Tuesday, December 10, 2024
The Dukes, LancasterWith a cumbersome script and no sense of danger or atmosphere, this production loses its way
If you are in any doubt that this adaptation of the 1952 Mary Norton novel ha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AMMonday, December 9, 2024
Derby theatreAbsorbing adaptation is faithful to the original, with sepia lighting and a whiskery, curmudgeonly Scrooge pinching pennies in hard times
Even the proportions of Ebenezer Scroog…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24AMStephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughThe titular hero’s coming-of-age tale takes advantage of local tourist attractions and a bright hard-working cast in this brisk and cheerful production …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:02AMFriday, December 6, 2024
Octagon, BoltonThis musical adaptation of the classic tale is full of charm and catchy new numbers with a captivating turn by Kiara Nicole Pillai as Mowgli
There is a startling piece of tran…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AMMonday, December 2, 2024
Royal Lyceum, EdinburghDuncan McLean’s riotous adaptation begins in a care home for retired pirates, from which the resourceful heroes set sail in a washtub buoyed by imagination
Who is th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:36AMFriday, November 29, 2024
Royal Exchange theatre, ManchesterJustin Greene and the late Steve Brown’s musical about a working-class woman who wins big on the pools and blows the lot is given a moving dream twist
As …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:12AMWednesday, November 27, 2024
Tron theatre, GlasgowThere are cursory mentions of crocodiles, clocks and boys who never grow up, but Johnny McKnight’s script charts its own course in a hilariously daft production
I have…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06AMThursday, November 21, 2024
Pitlochry Festival theatreIn our dark times, the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics offer a sugar-coated disguise for a show with political heft
Elizabeth Newman’s six-year tenure as Pitloch…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:32AMFriday, November 15, 2024
Royal Court, LiverpoolWolf-like property developers are set to evict the grandmother, who is on a night of drug-fuelled abandon, in this enjoyable show
This is Liverpool, so the most frighte…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:48PMThursday, November 7, 2024
Alphabetti, NewcastleWritten and performed by Matt Miller, this tender solo show weaves in bittersweet childhood memories with car maintenance metaphors
We have signed up for a 12-week cours…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AMFriday, November 1, 2024
Playhouse, SheffieldThe actor plays a dozen roles with aplomb in a small-town US tale co-written with Ed Stambollouian
What an astonishing performance. In a kind of true-crime version of Und…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:31AMThursday, October 31, 2024
Birmingham RepRae Mainwaring’s award-winning drama about a young woman with multiple sclerosis is given a playful production
This play’s title refers to the patches of an MRI scan that i…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06PMWednesday, October 23, 2024
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughAn unlikely crew, including a vicar and two pensioners, sail a dodgy ship on a voyage to honour an explorer. But the sitcom setup fails to deliver much com…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AMTuesday, October 1, 2024
Everyman, Liverpool Julian Moore-Cooke is terrific as Padraic, avenging his pet, but the mix of humour and gory violence needs fine-tuning in this revival
The joke at the heart of Martin McD…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:32AMÒran Mór, Glasgow A plain-speaking policeman finds himself confronted by one of history’s great impostors in Jonny Donahoe’s entertaining play
Anastasia is attempting to look regal in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:32AMSunday, September 29, 2024
Tron, GlasgowNearly 30 years on, environmental activists’ occupation of the North Sea fuel store gets an ambitious, heartfelt musical treatment
This time last year, Just Stop Oil protestor…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:12PMWednesday, September 25, 2024
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeThe pack prowls the stage and falls from the sky in this dark and dynamic production combining Carter’s rich gothic language with impressive aerial skills
The…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AMThursday, September 19, 2024
Northern Stage, NewcastleVast amounts of shagpile set the scene for Jack Bradfield’s production of the grotesque classic about materialism and status chasing
It ends with a blast of Prince…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:32AMWednesday, September 18, 2024
Shakespeare North Playhouse, PrescotExuberant production sees spoken word and physically expressive BSL users mirroring each other as they audition to take the lead roles
Unusually for a Sha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:02PMThursday, September 12, 2024
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughWhen the retired MD of a department store books a theatre company to perform at his home, relationships and reality begin to unravel
If, like Alan Ayckbour…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:48AMFriday, August 23, 2024
Pitlochry Festival theatre Harry Mould’s sweet and sexually frank debut focuses on the female volunteers at the Samaritans in the 1970s charged with talking to ‘telephone masturbators’…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:36AMTuesday, August 20, 2024
Back for its 15th year, this festival favourite finds a bespectacled primate sitting silently on stage for 56 minutes – to wild applause
The queue snakes around the bar, stretches down the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:24AMMonday, August 19, 2024
Gilded Balloon at the Museum, EdinburghAlan McHugh’s play is about grief and the agony of treatment – but also hope and laughter in the face of adversity
What a lovely thing to have done…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AMFriday, August 16, 2024
Pleasance Dome, EdinburghThis unfunny spoof of Glasgow’s dismal Wonka-themed attraction is as short of ideas as the event that inspired it
How we laughed at Willy’s Chocolate Experience,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:31AMThursday, August 15, 2024
Cancel culture, faltering fatherhood and the life of a tennis champ are dramatised as standups including Ivo Graham, Anna Morris and Adam Riches take a theatrical path this summer
Sam Kissaj…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:00AMWednesday, August 14, 2024
Summerhall, EdinburghTim Etchells’ looping performance piece with Bert and Nasi replays a simple restaurant scene over and over with hilarious results
Like a volley of Ken Dodd jokes or on…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00PMSunday, August 11, 2024
Younger audiences can choose from fart jokes, dancing lizards, acrobatic bees and plenty of other monkeying around
Pleasance Courtyard, 11.30am, until 25 August Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00AMSaturday, August 10, 2024
Summerhall, EdinburghBarton C Williams, flown out of Vietnam at the end of the war, recounts his experiences of racism in Adelaide and tells the stories of others relocated around the world
…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:51PMFrom the backseat of a moving car to a swimming pool, what constitutes a venue at Scotland’s sprawling arts festival never fails to surprise
Of all the extraordinary things about the Edinb…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:17AMFriday, August 9, 2024
Zoo Southside, EdinburghThe mezcal’s on hand for this strange, song-filled journey into the land of the dead
If Juan Rulfo’s magic realist novel Pedro Páramo has the feel of a séance, …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:03AMRoundabout @ Summerhall, EdinburghA hard-up dramatist is determined to pay tribute to her mum in Kelly Jones’s deftly handled play, produced by Paines Plough
In Michel Tremblay’s Le Vrai…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AM 
