THIS REVIVAL of Michael Frayn’s 1998 Tony award-winning drama from Theatre Royal Bath and Jonathan Church Productions is a challenging show both for cast and audience. It is a cerebral piece surrounding conversations about complex theoretical physics and a factual meeting which took place between two atomic scientist giants, during 1941 in Nazi occupied Copenhagen….
AS WE come out of lockdown and the beginning of the end of artistic darkness forced on us by ‘that virus’, I am revelling in my privileged position as a reviewer, witnessing the rebirth of live theatre. This night was even better as it heralded the launch of a brand new performance space as well…
ALAN Ayckbourn is the only notable British writer that confines his talent to purely writing for the stage. For over six decades, his people observations, viewed from a multitude of auditoriums, has made us laugh and cringe in equal measures. ‘Absurd Person Singular’ premiered in 1972 – two decades into Ayckbourn’s career and when he really started to…
ALAN Ayckbourn is the only notable British writer that confines his talent to purely writing for the stage. For over six decades, his people observations, viewed from a multitude of auditoriums, has made us laugh and cringe in equal measures. ‘Absurd Person Singular’ premiered in 1972 – two decades into Ayckbourn’s career and when he really started to…
MALVERN Theatres is spoiling us with the premiere of two tours in two weeks. Following last weeks brilliant ‘A Splinter of Ice’ this week we had the first night of a long UK tour of the wonderful Jodie Prenger as Emma in the glorious Andrew Lloyd Webber/Don Black classic one-woman musical ‘Tell Me On A…
TO BE BACK reviewing live theatre in itself was a treat – the fact that we could have a drink in the bar and enjoy the pre-show buzz, a second treat. The big whopping cherry on the top was that this tour premier production of ‘A Splinter of Ice’ is a cracker! The combination of writer Ben Brown and director…
STAN’S Café as a live theatre company can always be relied upon to deliver originality and – most often – brilliant originality. Formed in the 1990s, this prolific Birmingham-based theatre company has built a reputation for artistic innovation that stretches beyond local and UK borders. Its’ projects have included work across a broad spectrum of…
DING-DONG, Hello-Hello, those Elders are in town and guess what? In my opinion this production at the Hippodrome is bigger, brasher and better than when I saw it in London. I refer of course to the phenomenon that is the multi-award winning ‘The Book of Mormon’. Picture by Paul Coltas. s This deliciously disgraceful musical…
LOUIS Sachar is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author. He is best known for the ‘Wayside School’ series and the award-winning novel ‘Holes’. In 2003, Holes was made into a movie by Disney with Sachar writing the screenplay himself. It’s probably the movie that is best known and this stage version (again by Sachar) is destined…
HAMLET is probably Shakespeare’s most performed play – I’ve lost count of the number of productions I’ve seen over the years and – as I read in his programme notes – this is Michael Barry’s third trip to Denmark as director. Picture by Jack Kirby. s As it is also Shakespeare’s most quoted play, let…