When writing reviews, you’re encouraged to keep your personal context at bay – no one needs to hear about your own history with pantomime or Shakespeare and how it skews your view of a production. However, LIFT’s incredible, raw production is all about the specifics of individual experience being tilled to form a whole truth, and its value is in the personal detail. Continue reading
It is usually easy to impose your own zeitgeist onto a piece of live theatre, because there is so much ambiguity – so many variables for each viewer to interpret however they wish. It is a struggle to forage the attraction of adapting Graham Greene’s noir thriller, which now seems largely irrelevant, but Bryony Lavery is enough of a draw to intrigue those who have or haven’t read the original novel. Continue reading
Benji Davies’ charming picture book is a firm favourite at bedtime in our house, so when I saw there was to be a theatrical adaptation I was both excited and intrigued. Continue reading
Berwick Kaler, Martin Barrass and their colleagues deliver a delightfully funny performance for people young and old in Jack and the Beanstalk.
Presented by Original Theatre at York Theatre Royal, Tuesday 21st November 2017 Continue reading
RENT is an imperfect musical about imperfect people. A landmark turn in musical theatre, Jonathan Larson’s unusual, rocking score captures the lives of the marginalised citizens of mid-90’s East Village. Continue reading
The well-to-do Mr and Mrs Helliwell, Mr and Mrs Parker and Mr and Mrs Soppitt have been married 25 years today – or so they think. As it transpires, they were never officially married at all, and so begins J B Priestley’s When We Are Married at York Theatre Royal. Continue reading
York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre’s performance of The Witches was a nostalgic mix of comedy, horror and pantomime tropes. Continue reading
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
Bryony Lavery proves to be a master of matters of the heart with her tender adaptation of Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh’s examination of young love, family and faith. Continue reading