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 Pornography at 53two, Manchester. Heading to 53two, Deansgate is busy with people - out for a drink, glued to their phones, rushing for a train. And that’s where Red Brick’s production begins – with characters striding purposefully across the stage, passing by those around them, but never acknowledging their existence. The anonymity of [...]
Review of This Town at Contact Theatre, Manchester. With its alleyways, cobbled streets, chippies, and pubs – Rory Aaron’s This Town could be one of many places in post-industrial northern England. Take your pick from “the far-off towns that nobody’s heard of”. Aaron succinctly sets the scene, while also referencing the ghosts of the past [...]
Review of Animal at Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester. David is a 25 year old gay man with a lot of sexual urges – he also has a wheelchair and round-the-clock care support. David’s domestic set up doesn’t exactly lend itself to spontaneous casual encounters. When flatmate Jill isn’t around, care assistant Derek is on hand [...]
Review of Too Much World At Once at HOME, Manchester. At the heart of Too Much World At Once is a family struggling to communicate with one another, in a world edging ever closer to catastrophe. It is Noble’s fifteenth birthday, and he’s wrestling with his feelings. He is missing his older sister Cleo who [...]
Review of Song From Far Away at HOME, Manchester. Willem, a financial trader in New York, has his working day interrupted by a voicemail. It's his mother, telling him that his brother Pauli had died. After complaining that the news has come at “a very inconvenient time”, he packs his bags, boards a flight, and [...]
Review of Beginning at Royal Exchange, Manchester. Laura and Danny lock eyes across the room at a house party, and when the last guests have all left, there they are. Just the two of them – with all the empty bottles, plates of leftovers, and a fresh cigarette burn on the carpet. David Eldridge’s ‘Beginning’ [...]
Circles & Stalls 