evident in recent times – PPE anyone? – who better than the critically acclaimed The Pantaloons to resurrect this indictment of the self-serving public life enshrined in Parliament, provincial aristocra...

11Jul

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

Stay Holmes – The Pantaloons Go Online

When an outdoor theatre company celebrated for helping themselves to their audience’s picnics are forced to go online to perform it’s natural to worry about them, and not just that they may be going hungry. But never fear, when The Pantaloons are here then, as with this show, it is simply elementary: you are in for a great night. Following a brief stay in the Zoom waiting room to the lovely accompaniment of solo violin from Fiona McGarvey, we were launched in true Pantaloons fashion into seventy-five minutes of high jinks and madcap entertainment that was kindly followed by a Q&A with writer and chief Pantaloon Mark Heyward and tonight’s outstanding cast of Edward Ferrow, Kelly Griffiths, Alex Rivers, and Christopher Smart. Dynamic duo Holmes and Watson are well and truly put thr...