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
Sh!tfaced Shakespeare is exactly as billed; classically trained actors performing a serious Shakespeare play, while one of them is seriously drunk. “With one cast member selected at random and given four hours to drink before every show, we present to you classical theatre as it was always meant to be seen.” With a firm belief in making the Bard accessible again after centuries of dry, stiff performances, Magnificent Bastard Productions proudly delight in resurrecting the hen-night-stag-do chaos inherent in some of the plays’ dirtier passages. Continue reading
Set in a British women’s prison, Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus’ now-thirteen-year-old musical adaptation of their own ITV series returns to York, this time storming the stage at John Cooper Studio on Monkgate, presented with jubilation by local amateur production company NE Musicals. Continue reading
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
An almost empty stage is the setting for the iconic revenge tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi. A couple of black boxes, a soundscape and some eerie coloured lights are all the aid the actors have in bringing this piece to life, and they do so well. Continue reading
York Theatre Royal’s proscenium arch becomes a cross-section of TV chef Caroline’s (the West End’s Janie Dee) show-home kitchen: a faux-Swedish minimalist Pinterest fantasy of muted teal glossy tiles and pine with a modest botanic garnish and a family dinner table modest enough to tell an on-screen story that will resonate with the wider audience. But it doesn’t take long to make a mess on these counters. Continue reading