Wednesday, May 11, 2016
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeThis revival of Cicely Hamilton’s 1908 play about a downtrodden shopworker has an admirable lightness of touch An actor, activist and contemporary of George Be…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:52AMSunday, May 8, 2016
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeThis revival of Cicely Hamilton’s 1908 play about a downtrodden shopworker has an admirable lightness of touch An actor, activist and contemporary of George Be…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06AMThursday, May 5, 2016
Theatre Royal, YorkBryony Lavery’s adaptation of the novel is more sacred than profane and, if the plot sometines drags, there are some fine performances along the wayAfter a longer-than-e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:04AMMonday, May 2, 2016
Northern Stage, NewcastleImprobable’s dramatisation of Lauren Slater’s provocative book about 20th-century science is disappointingly predictableLauren Slater’s book of popular psychol…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:11AMTuesday, April 26, 2016
Birmingham Rep Tom Wells’s knack for imbuing his characters with warmth and dignity lights up this play about three oddballs united by an ambitious ventureThe most significant writer to em…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:28AMMonday, April 25, 2016
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsRoxana Silbert’s off-the-wall production, set in a hotel lobby with a working lift, brings disabled and non-disabled performers togetherThere was a time when…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:37AMMonday, April 18, 2016
Nottingham PlayhouseEverything is in its right place in Blanche McIntyre’s good-natured take on Michael Frayn’s quintessential meta-farceNicholas Hytner encapsulated the essence of farce…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:23PMFriday, April 8, 2016
Live theatre, NewcastleAlison Carr’s account of two grieving sisters might be claustrophobically morbid were it not for its command of quirky detailsJulie and Ruby are sisters, 20 years ap…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:26AMThursday, April 7, 2016
Royal Exchange, ManchesterDon Warrington cuts a powerful and tyrannic Lear, amid a superb cast and suggestions of a forgotten history of black BritainWas there ever a black king during the d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:01AMTuesday, April 5, 2016
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsThe Vagina Monologues author has added absurdist companion pieces to her fierce polemic Avocado to expose the commodification of women’s bodiesLast year the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:04AMSunday, March 27, 2016
Old Granada Studios, ManchesterFilm, performance and table-tennis workshops succeed for varying durations over Quarantine’s seven-hour mortality sequenceDying a death on stage is nothing n…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:39PMFriday, March 18, 2016
Coliseum, OldhamThis revue-style tribute to Dame Gracie Fields wastes little time in celebrating the singer’s highlights but shies away from the more turbulent timesYou wait almost 40 year…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:11AMRoyal Court, LiverpoolThis drama about corruption among Liverpool dockers is as powerful as any Arthur Miller, with a Brando-esque performance by Andrew SchofieldIn the summer of 1970, Alan …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:11AMThursday, March 10, 2016
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsLucy Bailey’s production, based on a new adaptation by Michael Eaton, gives the most theatrical of Dickens’s novels the frightful drama it deservesThe most…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:13AMTuesday, March 8, 2016
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeAmanda Whittington doesn’t put a foot wrong with this warm-hearted story about competitive dancersThe combination of Amanda Whittington – a writer with an un…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:45PMFriday, February 26, 2016
Liverpool PlayhouseWith lyrics from Armitage and showstopping arrangements by Iain Johnstone, Told By An Idiot fashion an irreverent musical about a 17th-century atheistTold By An Idiot’s …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:08AMThursday, February 25, 2016
Northern Stage, NewcastleKevin Wathen’s gimlet-eyed enforcer returns home to avenge his brother’s death in a production that brings in period music and a Hamlet-style ghostIn normal circ…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:45AMSunday, February 21, 2016
Theatr Clwyd, MoldRobert Hastie’s intense, eloquent production includes a masterclass in filthily inappropriate humourTennessee Williams’ febrile family drama has not wanted for attentio…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:12AMFriday, February 19, 2016
Pontio, BangorThis epic adaptation of T Rowland Hughes’s tale of the Penrhyn Quarry strike shows that the fight against oppression speaks with a common tongueThe University of Bangor owes …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:34AMSunday, February 14, 2016
Octagon, BoltonWith its parade of eccentrics, this is a riotous follow-up to Jim Cartwright’s 1989 homage to the traditional northern boozerJim Cartwright’s homage to a traditional north…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:57PMTuesday, February 9, 2016
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeIt’s full-scale farce with flat caps as Barrie Rutter takes on Shakespeare’s shambling antihero for a third time with Northern BroadsidesNot even Shakespeare…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:21PMThursday, January 28, 2016
Workers once came from all over the world to work in Lumb Lane. Now the defunct Bradford mill is being used to stage their storiesLumb Lane was, for a long time, Bradford's most notorious ad…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:25PMWednesday, January 27, 2016
Royal Exchange, ManchesterMargaret Edson’s Pulitzer-winning play – about a woman with late-stage ovarian cancer – is given an authoritative revival by Raz Shaw“True wit,” according…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:03AMMonday, January 25, 2016
Anna Jordan launched her own theatre company while holding down a day job licensing fruit machines. Now she’s scored a huge hit with Yen, a tender play about two abandoned boys and their a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:40AMTuesday, January 19, 2016
Crucible, SheffieldThird Angel’s show about women’s experiences of birth is based on two years’ worth of interviews with parents and professionals, and leaves a strong impression of an…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:27AMThursday, January 7, 2016
Signal Box theatre, YorkBerwick Kaler’s 37th pantomime takes in the Costa Brava, the neolithic era and some novel wildlife, all from a trackside tent at the National Railway MuseumThe pant…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:19AMTuesday, January 5, 2016
Octagon, BoltonSarah Esdaile’s production gives Roald Dahl’s script a few modern twists without losing any of the original story’s charmThe big news in BFG-land is that Mark Rylance is…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:03AMMonday, January 4, 2016
Curve, LeicesterFearless and faithful adaptation of Roald Dahl’s diabolical story adds an electrifying new score and really delivers on its ‘stupendously scary’ promiseIf Roald Dahl we…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:50AMNew Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeTheresa Heskins gathers a jolly band of outlaws for a rousing version of the legend that never lets the facts get in the way of a good storyWriter-director There…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:32AMTuesday, December 22, 2015
York’s railway museum tracked the city’s most notorious baddie, Lee Haven Jones was an intense prince in Theatr Clwyd’s Hamlet and CBeebies’ Justin Fletcher stole the show with Mr Tu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:21AMThursday, December 17, 2015
Crucible, SheffieldThe scaled-down version of Kern and Hammerstein’s musical is still a big beast and Daniel Evans’ final festive show laudably refuses to beautify an ugly subjectJerome …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:12PM 
