520 stories by "Alfred Hickling"
Unity, LiverpoolThe Red Shoes never stop dancing, nor do they cease to inspire imaginative adaptations. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger filmed it as an allegory on the perils of vanity…
Nottingham PlayhouseAusterity has no place in pantoland, thank goodness, and you can depend on Kenneth Alan Taylor's Nottingham pantomimes (of which this is the 27th) to provide a mirror ver…
Northern Stage, NewcastleNo matter how elaborate a present you give a little one this Christmas, they will more than likely be just as happy playing with the packaging. So it makes perfect s…
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsLeeds's Grade I-listed market hall is one of the oldest and largest in Europe, with a colourful history of traders including Cheap Jack, purveyor of miracle pi…
Stephen Joseph, ScarboroughIt is believed that, as the author of some of the most wildly imaginative but erratically spelled fairytales ever written, Hans Christian Andersen may have suffere…
Theatre Royal, YorkBerwick Kaler is the giant redwood of pantomime dames: no one will be able to tell for certain how long he has been around until they slice his frock open and count the pe…
Baptist Street, PenygroesIt is hard to avoid the conclusion that the recent severe weather is down to climate change. Yet there is now evidence that the inclement conditions can actually be …
Liverpool PlayhouseIt is always helpful when the title of a show gives a reasonable idea of what to expect, and though it is true that there are no wise men in Peepolykus's Christmas extrava…
Seven Arts centre, LeedsBoff Whalley will always be best known as the leader of Chumbawamba, the punk band that drenched the former deputy prime minister, John Prescott. But he also has a pr…
Northern Stage, NewcastleTwenty years since it was first produced at the National theatre, Alan Bennett's stage adaptation of The Wind in the Willows has become a classic in its own right. I…
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsAudiences are not exactly left wanting for Dickensian entertainments at this time of year, and though most are appropriately festive, one begins to sympathise …
Britain's cottonmill workers used to dance it. Then it became a mark of shame. Now clog dancing has returned to where it belongs " the streetsThe streets of Newcastle have begun to echo with…
Royal Court, LiverpoolFred Lawless has a knack for spinning Merseyside variants of old sitcom formats. Last year's Merry Ding Dong was a fractious update of Love Thy Neighbour, in which an E…
Octagon, BoltonDickens singled out David Copperfield as his "favourite child". It's no coincidence that the book was also Freud's favourite work of fiction " Dickens's autobiographical creat…
Stephen Joseph, ScarboroughAt a time of year when theatres pull out the stops to woo family audiences with the quality of special effects, it is much to the Stephen Joseph theatre's credit t…
Theatre Royal, YorkOne can only hope that higher education has moved on from the bearpit of academic arrogance and militant resistance that David Mamet's 1992 play describes. The story of a …
Theatre Royal, YorkSammy's family find it hard to settle in one place. First they live in a blue house, but it makes everyone depressed. Then they try living on a bus, but it costs a fortune…
Curve, LeicesterIt is sometimes hard to believe that there's only one Brian Friel. On the one hand there is the expansive bard of Ballybeg, the Emerald Chekhov. On the other is the austere m…
Unity, LiverpoolAndy Warhol once declared that he "never wanted to be an artist " I wanted to be a tap dancer". This seems about as likely as Fred Astaire expressing a secret desire to surro…
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