Hamlet at Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre: One may smile, and smile, and be a villain

We all know this solemn tale of revenge guest starring the skull of “Poor Yorick” back to front, right? And yet somehow, the production team behind Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre manage to bring fresh mischief and flair to the most quoted and studied play ever written. It’s so easy to misread Hamlet as a dry, drawn tale of woe and dwelling, to stuff these clever “words, words, words” into a dusty artefact in your mind’s eye and leave them there for academics to fuss over. But that would be doing yourself, and the play, a great disservice. Continue reading

Hymn to Love: Homage to Piaf

York Theatre Royal and Theatre by the Lake present Hymn to Love, a loving ode to Edith Piaf’s life and later years framed as the rehearsal for her final concert. Songs are interspersed with fond and poignant memories retold by Piaf (Elizabeth Mansfield) to her pianist (Patrick Bridgman); “silent only in word”. Continue reading

Sherlock Holmes at York Theatre Royal: Varied styles and distractions

Damian Cruden’s Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles is an original family-oriented devised musical dressed handsomely in an appropriated Victorian circus-theatre aesthetic. Continue reading