New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeA first-rate cast delight in controlled chaos of the highest order in Conrad Nelson’s seamless revival of Richard Bean’s hit play A couple on the stairs behi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02AMThe Studio, Edinburgh, and touringThe fifth of Rona Munro’s James plays fails to develop an interesting premise about a hidden romance A dark stage is lapped by flickering candles. Here, f…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:32AMLeeds Playhouse and touringThe company’s trademark fusion of live performance and digital wizardry doesn’t quite hang together in a radical take on Mary Shelley The structure of Mary She…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMCast, DoncasterElvi Piper’s fine revival of Boff Whalley’s 2014 musical comedy about three sisters on a pit village frontline in 1984 is full of humour, drama and lived experience Boff W…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AMShakespeare North Playhouse, PrescotHistorical novelist Philippa Gregory has fun reframing the notorious Richard III and the women in his life in her first play From a hole in the stage, a v…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06AMSwan theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonSamuel Barnett and Victoria Yeates harmonise as the composer and his ‘assistant’ in a production that sings under the direction of Erica Whyman Erica Why…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:36AMBirmingham RepA university bhangra dance team is torn apart by cultural differences, seamlessly expressed through music and movement, in this zinger of a show Councillor Liz Clements cried l…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02AMRoyal Exchange, ManchesterInspired by Cornelia Parker famous artwork, and tracking three couples across three decades, Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s play is a clever concept that never catches fi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24AMNew Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeA top cast directed by Caroline Wilkes revel in Ron Hutchinson’s laugh-out-loud, if overlong story charting the corporation’s first wireless play In the earl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMBarn theatre, Cirencester; Watermill theatre, NewburyThe deductive powers of the famous sleuth are put to new uses in these inventive if patchy interpretations, one playful, the other musica…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMPlayhouse, SheffieldArchers actor Katie Redford captures the ever-shifting mix of love and pain between parent and child in her conversation-starting theatrical soap opera In a recent interv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:54AMRoyal & Derngate, NorthamptonThe physical comedy ensemble revives the ancient Greek play in an audacious staging with a tragicomic present-day backstory The keynotes of the time are chao…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:32AMThe Mill at Sonning, ReadingThe stage adaptation of the Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra film is brought to life by a full-of-verve cast in Joseph Pitcher’s fine revival In the g…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:48AMOur roving critic’s highlights include a bravura O’Casey trilogy, a Lionel Bart classic that delivered more, and a perfectly cast portrait of a marriage Read the Observer critics’ revi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:06PMCurve, Leicester; Sherman theatre, CardiffThe action feels distanced in Nikolai Foster’s coolly striking new production of the Lloyd Webber-Rice musical, while turmoil stalks the Darling h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06AMLeeds Playhouse; Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough; Royal Lyceum, EdinburghLionel Bart’s classic musical is all light and shade in James Brining’s in-the-round revival; actors and audi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24AMHull Truck theatre, Hull; and touringThree struggling twentysomethings find solace in dance in the writer-director’s well performed if not quite satisfying new work I caught the John Godbe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMSwan, Stratford-upon-AvonGender identity comes to town in writer-co-director Charlie Josephine’s atmospheric but slow-going tale of a disruptive stranger Last year, in I, Joan, at London�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:07AMAlphabetti theatre, NewcastleIn Racheal Ofori’s bright new play, Leah St Luce and Jadesola Odunjo delight as wannabe influencers whose friendship is tested by the temptations of fame and f…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:25AMHome, ManchesterThe hit Edinburgh fringe musical about two friends on the trail of a killer has been awkwardly expanded but is still a delight The storyline of this 2022 musical centr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:25AMNottingham PlayhouseThis ‘theatre poem’ by the Australian dramatist Tom Wright lacks drama under Stephen Bailey’s direction An electric-guitar wielding narrator, dressed in black leath…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:55AMPitlochry Festival theatreAn impressive ensemble makes the most of Peter Arnott’s new country house play, set during Scotland’s 2014 independence vote Adaptations of the plays of the pre…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:55AMTheatre by the Lake, KeswickThe audience takes on a supporting role to Andrew Turner’s solo turn in this moving paean to what makes life worth living This is not a play, but it is playful;…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:25AMHis Majesty’s theatre, AberdeenStrong performances are the lifeblood of Morna Pearson’s new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic tale for the National Theatre of Scotland and Aberdeen P…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:07AMTown Hall theatre, GalwayO’Casey’s three plays of working-class Dublin life encompass conflict, grief and the human spirit in Garry Hynes’s fine production A highlight of this year’s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:07AMLeeds PlayhouseThe songs of the big O are used in crafty ways in David West Read’s moving, celebratory story about getting a band back together David West Read (writer) and Luke Sheppard (…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:43AMMinerva, ChichesterRakie Ayola excels as Adrienne Kennedy, whose John Lennon play was taken up by Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre while she was sidelined, in this crystal-clear product…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:33AMOctagon theatre, BoltonA group of hastily recruited ‘sisters’ achieve harmony in Alan Plater’s charming play about music and laughter as a relief from war “It’s a day-in-the-life p…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:43AMNorthern Stage, Newcastle; and touringDave Johns, who played Daniel Blake in the Ken Loach film, brings this chilling drama of life on benefits to new audiences “It is a work of fiction……
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:43AMNew Vic theatre, Newcastle-under-LymeConrad Nelson’s fast-flowing production, which races through time and space, exemplifies the ingenuity of regional theatre In a recent article for the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:36AMRoyal Exchange, ManchesterDario Fo and Franca Rama’s bitterly comic 1974 satire is a timely fit for today’s cost of living crisis, here impeded by a cartoonishly bright set An everyday s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06AM
