Theatre and performance in Greater Manchester & other places.
Royal Exchange, Manchester. 30 May 2018. Staging Samuel Beckett's Happy Days at the Royal Exchange, in the round, poses an obvious challenge - what to do about that "expanse of scorched grass rising centre to low mound". Director Sarah Frankcom must have been toying with several ideas initially, when tickets first went on sale only [...]
Oldham Coliseum. 25 May 2018. Much has rightly been made of the legacy of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey, with its influence on new generations of women writers, the pioneering depiction of working class life and its lingering presence in popular culture. What's less clear is how much the play itself has to say [...]
Royal Exchange, Manchester. 8 & 14 May 2018. Up go the lights. Five women doing their own thing. Dancing with a lampshade on their head, stroking a toy dog, playing the piano, conducting an imaginary orchestra or transfixed by a spinning chandelier. We're not in Kansas anymore, but then neither are we in an unnamed [...]
HOME, Manchester. 16 May 2018. "All I did was shoot him in the ass". Angel Cruz lands himself in Rikers Island prison after shooting the Reverend Kim. Although he only shot him in the 'ass', the reverend dies following complications in hospital. Angel is allowed out of his cell for an hour a day to [...]
HOME, Manchester. 10 May 2018. If ever a house was not a home, this is it. An outline of a structure, nothing more than a wooden frame with plastic sheeting for walls. A place both insecure and transparent. Eugene O'Neill's fraught and feuding Tyrone family find shelter within this New England summer house but no [...]
Royal Exchange, Manchester. 24 & 30 April Although Rory Mullarkey's sparkling translation of The Cherry Orchard is quite clearly a labour of love, he has no qualms about describing Chekhov's final play as "weird". It's easy to see what he means. Set in a country house populated by an assortment of odds and sods, a [...]
53two, Manchester. 9 May 2018. "It's just you and them, and the music". Dropping in on three different years, Loop begins in 1965 with a young woman leaving behind her frustrating life in London to start a new one in Manchester. Then, after eavesdropping on two teenagers falling in love in 1985, it all comes [...]
Bolton Octagon at Bolton Town Hall. 26 April 2018. Bolton Octagon's annual REVEAL Festival promises "original and exciting theatre" although it also offers the additional bonus of seeing performances in non-theatre venues across Bolton. So far I've perched on a bar stool to watch a performance in a pub and sat on a row of [...]
Bolton Octagon at the Venue Bar. 25 April 2018. Bolton Octagon's annual REVEAL Festival promises "original and exciting theatre" although it also offers the additional bonus of seeing performances in non-theatre venues across Bolton. So far I've perched on a bar stool to watch a performance in a pub and sat on a row of [...]
Salford Arts Theatre. 20 April 2018. Tim Keogh's Thorn begins with a young man transfixed, and ultimately transformed, by the dazzling sight of David Bowie performing Starman on Top of the Pops. The year is 1973, and that 'boy' is Steven Patrick Morrissey. While for most of his adult life he will choose to be [...]
Circles & Stalls 