Month: December 2024

The theatrical setting of Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes, a favourite children’s book ever since its publication in 1936, makes it a great choice for this year’s National Theatre Christmas treat. It has been skilfully adapted by Kendall Feaver with a few tweaks to the characters and updating some of its attitudes but still set in the… Continue reading Ballet Shoes

From ‘umble Cockney flower girl to polished pronunciation fit for a princess, My Fair Lady is one of the classic rags-to-riches stories loved by many, its place cemented in the cultural psyche thanks to the award-winning 1964 film version starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. My Fair Lady’s source material is George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, adapted… Continue reading My Fair Lady

Conceived as a ‘concert opera’, with a libretto by Respighi’s friend and collaborator Claudio Guastalla, Maria Egiziaca is more like a twentieth century mystery play than a conventional work for the stage. Although none of the composer’s eleven operas are often performed, this short work, lasting just over an hour, has apparently retained a place… Continue reading Maria Egiziaca

A Christmas Carol or, to give it its full title, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story, at the Birmingham Rep is super. Adapted by Mark Gatiss and directed by Adam Penford, this production originated at Nottingham Playhouse in 2021 where they reprised it in 2023. This year, Birmingham Rep has got it and… Continue reading A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story

It’s Christmas Eve, the Las Vegas flight has been delayed, and die-hard Elvis fans, cousins Frankie and Marty, find themselves at a loose end in an airport lounge in Caroline Curran’s bittersweet comedy Elvis Yourself a Merry Little Christmas at Belfast’s The Mac. Reuniting with Rhodri Lewis and Patrick Buchanan (and several artificial Christmas trees) following last… Continue reading Elvis Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Back in the West End after last year’s Sleeping Beauty Takes a Prick!, He’s Behind You brings its fresh take on Jack and the Beanstalk to the Charing Cross Theatre in a celebration of queer pride. Subtitled What a Whopper!, it’s not surprising that the production’s grand erection at the end of act one is quite a sight to… Continue reading Jack and the Beanstalk: What a Whopper!

Sarah Kane meets The Burnt City in this brutal and cheeky retelling of Jason and Medea’s relationship. Lost Dog’s seasonal revival of its twist on the classics should come with a trigger warning for the unhappily divorced, as there is less Christmas cheer here and more acerbic wit. Beautifully integrated into the back wall of the Linbury… Continue reading Ruination

On entering the theatre, the audience is blinded by silver in Grace Smart’s design, with a silver disc for a stage surrounded by small mirrors and with an elaborate silver tinsel ‘chandelier’ overhead circled by silver speakers—even the coats of the journalists in the opening number are sprayed silver. This sets up the opulence of… Continue reading Spend Spend Spend

In the north of England between 1990 and into the 2010s, hundred of young girls were subjected to grooming and sexual exploitation by predatory men. Though the exposure of gangs of mainly Pakistani heritage in Rochdale and Rotherham the headlines, it was more widespread. Emteaz Hussain’s play is set at that time in an unnamed… Continue reading Expendable

There is nothing ‘little’ about The Little Mermaid; in fact it is a mega, magical, mesmerising show. Lightning, a cascade of falling bursting bubbles, a flashing burst of big, bold, blue, bright lighting effects and the Sea Witch (Chris Hayward) appears with her sidekicks Eileen the Eel (Kylie Ann Ford) and Elsie the Eel (Christina Berriman… Continue reading The Little Mermaid