Monday, January 28, 2013
January 25: This well-directed and enjoyable showcase gives us just 18 students - eight women and ten men - an ideal number and balance for a successful event. It is also encouraging, and su…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:11AM[SHARE]Monday, January 21, 2013
When I last visited High House Production Park in Thurrock, where Royal Opera House has its fabulous workshop, builders were just putting in the foundations of Creative and Cultural Skills' …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:28AM[SHARE]Friday, January 18, 2013
New Diorama, London: The New Diorama's enclosed space, this time with very subdued lighting and a near continuous low level rumbling sound effect, evokes rather well the claustrophobic …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:40AM[SHARE]Thursday, January 10, 2013
New Diorama Theatre, London: The first of three plays in The Faction's 2013 rep season, Fiesco is an unfamiliar piece which presents the ever topical theme of usurping tyrants. This acc…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:38AM[SHARE]Friday, December 21, 2012
Theatre Royal, Margate: The star of this low key, traditional panto is the giant - a gorgeously grotesque green and brown 10 foot tall puppet operated from within, closely followed by a rat…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:27AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 20, 2012
Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells: This lively show gives us the dishiest prince I've seen so far this year in Toby-Alexander Smith. He has commanding height, a magnificent singing…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:11AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Central, Chatham: The big thrust stage, grandiloquent domed roof and long quasi baroque U-shaped balcony of Central Theatre is an ideal setting for a big, bouncy pantomime. And Evolution, as…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:48AM[SHARE]Monday, December 17, 2012
Brook Theatre, Chatham: This inspired promenade show for very young children is immersive as well as interactive and uses three different areas of the Brook auditorium. When an entranced chi…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:09AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 13, 2012
Cottesloe, National Theatre: This quirky, witty, intelligent take on one of the darkest of Grimm's Tales has mobile trees, a Russian talking oven, lots of quite sinister puppeted animal…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 01:20PM[SHARE]Lyric Hammersmith, London: Barry McCarthy's take on Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas is a homely, flesh and blood old chap who snores, feels cold, goes to the loo, grumbles, enjoys…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 09:42AM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Hazlitt Arts Centre, Maidstone: This generally upbeat show gives us the repeated hurling of a giant necklace made of five toilet rolls (rather than "five go-old rings") into the au…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:50AM[SHARE]Monday, December 10, 2012
Little Angel Theatre, London: If you see only one children's Christmas show this month then it should be this witty, charming, engaging piece of miniature theatre. It's billed for …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:55AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury: This rather wet show meant that my notebook was soaked during the water pistol chase. And water spouts out of every corner and orifice in a hilarious slapstick s…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:06AM[SHARE]Monday, December 3, 2012
Unicorn Theatre, London: Imagine a Brechtian pantomime crossed with the ever-irreverent Horrible Histories. You can't fault this version of The Prince and the Pauper for originality.
R…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:20AM[SHARE]Friday, November 30, 2012
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon: If a children's show is meant to be strong on story-telling then this one fails. It is almost impossible to work out what is going on, es…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:43AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Phoenix, London: Originally staged at Chichester Festival Theatre last year and then toured, this show has matured and developed. A 1940s wartime reworking of the Silas Marner story in which…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:31AM[SHARE]Monday, November 26, 2012
Little Angel Theatre, London: Angela Miguel's gentle version of this familiar Italian story (no punitive burning of Pinocchio's wooden feet) runs on Little Angel's slick chara…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:31AM[SHARE]Polka Theatre, London: It isn't easy to pare The Wind in the Willows down to six actor size. Toby Dulse's imaginative reworking with Martin Ward's evocative music and, above a…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 04:50AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Polka Theatre, London: This jolly little show gives us quiet but boring Mr Polaro (Samuel Jameson complete with white ursine furry legs) being invaded by fun-loving penguins, led by Clare Fr…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:47AM[SHARE]Monday, November 5, 2012
It was somewhere very early in the new millennium that I first met Karl Wozny, founder of Bigfoot. Â I watched some of his impressive work in action in a Wandsworth primary school. Then he…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:30AM[SHARE]Friday, October 5, 2012
Unicorn Theatre, London: As piteously misunderstood, tragic Malvolio, Tim Crouch hilariously explores what it means to be a puritan (or today simply a decent person who doesn't drop lit…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 12:01PM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Unicorn, London: Four actors have come to Unicorn Theatre to stage a version of The Winter's Tale with renamed characters using modern language. And we never know, as they banter and s…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:12AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Polka Theatre, London: Two gardeners tell a story for very young audiences - and play all the parts in this devised piece.
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SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 01:08PM[SHARE]Monday, October 1, 2012
Little Angel Theatre, London: You can always rely on Little Angel for respectful work. And this exquisite miniature show is no exception. It respects the children and others in the audience.…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:15AM[SHARE]Friday, September 28, 2012
Unicorn, London: This dark, but determinedly optimistic piece tells the well documented story - hammered home with some moving chorus work to make the horrifying story absolutely clear to yo…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:13AM[SHARE]Monday, September 24, 2012
Quarterhouse Theatre, Folkestone: This delightful, energetic take - in witty rhyming couplets - on the traditional Rumpelstiltskin story has some of the most attractive folksy music (compose…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:42AM[SHARE]Sheppey Little Theatre, Kent: Fagin, one of the most loathsome characters in literature, filthy and snivelling, is to be hanged in an hour in this powerful and highly accomplished piece of B…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:24AM[SHARE]Friday, September 21, 2012
Holy Family Technology College, London: This overtly and passionately political piece tells the harrowing tale of what it was really like to be black and abandoned in New Orleans in 2005 whe…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:44AM[SHARE]Friday, September 14, 2012
Criterion Theatre, London: Sorry East 15, it is impossible to showcase the work and talent of 44 people in 55 minutes effectively. Neither does it do anyone any favours to select 21 duologue…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 02:02PM[SHARE]Thursday, September 13, 2012
Nuffield, Southampton: Tim Crouch's Lear, pared down mainly for primary school audiences - the RSC's fourth show in its Young People's Shakespeare series - becomes the story o…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 01:02PM[SHARE] 
