Theatre and performance in Greater Manchester & other places.
Review of A Taste Of Honey at Royal Exchange, Manchester. “Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.” At times, director Emma Baggott’s sure-footed revival of A Taste of Honey feels as if it is summoning up the ghosts of Shelagh Delaney’s Salford. In its opening moments, Nishla Smith’s stylish jazz singer [...]
Review of Lost and Found at Aviva Studios. Waiting for the show to start, down in the stalls, Aviva Studios’ ingenious folding yellow seating was keeping a surprising number of young audience members entertained. Any budding interest in auditorium design is quickly forgotten however when a noisy gaggle of gulls emerges – swooping down the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Circles & Stalls 