Salisbury PlayhouseFour performers rustle up a bustling parlour show of songs, sketches and magicA Little of What You Fancy, as the queen of the saucy song, Marie Lloyd, used to suggest to h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AMDorfman, LondonThe shared indignities of life in temporary accommodation hit home in Alexander Zeldin’s new play at the NationalLove is set in a hostel offering temporary accommodation for…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AMCrucible theatre, SheffieldThe songs still hit their mark in Irving Berlin’s musical western, but 1940s stereotyping leaves the show creaking with ageIn this 1946 comic-romantic musical, s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AMLyceum, SheffieldIt's not surprising that when it appeared in 1997 The Full Monty was instantly dubbed a "feelgood" film. Set in the late 1980s, it tells the story of a group of skilled men …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:33AMLiverpool PlayhouseThe Playhouse’s sparkling Edwardian past is brought back to life in Michael Wynne’s fine new playThe star of The Star is the theatre itself. Gertrude Lawrence and Noë…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMGender roles are all at sea and a fox learns a lesson in our pick of Christmas shows in Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Southampton and EdinburghChristmas shows are a fabulous …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18AMLive theatre, NewcastleShelagh Stephenson’s play about the radical thinker’s stay on Tyneside provides a witty examination of her ideas but not much dramaLike the quilt its female charac…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMJohn Godber mines his own life for this tale set in an NHS at breaking pointWhen John Godber returns to Hull, Hull turns out. From 1984 to 2010, the writer-director’s name was synonymous w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:31AMNottingham PlayhouseA 1970s-style sexing-up of Thomas Middleton’s 17th-century play fails to throw much new light on the textThomas Middleton’s 17th-century tragedy pivots around the dil…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMWild Woods, BradfordA former M&S food hall is the setting for this imaginative vision of a struggle for survival after a global plagueFreedom Studios specialises in “new plays in unusu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AMTron, GlasgowThe detached acting in Rob Drummond’s horror-flecked melodrama render it less than the sum of its partsSet in a present that could be any time, on a remote Scottish farm that …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:56AMEveryman, LiverpoolShakespeare’s early satire on romance gains little from being transported into the swinging decadeDirector Nick Bagnall and composer James Fortune take Shakespeare’s e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:06AMAberystwyth Arts Centre, AberystwythThis Welsh/Breton co-production has a fine cast but suffers from prosaic writing and a dramatically challenged translation app“The past is another count…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:08AMRoyal Exchange, ManchesterHeavy-handed direction mars this prize-winning play about the challenges faced by young people at the bottom of the heapKatherine Soper’s Bruntwood prize-winning …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:51AMTown Hall theatre, GalwayMartin McDonagh’s bitter-humoured play of thwarted dreams is as powerful as ever, performed 20 years on by the company who premiered itIt looks at odds with itself…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:51AMSheffield CrucibleThe effect of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor slicing one another with lines as sharp as flensing knives in the 1966 film version of Edward Albee's 1962 play is still e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:14AMStephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughA playful cast brighten Alan Ayckbourn’s 1987 dystopian comedy, which stresses the value of other people to our livesAs playwright and director, Alan Ayc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AMDundee Rep, and touringJohn McGrath’s influential play about the history of the Highlands lives up to expectationsTry as you might not to let it happen, there are times when personal preju…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:16AMLyceum, EdinburghLars Eidinger plays Shakespeare’s arch-villain with gleeful, knock-kneed energy in Thomas Ostermeier’s productionBernard Shaw famously compared Richard III to a Punch an…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMAlmeida, LondonThe interests of a London ‘awareness-raising festival’ for the Congo and the realities of life there collide in Adam Brace’s intelligent and funny playWhen I first said …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMKing’s theatre, EdinburghJames Thiérrée’s performance piece contains a glorious coup de théâtre but exists in a closed world without dramaWhat The Toad Knew and how or why he knew it…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMMinerva, ChichesterJohn Galsworthy’s 1909 drama of industrial woes still resonates in a fine revival by debut director Bertie CarvelA sound montage of news items and politicians’ stateme…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:08AMGrosvenor Park Open Air theatre, Chester Theatrical joy and magic are summoned, but the caveman of Clive King’s novel is sadly dehumanisedMaybe it’s because it feels a bit like a circus …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:10AMYork Theatre RoyalThe classic detective mystery gets the Victorian music hall treatmentFor many years now, Damian Cruden has directed the merry anarchy that is the York panto (written by and…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:13AMChichester Festival theatreJulian Fellowes and Cameron Mackintosh’s reworking of HG Wells has the production values but lacks rounded charactersHit-makers Julian Fellowes (writer of Downto…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:01AMTheatre by the Lake, KeswickBroad 60s comedy and sharp millennial political drama share a venue as the Cumbrian rep company ends an eraIt began life in 1952 as a “Blue Box” – a mobile …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:49AMNew Wolsey theatre, IpswichShakespeare veteran Trevor Nunn finally tackles the Bard’s much-loved comedy – and in some styleA Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first Shakespeare play the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:45PMWilliamson Park, LancasterDespite some tinkering with the plot, this adaptation of Tolkien’s 1937 classic is ultimately rewardingSuddenly, two suns hang on the horizon, blazing, burnished …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:11AMRoyal Exchange, ManchesterSimon Bent’s adaptation of Howard Jacobson’s hilarious novel is charming and well acted but lacks dramaIn Howard Jacobson’s hilarious, award-winning, semi-aut…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:27AMNew Wolsey theatre, IpswichTrevor Nunn’s staging is triumphant, the acting finely judged, but the British Raj setting has some conceptual flawsA Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first Sha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:16AMHome, ManchesterAnu recreates the 1996 IRA attack in Manchester as promenade theatre relying on audience imagination to fill in the gapsOn the stage of the main auditorium is a lorry, hazard…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:34AM
