Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Bridewell, LondonDuring the course of his or her training, a British Olympic swimmer might swim as far as Australia without ever leaving the pool. But what happens to those who have dedicate…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:30PMMonday, January 10, 2011
Theatre Delicatessen, LondonFew 19th-century plays still seem quite as urgent as Ibsen's 1879 drama about a woman who comes to understand that her marriage is a sham. The satisfyin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMSunday, January 9, 2011
Birmingham Old RepLila wants to be a firework-maker, just like her father. He thinks it's no job for a girl and wants her to get married. So when Lila's friend, Chulak, thinks that he has su…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMFriday, January 7, 2011
Bloomsbury, LondonGeorge's granny isn't a sweet little old lady. In fact, she's a real horror and when she comes to stay at the family farm, which George's harried parents run with his help,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:15PMIt's your last chance to catch some great shows, but there's not a lot new to see beyond London ... or is there?The first What to see blog of the new year also sees The Final Curtain at Bir…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:50AMThursday, January 6, 2011
Royal Exchange, ManchesterWell, blow me down with a feather – Harold Brighouse's 100-year-old northern parlour comedy is a right little charmer. It borrows from all those fairytales in whi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:31PMWednesday, January 5, 2011
Union, LondonNot a history of the last century, but a madcap musical set among theatre folk on a night train to New York, Cy Coleman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green's show was written in 1978…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:31PM'This Christmas I decided to get a life'Like most people, I'm back at work this week. I've had 14 days when I've barely seen the inside of a theatre. I must say, I thoroughly recommend not …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:16PMTuesday, January 4, 2011
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeLiving is an awfully big adventure, suggests Theresa Heskins's upbeat version of JM Barrie's play, which downplays the dark heart of this malleable masterpiece, …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMIf local venues don't reach out to the community they will not survive the funding cutsAs the new year begins, and theatres and arts organisations are busy putting the final touches to their…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:45AMFriday, December 31, 2010
As the curtain rises on 2011, there are a host of delights to look forward toSo what might you go and see over the next seven days? To be brutally honest, the same list of shows that I sugg…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00AMTuesday, December 28, 2010
From regional theatres bravely choosing new work and taking their audiences with them to some welcome razzle-dazzle in musicals, there's been plenty to enjoyPerhaps not a blistering year –…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00AMThursday, December 23, 2010
This most peculiarly British art form is alive and kicking because it has constantly evolved and speaks to our inner childNo aspect of theatre is more prone to nostalgia than pantomime. As f…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:00AMTuesday, December 21, 2010
Sheffield CrucibleThe depression of the 1930s gave us gritty, campaigning dramas such as Love On the Dole, but it also offered the escapist pleasures of the musical. The current recession ha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:29PMMonday, December 20, 2010
Vaudeville, LondonSo silly it's just one long joke, Potted Panto is the latest offering from the duo who gave us Potted Pirates and Potted Potter. The latter was a deceptively simple but wit…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:15PMSunday, December 19, 2010
Queen Elizabeth Hall, LondonFerrets down trousers, a Greek chorus of fluffy bunnies and a couple of puppet hens who come to a sad end may not sound like the usual ingredients for Hansel…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:29PMFriday, December 17, 2010
BAC, LondonThink Alexander Rodchenko meets Tim Burton, Charles Dickens meets Fritz Lang, and the early 20th-century silent movie meets the 21st-century graphic novel, and you have …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMIt's been a cracker of a year for both heartwarming and creepy Christmas shows – so end it with a bang by going to the theatreIt's been a really exceptional year for Christmas shows across…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:49AMThursday, December 16, 2010
Barbican, LondonFlyboy is exactly that: half-boy, half-fly. He lives in a small English village – and he's not the only mutant there. His best friend is Mothboy, who Flyboy clearly loves. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:15PMWednesday, December 15, 2010
Roundhouse, LondonSomething has gone badly awry in Michael Boyd's modern-dress revival of Shakespeare's tragedy of passion, politics and performance, which is reduced to farce – a very dul…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMTuesday, December 14, 2010
Brewhouse, TauntonIt's a great pity that the Somerset County councillors who voted to cut arts funding by 100% weren't at the Brewhouse with me to see a full house of schoolchildren enjoy th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:44PMMonday, December 13, 2010
Riverside Studios, LondonNothing to do with Christmas, and everything to do with Noël Coward, Alistair McGowan's compilation show of songs and verse does well if you like your theatre to so…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PMUstinov, BathJustine and Michael are flatmates inclined to bring their jobs home with them. Justine, whose life is all work and no play, is in a permanent state of rage, and driven to drink …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:40PMFriday, December 10, 2010
Curve, LeicesterImperialism and the imperious meet head-on and clash in Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical about a 19th-century schoolteacher teaching Victorian values at the court of the Kin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMTheatre companies join forces for a Christmas Fayre in Leeds and the RSC gives Roald Dahl's Matilda a musical twistFour of British theatre's most ingenious companies, Unlimited, Slung Low, B…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:16PMThursday, December 9, 2010
Soho, LondonBea's body is useless to her. For eight years she has laid marooned in her bed, surrounded by the evidence of the life she once led as a student before illness struck. Now she is…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:29PMTuesday, December 7, 2010
Rose, KingstonClaude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil took a big fat French novel and turned it into musical-theatre gold with Les Misérables; George Stiles clearly aims to do the same w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PMSunday, December 5, 2010
Old Vic Tunnels, LondonA journey into the heart of darkness, the storm-tossed oceans of sleep and perhaps even into death itself, Living Structures's theatre-cum-installation piece is certai…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:46PMFriday, December 3, 2010
Criterion, LondonThe appeal of Peppa, an over-excitable, oddly shaped pink pig may well be lost on anyone over the age of five, but she's created an epidemic of swine fever among the pre-sch…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMHackney Empire, LondonLike poor old Dame Daisy Trott and the citizens of Hackneydale, Hackney Empire has recently fallen on hard times, and although it has never gone officially dark, has ba…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00PMIt's battle of the pantos this week, but if you're looking for something darker, head down into the Old Vic TunnelsIt's a busy old week, not least in the seasonal shows department. Hackney E…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:52AM 
