Max Webster Archives - North West End UK

30Apr

By Zara OdetundeNo Comments

London

Minority Report – Lyric Hammersmith

Minority Report is a staging of a Nottingham Playhouse and Birmingham Rep co-production. This premise is best known for the 2002 film starring Tom Cruise. This play explores free will and the idea of justice in this adaptation of Philip K Dick’s short story of the same name, written by David Haig. The play opens with a ceremony of the 10th Anniversary of the British Pre-crime department. In which the CEO Dame Julia Anderton is extolling the virtues of detecting Pre-criminals. However, she soon finds out that she has been identified as a pre-murderer. She must go on the run in an attempt to prove her innocence and discover truths about her organisations that have been long buried. Jodie McNee led this play as Pre-crime CEO Julia, she commands the stage and explores so many emotions an...

24Apr

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Life of Pi – Wolverhampton Grand

I remember reading Yann Martel’s dazzling Booker-prize-winning novel “Life of Pi” in a youth hostel in San Francisco and being so consumed with it I nearly missed a trip to the Golden Gate Bridge. It really is a cracking novel and such a wonderful whirl of magic realism and bright, laugh out loud comedy. I dodged the film when it came out in case it spoiled my memories of the book, so it was with some trepidation I approached the stage version. I needn’t have worried. Piscine “Pi” Patel is the son of a Pondicherry zoo keeper who tells a tall, but convincing, tale of surviving days adrift in open sea with only a Bengal tiger for company. A Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, no less. The playwright Lolita Chakrabarti takes the story and deftly reassembles the narrative into a spectacular ...

28Mar

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Minority Report – The Rep, Birmingham

Science fiction doesn’t work on stage. There I’ve said it. Someone had to. What was the last great science fiction stage play you saw? No, me neither. It’s a genre born of, and best suited to, cinema. From Metropolis to Dune sci-fi’s visual imagery has played equal part to its plots and philosophy. Sadly, no matter how dexterous and inventive the stage design, it’ll never quite capture a cinematic experience. Though, without doubt, one of the more outstanding elements of this production is Tal Rosner’s ethereal digital design perfectly evoking the virtual world of the near future. The play, based of Phil K.Dick's short story riddled with Cold War paranoia, is about pre crime. The capacity to identify a murderer before they commit a murder and arrest them. Whilst this is explained by the...

7Dec

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Life Of Pi – The Lowry

As December arrives the theatre world is taken over by that curiously British institution, The Pantomime. With all its familiar tropes and traditions, it provides much needed distraction for excitable children who have consumed too much sugar over the festive period, as well as harassed parents sorely in need of a family themed distraction. For those who do not delight in such earthy offerings, over the next month the Lyric Theatre will be playing host to the UK and Ireland tour of ' Life of Pi', the West End and Broadway smash hit, providing a cerebral alternative to the tales of beanstalks, slippers and lamps that are available elsewhere. Based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel and adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabati, 'Life Of Pi' tells the extraordinary story of 17-year...

24Apr

By Natalie J RomeoNo Comments

REVIEWS

Henry V – Donmar Warehouse

Shakespeare’s wartime history is transported to the modern day in Max Webster's newest production for the Donmar Warehouse, this time screen through National Theatre Live. For those unfamiliar with the plot: after an insult from the French Dauphin, King Henry V of England invades France to claim the throne he believes should be his. Henry stops an assassination plot, rouses troops with powerful rhetoric, and wins battles when the odds are stacked against England. In the end, he marries the Princess of France, linking the two nations. Shakespeare’s original production was set around 1599 and contained all the ingredients to make it a smash hit at the royal court. This production poignantly communicates the ease with which Shakespeare can seemingly be transplanted to perhaps any time peri...