Category Archives: Reviews

Amanda Palmer ‘There Will Be No Intermission’: live music review

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“I’m so happy I don’t have to do my show tonight,” breathes Amanda Palmer, the artist who makes no airs or graces about doing “exactly what the fuck you want”. Unflinching in her raw honesty, Palmer opens the evening’s entertainment with an acoustic ukulele serenade from the stage-left box, climbing out like Peter Pan and ambling, grinning, across the stage, taking in the room. She is here to live in the moment, because “the moment is real”. Continue reading →

Blood Brothers: musical review

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Bill Kenwright’s long-loved production of Blood Brothers returns to the Grand Opera House York with Lyn Paul in the iconic role of Mrs Johnstone for the final time, joined by Joel Benedict as Eddie, Danielle Corlass as Linda, Danny Taylor as Sammy and Chloe Taylor as Mrs Lyons. Alexander Patmore returns as Mickey alongside Robbie Scotcher as the narrator. Continue reading →

It’s True, It’s True, It’s True: “I will say this forever”

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Originally commissioned by New Diorama Theatre, Breach Theatre’s multi-award-winning It’s True, It’s True, It’s True is a devised play created with the cast using verbatim court transcripts from the 1612 trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi; the seven-month trial that gripped Renaissance Rome. Continue reading →

Under Three Moons: models for male friendship

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“I bet when they get older they’re going to look back on tonight and say, that was a night that was, by that fire, that was a night.” Spanning half a lifetime, Daniel Kanaber’s new play Under Three Moons takes place on three nights across three decades of two friends’ lives. Through the lense of a friendship through multiple comings of age, this succinct fringe script explores how men relate to each other today. From a school trip to France as teenagers, to a surf shack in their twenties, to Christmas in their thirties, Mike and Paul meet up and talk into the night. From boyhood to manhood to fatherhood, these are the nights they share. Continue reading →

Monster Makers: “give ’em something that they won’t expect”

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Stephen Dolginoff (Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story) serves up a jolly, camp romp in his new triple-feature musical Monster Makers, which celebrates the colourful talents behind the most (in)famous classic horror films. Continue reading →

Phoenix Dance Theatre: The Rite of Spring & Left Unseen

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“The Rite just has to be shocking. If it doesn’t shake you to the core, if it doesn’t make you feel that the guts of the earth are opening up, or at least that the Royal Albert Hall is being immolated in orchestral violence, then the performers just ain’t doing it right.” – Tom Service, BBC Proms 2013 Continue reading →

Mad Alice: “I was a witch that day”

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Inspired by local landmark Mad Alice Lane and dedicated to her brother, Victoria Delaney’s new original play Mad Alice investigates the local legend we all think we know, but cannot accurately place in history. Opening in the ‘Mucky Duck’ (White Swan Inn) in 1825, an ominous electronic soundscape threaded with rumours and whispers plays as the cast creep on stage one by one, immediately establishing palpable dynamics between them with the slightest of glances. Continue reading →

Irving Undead: “a haemorrhage of gaslight”

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James Swanton (Double Date; Frankenstein’s Creature) is the master of the one-man show, here finally devoting a captivating ninety-minute feat of physical and emotional character study to his long-time fascination, the Victorian actor Henry Irving. Continue reading →

A View From The Bridge: “How dark the room became when he looked at me”

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Directed by Juliet Forster (Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre; Sense and Sensibility for Theatre by the Lake), Arthur Miller’s potboiler case study of commuco-production between York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton. Continue reading →