Giant snores reverberate across Westacre Theatre’s wide stage as we settle down for Andy Naylor’s bespoke adaptation of The Selfish Giant, Oscar Wilde’s heartfelt fairytale about selfishness, loneliness and love.…
The Fisher Theatre has developed an enviable reputation over the last few years for putting on an excellent pantomime at Christmas, and I’ve seen tired London theatregoers light up when…
A Christmas Carol, Dickens’ 24-hour tour into the mind of a damaged, embittered and miserly soul who is on the brink of total isolation, but whose spirit is revived by…
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a children’s novel, rather than a play: accordingly, the Maddermarket’s Christmas staging, using an adaptation of Joan Aiken’s book by Russ Tunney, keeps our…
I Fagiolini‘s very interesting programme of music by Monteverdi and his contemporaries pulls together a wide range of works, but somehow lacks an ensemble feel. These “Other Vespers” are not…
Tennessee Williams’ view of humanity, in terms of dead-eyed, disillusioned despair, can give even Ibsen and Thomas Hardy (neither famed for their rosy-tinted outlook) a serious run for their money.…
Before the glitzy, transient landscape of Fake News, we had the sinister reign of “alternative facts.” Dario Fo’s sardonic, wisecracking black farce, performed at the Sewell Barn Theatre in Gavin…
Crooked Wood began life as a TV play, Number 27, by Michael Palin (broadcast by the BBC in 1988). It’s basically the ultimate antidote to David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross:…
J.R.R. Tolkien, among many other things, is famous for two: his unending ability to procrastinate, and his heated (and repeated) refusals that his work could (or should) be read allegorically.…
Onto a small stage, a jagged piece of wall with a gothic window to one side, and a raised, curtained platform on the other, walks Charles Dickens. He tells us…