A fine cast sent adrift: SALT – fEast Theatre
“This strip of saltmarsh, not quite the land, not quite the sea”: the wet, uncompromising North Norfolk coastline forms the setting for Jeremy Page’s 2008 novel Salt, newly adapted for…
Vice! Humour! Horror! And a happy ending… Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, RoughCast
One of the best things about Shakespeare is his endless capacity to surprise you. This is partly because he simply wrote so much: they may be more than four centuries…
Marauding before teatime: The Sagas of Noggin the Nog
“In the lands of the North where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long, the men of the Northlands sit…
Clean, clear, and at a canter: Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, Cambridge University Gilbert & Sullivan Society
On a clean, largely clear stage, dotted with a few barrels and benches, a tidy vegetable stand to one side and a pub sign, The Four Bears, to the other,…
Vivacious, Victorian, and very good fun: Ruddigore, Gilbert & Sullivan, Southgate Opera
We tend to think of Victorian society as morally strict, judgemental, and socially tense: and Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, while confirming all the above, savagely pokes fun at Victorian ideals…
Making more monsters: Blood and Ice, Liz Lochhead, Sewell Barn Theatre
“Feminism is like the hoovering: you just have to keep doing it,” once said Liz Lochhead, former Makar (poet laureate) of Scotland; and Lochhead has been true to her word, with a…
The life lesson of sharing: The Selfish Giant
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.…
Oh, yes they did: Dick Whittington and his cat, Ben Crocker
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…
Plum pudding, puppets and psychic renewal: A Christmas Carol, Spinning Wheel Theatre
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…
Cold snap: The Wolves of Willloughby Chase, Maddermarket
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…