Theatre and performance in Greater Manchester & other places.
Review of Nora: A Doll's House at Royal Exchange, Manchester. You wait what seems like forever for an opportunity to see a production of ‘A Doll’s House’, and then three Noras come along at once – all on the same stage. Stef Smith takes Ibsen’s classic drama, and gives it a time-travelling, hall of mirrors-style [...]
Review of Kes at Bolton Octagon. Robert Alan Evans’ adaptation of Barry Hines’ novel ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’ recounts that familiar tale from a refreshingly different perspective. Here, Billy Casper is an adult, and the play reflects back on that pivotal period in his younger life when he found and trained a kestrel. As [...]
Royal Exchange, Manchester. “It starts with a girl called Elle, she’s not your average leading lady as well, she has a heart the size of the moon, she’s far from been brought up with a silver spoon, in her gob” Centre stage, and swigging from a bottle of beer, Lauryn Redding sets the scene within [...]
ThickSkin and Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. Urging its listener ever onwards, Keep Going Then Vanish journeys down alleyways, side streets and main drags, hurriedly criss-crosses a river, and lingers only to take a breath in historic squares or a rare patch of greenery. Its guiding voices are alert to the city that flits past, but [...]
Oldham Coliseum. It’s 1954 and, as the audience arrives for the opening night of Macbeth, the Coliseum staff are slightly on edge. The last time the ‘Scottish play’ was staged in the building one of the cast suffered a fatal accident. Fingers are crossed that all will go well tonight. The good news is that [...]
HOME, Manchester. Online as part of Homemakers. Daylight is in short supply at this time of the year. Back in June, on Saturday 20th, there was an abundance of it. 16 hours and 38 minutes to be exact. The longest day and then the shortest night - the Summer Solstice. In my mind, it’s associated [...]
HOME, Manchester. There can't be many shows that can lay claim to transforming an ancient Mesopotamian ruler into an unlikely ear-worm but cult cabaret duo Bourgeois & Maurice's first foray into full length musical theatre has left King Gilgamesh's name lodged on random repeat in my head now for five days and counting. Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh. [...]
Royal Exchange, Manchester. “Terror made me cruel; and finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes...” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights. Like director Bryony Shanahan, writer Andrew Sheridan hadn't read Emily [...]
Oldham Coliseum. When a video of seventeen-year-old Jack having sex with his girlfriend appears online, his parents struggle to cope with the implications. His exams are looming, and the bright future they'd mapped out for him seems in peril. As Di and David try to protect their son from the fallout, and make sense of [...]
The Lowry at The Welcome Inn, Salford. News that an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, would undoubtedly focus the mind. Whether, as the end of the world approaches, most people would choose to channel that heightened state of mental alertness into pondering some trivia questions down the pub is certainly open to [...]
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Theatre and performance reviews in the Greater Manchester area
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