Saturday, March 9, 2013
Octagon, BoltonWalter Tull (1888-1918) was "the first black outfield footballer to play in the old First Division in England" and, later, a second lieutenant in the Special Reserve of office…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, February 23, 2013
Lyceum, 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 07:04PMSaturday, February 16, 2013
Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonAt first, Ian McDiarmid's performance seems way too actorly – like a TV historian overly eager to communicate enthusiasm. Stripped to the waist to perform his morn…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, February 9, 2013
Olivier, London; Dukes, LancasterIn spite of Antony Sher's valiant efforts in the title role, it's hard to believe, watching this ponderous production, that Carl Zuckmayer's 1931 satire is c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, February 2, 2013
Octagon, BoltonJohn Steinbeck's 1937 novel makes a great story but a long-winded drama (as well as, twice, a film). It turns around one unresolvable conflict – between (wo)man and the wide…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, January 26, 2013
Citizens, GlasgowDirector/designer Stewart Laing's production of The Maids is vividly theatrical (the stage curtain gets a round of applause). But its visual surprises and non-textual interv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, January 19, 2013
The Studio at the Lowry, SalfordThe disadvantage of underground theatre (unsubsidised, popping up in pubs and other non-standard venues) is that productions usually run for only a few days. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMBarbican, London EC2The stage is almost entirely black. In the centre, a white oblong rises, a scroll about as tall and wide as an unfurled roll of wallpaper. Black and white smudges flow ov…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:01PMSaturday, December 22, 2012
Northern Stage, Newcastle; Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; York Theatre Royal; Sir John Mills theatre, IpswichThis is a fantastic time of year for a theatre reviewer – it's…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, December 8, 2012
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughElla has a mark on her brow made by a falling cinder from a passing star. So says Woody Drift, her fanciful seafaring father, whose vivid imagination outst…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMRoyal Exchange, Manchester; Lowry, SalfordAncient storytelling traditions kaleidoscope to life in two texts by contemporary writers. Rats' Tales sashays out of shadow-fraught European forest…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, December 1, 2012
Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, BathLaurence Boswell's response to the challenge of transforming The Double for the stage is astutely theatrical. In Dostoevsky's second novel, a clerk is driv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02PMSaturday, November 10, 2012
Salisbury Playhouse, SalisburyIdeally, an adaptation should do two things: it should reflect its original and it should work on the terms of its new medium. Bizarrely, Roger Spottiswoode's t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:01PMSaturday, November 3, 2012
Royal Exchange, ManchesterThis wild confection of southern belle pettiness, redneck malevolence and racist viciousness takes pretty much every trope of the deep south, laces them with poetic…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06PMSaturday, October 20, 2012
Tron, GlasgowJames Joyce's notoriously dense 1922 novel follows a group of characters on a voyage through the events and imaginings of a superficially mundane Dublin day (16 June 1904). Derm…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMTheatre Royal, YorkWriter Susan Watkins's debut drama about the second world war pilots who became the "guinea pigs" for innovative plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe delivers a great story i…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMSaturday, October 6, 2012
Curve, LeicesterLast week, speaking on Front Row on Radio 4, the director of the National theatre, Nicholas Hytner, called on our government to reinstate the money it has cut from the b…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02PMSaturday, September 29, 2012
Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh; then touringMichel Tremblay's 1968 play is set in a working-class district of Montreal and written in the local French-Canadian dialect (called joual). Translated in…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMSaturday, September 22, 2012
Royal Exchange, ManchesterA 1977 BBC Play of the Month production first made me love William Wycherley's wickedly satirical comedy, written 15 years after Charles II returned from France in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMSaturday, September 15, 2012
Old Vic, BristolThis glorious Georgian theatre celebrates its phoenix-like resurrection from potential dereliction with a rumbustious production of John O'Keeffe's 1791 comedy about the prot…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, August 25, 2012
Theatre on the Fly, Festival theatre, ChichesterIn an interview last year, award-winning playwright Penelope Skinner (Eigengrau, The Village Bike) said her next work would be "set in a motor…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, August 11, 2012
Museum Gardens, YorkThe gothic arched windows of St Mary's Abbey point to no roof but the sky. Like the Mystery plays, the abbey was suppressed during the Reformation of the 16th centur…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, August 4, 2012
Courtyard, Stratford-upon-AvonPart of the World Shakespeare festival, Iqbal Khan's production is set in a contemporary Delhi that probably bears as much relation to that city as did the Mess…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, July 21, 2012
Stephen Joseph, ScarboroughFor his 76th play, Alan Ayckbourn transports his audience to a decades-distant future where children are rare, centenarians are common and time-travel is possible.…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMSaturday, July 14, 2012
Theatre Royal, BathFollowing February's much-praised production of Goldsmith's 1773 She Stoops to Conquer at the National Theatre in London, Jamie Lloyd directs another classic 18th-century …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, July 7, 2012
Theatre on the Fly, Festival theatre, ChichesterWhen a grown man appeared on our TV screens in 1979, striding across a grassy field dressed in children's clothes, it was surprising. When the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMSaturday, June 30, 2012
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsThis is a musical of two halves: one major, the other minor. The first half is rocking, rollicking, poster-bright, high-energy fun. The goodies are good, the b…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, June 23, 2012
Number One First Street, ManchesterManchester's Library Theatre Company lost its old home two years ago. Its new space is not yet ready. In the meantime, it must find places to perform. Some…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, June 16, 2012
Tramway, GlasgowHundreds cheered and many stood to applaud National Theatre of Scotland's pre-press night performance. Six people walked out before the interval-less production reached its c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, June 9, 2012
Dukes, LancasterFour hundred years ago this August, 10 men and women were hanged on Lancaster Moor, the culmination of one of England's biggest witch trials. Twenty had been accused (16…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMSaturday, June 2, 2012
Royal & Derngate, NorthamptonMemories of last year's riots are fresh. Jubilee celebrations have begun. Olympic torchbearers draw nearer to London. The time is right to run a set of play…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PM 
