Saturday, February 26, 2011
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsIn the USSR of the 1950s, playwrights, like other artists, had to conform to Stalin's notions of socialist realism; in 1950s UK, it was the West End, "Aunt Edn…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, February 19, 2011
York Theatre Royal, and touringHarper Lee's 1960 story of a young girl's growing understanding of the dark complexities of human nature is one of the most powerfully compassionate novels ev…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, February 12, 2011
Octagon theatre, BoltonAs packed with paradox as Shakespeare's play itself, this production is heart-stoppingly poetic yet jarringly mundane. The audience is arranged, as if in an arena, aro…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, February 5, 2011
Royal Exchange, Manchester"So why," I asked, "does your municipal theatre [Münster, Germany, population approx 280,000] get as much subsidy as our RSC?" The technical director of the German…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, December 18, 2010
Crucible theatre, SheffieldAs the train pulled out of Sheffield, the couple on the other side of the table declared this was best Me and My Girl they had ever seen – and they had seen a fe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMLiverpool PlayhouseIn front of a battered brick wall covered with remnants of things that once were – doors, windows, peeling remnants of adverts for safety matches – floats, or seems to…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, December 11, 2010
National Theatre Wales, PenygroesThe Weather Factory is not a factory but a three-storey house. A fixed-price ticket (£20/£15) permits between one and six people to visit for a fixed perio…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMOctagon, BoltonBuilding on the success of last year's Oliver Twist, Deborah McAndrew again teams up with composer Conrad Nelson to adapt one of Charles Dickens's sprawling novels. Their care…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, December 4, 2010
York Theatre RoyalTutti frutti, the Leeds-based children's touring company, teams up with Theatre Royal in this spirited adaptation of the picture book (Jutta Bauer's drawings, Peter Stamm's…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMStephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughWhite lines trace two shapes at head height on blackboards to either side of the stage: mushrooms? muffins? A Jumbly boy and girl ("Their heads are green a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02PMSaturday, November 27, 2010
Royal Exchange theatre, ManchesterOn to a sand-coloured floor, browned at the perimeter as if scorched by newly dead fires, strides the god Dionysus (divinely embodied by Jotham Annan, in fl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:07PMSaturday, November 20, 2010
Live theatre, NewcastleRemember Look and Learn, the children's comic that aimed to educate as it entertained? It's been on my mind a lot in the past few weeks, watching plays where character…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PM 
