Theatre and performance in Greater Manchester & other places.
Review of Animal Farm at Bolton Octagon. No green fields, not even a blade of grass, in director Iqbal Khan’s atmospheric and bruising Animal Farm at Bolton Octagon. A backdrop of mud-streaked corrugated iron and animal skulls suspended from hooks overhead suggest instead a place of industrial slaughter. An opening sequence of loud banging, constrained [...]
Review of Around the World in 80 Days at Bolton Octagon. Continuous squiggly lines adorn Bolton Octagon’s walls and floors, drawing the eye ever deeper into the building. All routes lead to the auditorium where the irregular twists and curves continue - splashing across the walls, forming dangling neon clouds overhead and weaving across the [...]
Review of A View From The Bridge at Bolton Octagon. All the key ingredients of Eddie Carbonne’s downfall are already on full display as Holly Race Roughan’s production of Arthur Miller’s classic play begins to take shape – it’s a tragedy foretold. The two young Italian men, whose arrival will rip a household apart, sit [...]
Review of Spring and Port Wine at Bolton Octagon. It is 1966, and The Who’s ‘My Generation’ rocks out rebelliously in the opening moments of Bolton Octagon’s production of ‘Spring and Port Wine’. On stage, the Crompton’s tidy and ordered traditional family home speaks of an earlier era - there’s a cloth on the table [...]
Circles & Stalls 