Thursday, May 2, 2013
Northern Stage, NewcastleIt's curious that Dennis Potter is primarily honoured – in the theatre at least – for one of the slightest pieces he wrote. Originally conceived for the small sc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:05AMThursday, April 25, 2013
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeContrary to popular misconception, Phileas Fogg did not complete any part of his three-month circumnavigation of the globe by balloon – which leaves Theresa He…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54AMNew artistic director Mark Babych is determined to leave the experimental theatre company's troubles behind and reclaim its original sense of identityForty years ago, Mike Bradwell wrote to …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:39AMNew artistic director Mark Babych is determined to leave the experimental theatre company's troubles behind and reclaim its original sense of identity Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:39AMMonday, April 22, 2013
Hull TruckMike Bradwell says he founded Hull Truck "to make dirty and dangerous theatre". Now he's back to direct on Hull Truck's main stage for the first time in more than 30 years, and alt…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:08PMThursday, April 11, 2013
Playhouse, LiverpoolAt the age of 85, Peter Nichols finally seems to be back in fashion. Michael Grandage's revival of Privates on Parade was garlanded with praise; a new production of Nicho…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:13PMTuesday, April 9, 2013
Royal Exchange, ManchesterRory Mullarkey's first full-length play delivers a swift dramatic response to the horse-meat scandal. Set in a remote, post-Soviet region plagued by war and starvat…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:22AMThursday, April 4, 2013
Octagon, BoltonDavid Thacker has unfinished business with The Glass Menagerie. In 1981, he was due to direct the play with the Hollywood star Gloria Grahame playing the role of Ama…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:53PMWednesday, March 27, 2013
Theatre by the Lake, KeswickJohn Buchan believed Hugh Walpole's Rogue Herries – the first of an epic tetralogy charting the fortunes of a down-at-heel Cumberland dynasty – to be "the gre…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:19PMTuesday, March 19, 2013
Hull Truck TheatreConor McKee's drama, in which six characters endure a bad night out in Manchester, is advertised as "a white-knuckle ride of betrayal, debt and lost innocence". But though …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:12PMFriday, March 15, 2013
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsFor the poet and playwright Lemn Sissay, adapting Benjamin Zephaniah's 2001 novel about a 14-year-old Ethiopian-Eritrean boy's turbulent passage through the Br…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:33PMTuesday, March 12, 2013
Harrogate theatreAlan Ayckbourn is not the first to suggest there's something a bit sinister about Santa Claus. Even so, this cautionary tale about a young woman's friendship with an apparen…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:58PMMonday, March 11, 2013
Lawrence Batley, HuddersfieldIf one were to define a vision of hell, it might be a perpetual Sunday afternoon listening to Cliff Adams's vocal ensemble singing something simple on Radio 2. W…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:48PMSunday, March 10, 2013
Carriageworks, LeedsNoel is a new boy in an intimidating financial institution: "a geeky IT nerd with his packed lunch and new pencil case" as one of the more established traders, Ray, puts …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:40PMTuesday, March 5, 2013
Crucible, Sheffield"How is a woman to have a husband when all the men belong to their mothers?" It's a question that preoccupied DH Lawrence throughout the writing of Sons and Lovers, as wel…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:18PMSunday, March 3, 2013
Lowry, SalfordWherever the dirty, the oppressed and the battle-weary gather, there will always be an opportunist on hand to sell them some tat. Bertolt Brecht's epic may be about a bafflingl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:55AMThursday, February 28, 2013
Gimp masks, CIA agents and sexy underwear are not the half of it in a Jurassic Park-influenced production of Doctor FaustusIn a rehearsal studio at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, preparations…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:47AMFriday, February 22, 2013
Liverpool PlayhouseIn its simplest form, Sink or Swim presents three men in a boat with one oar between them and nowhere to go but insane. Spike theatre's director Mark Smith took inspiratio…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:21AMThursday, February 21, 2013
Liverpool PlayhouseThink of Liverpool and you think of the Beatles, Bill Shankly – and Molière. Roger McGough's mission to re-establish the Frenchman as a Mersey wit has entered its third…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:43PMThursday, February 14, 2013
Viaduct, HalifaxWhen Barrie Rutter put together a scratch ensemble of plain-speaking theatrical nonconformists in 1992, who would have predicted that Northern Broadsides would become one of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:02PMFriday, February 8, 2013
Hull Truck theatreWhy did Alfred Hitchcock prefer blondes? "Because they make the best victims," he said. They also make for a lot of biopics, as witnessed by recent screen portrayals featur…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:56PMWednesday, January 30, 2013
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeAlan Bennett's TV monologues may have lodged in the memory as entertaining exercises on favourite themes (star turns for Thora Hird, repressed bachelor…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:45PMThursday, January 17, 2013
Lowry, SalfordThe Re:Play festival, mounted each year by the Library theatre, takes the legwork out of trawling the fringe by gathering the best of Manchester's alternative talent in one pla…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:17AMWednesday, January 9, 2013
Derby theatreSince it first appeared in 1952, EB White's story about the enduring bond between a pig and a spider has sold more than 45 million copies. It's a simple fable whose key elements…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:24PMMonday, January 7, 2013
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsMike Kenny's adaptations of classic fairytales have a strictly non‑pantomime agenda – so, as might be expected, this is a version of Sl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:27PMTuesday, December 18, 2012
York Theatre RoyalIt is hard to find a direct comparison for the Theatre Royal's writer, director and dame, Berwick Kaler, though as the years go by (this is his 34th York pantomime) there i…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:51PMMonday, December 17, 2012
People fly in from Sydney to see the panto at York Theatre Royal. What's its secret (aside from Britain's longest-serving dame, Wagon Wheels and 86 costumes)?Berwick Kaler is lying flat on&n…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:49PMMilton Rooms, MaltonJim Cartwight's debut play Road opened at the Royal Court; his best-known, the Rise and Fall of Little Voice, was commissioned by the National theatre. That his most rece…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:04PMWednesday, December 12, 2012
Northern Stage, NewcastleLike most young children, Arrietty would rather play with her food than eat it. Unlike most girls, though, she uses an onion ring as a hula hoop. But Borrowers are a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:32AMMonday, December 10, 2012
Lowry, Salford"I come from Baghdad, city of peace" declares Es-Sindibad the Sailor in One Thousand and One Nights. The context of Dominic Cooke's adaptation has changed somewhat since it was…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:22PMWednesday, December 5, 2012
West Yorkshire PlayhouseThere was general agreement that Danny Boyle succeeded in capturing the quintessence of Britishness for this year's Olympic opening ceremony. Even so, you wonder if i…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:12PM 
