520 stories by "Alfred Hickling"
Lowry, SalfordEveryone knows the Maldives are sinking. Everyone, that is, except for Dr Diane Cassell, a climate-change expert at the university of York, who has been studying the islands fo…
Theatre Royal, YorkCertain performances are destined for a long run, though few are likely to run quite this far. At the heart of this Pilot Theatre production, Elliot Barnes-Worrell no…
Harrogate theatreWhere there's muck there's brass. And where there's involvement from Northern Broadsides, there will probably be a fairly strong brass contingent as well. Music has always b…
The story of the borstal boy who turns to racing has been relocated to last year's riots. Alfred Hickling talks to writer Roy Williams and the star of the 60s film version Tom CourtenayImmed…
Crucible, SheffieldWe've come to expect sterling Shakespeare from Daniel Evans at the Crucible. Hamlet (featuring John Simm) and Othello (with Dominic West and Clarke Peters) were notable no…
Museum Gardens, YorkIn the beginning was the word, and the word was nowt. "I am maker unmade, nowt is but me," declares God in Mike Kenny's adaptation of the medieval religious dramas, compi…
The York Mystery Plays are back " in a production boasting 500 actors, one ark, a choir, a brass band, 1,200 volunteers, and a very surprising bromanceThere are some bizarre items on the ag…
Theatre-by-the-Lake, KeswickThe green burial revolution began in Cumbria in the early 1990s, with a plot of pasture outside Carlisle where those concerned about the carbon footprint of coffi…
Millennium Centre, CardiffThe writer Kaite O'Reilly says that she maintains two careers: "the mainstream playwright and the less visible disability artist." Recently, that balance has arguab…
Theatre-by-the-Lake, KeswickJohn Chapman's venerable farce has not received any professional attention for over two decades, which does not make it immediately obvious why there should be tw…
Stephen Joseph, ScarboroughJohn Godber and Jane Thornton have one of the least glamorous, but longest-running of theatrical marriages. They've acted together, directed one another and collab…
Grosvenor Park theatre, ChesterHey ho, the wind and the rain. Chester's charming open-air theatre has entered its third season with the welcome innovation of a canopy over the seating area, …
Royal Exchange, ManchesterThe Royal Exchange's Truth About Youth festival claims to be about "challenging and changing negative perceptions of young people in the UK". On the face of it, inv…
Alexandra Park, OldhamCurrently without a roof over its head " at least until major refurbishment work is completed in the autumn " Oldham Coliseum has decamped to the park. It sounds a plea…
Stephen Joseph, ScarboroughHow many Alan Ayckbourn characters does it take to change a lightbulb? The answer " at least according to Absurd Person Singular " is six: one to attempt suicide w…
Playhouse, LiverpoolValentia, a tiny island off the coast of County Kerry, is the kind of place where you make your own entertainment. Sal, a young woman who has returned to her remote Irish…
Hull TruckA recent study at Royal Holloway University suggests that the Strictly-inspired popularity of ballroom dancing marks a reversion to traditional gender roles. What women want, in ot…
A former member of pop group Busted is directing Gareth Gates in a musical about the birth of emailFor a brief period in the early noughties, Busted were the biggest band in Britain, infamou…
Theatre Royal, YorkFor the past three years, York Theatre Royal has been subject to an annual bloodless coup, in which everyone from the artistic director to the catering manager is kicked o…
Crucible, SheffieldKaite O'Reilly's drama is so disorientating that even the front-of-house announcements are confusing. There's no mention of a play, only notification of workshops and plen…
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeIn Thomas Hardy's novel, sheep farming is a tough, unforgiving existence. The prospects of the hero, Gabriel Oak, are wiped out when an immature sheepdog, "incap…
A young man and woman bound onto a bare stage, bottles of water in hand. They begin sparring: physically at first, then verbally. The language is explicit, poetic, raw. They want to do obsce…
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsTom Stoppard's 1982 comedy opens with an audacious sleight-of-hand in which Max, an architect, is distraught to discover that his wife Charlotte has been unfai…
Octagon, BoltonCoronation Street star Pat Phoenix was once described by prime minister Jim Callaghan as "the sexiest thing on television". Yet Phoenix, who played the Street's rapier-tongued…
Live, NewcastleA journalist once had cause to ask why Frank Sinatra was sitting backstage without any trousers. The singer pointed at the hack's crumpled suit and replied: "So I don't go out…
