Month: January 2025

When I reviewed Seattle Rep’s The Skin of Our Teeth, and mentioned I’d never attended any productions of it after fifty years of watching and writing about theatre, my editor wrote back that he was surprised I hadn’t seen it. Ditto, I hate to admit, with Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit. I had read both but… Continue reading Blithe Spirit

Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, and their bitterly antagonistic families meet on stage in a completely new, award-winning version from Ballet Cymru, the Cardiff-based Welsh touring ballet company. Does Romeo and Juliet end well? Sadly, most of us know the fate of the young lovers, and Jacob Myers—Romeo—and Gwenllian Davies—Juliet—portray them well, with, particularly,… Continue reading Romeo a Juliet

A tale of fame and fortune, Dick Whittington feels nowhere more at home than when presented in London, where the streets aren’t quite paved with gold. A home-grown narrative on home soil often leads to a path well-trodden, but this year’s pantomime at the Greenwich Theatre reinvents the title in a truly innovative way. Appearing in his… Continue reading Dick Whittington and his Cat

Secrets and lies abound in The Housetrap,but will the audience ever correctly guess whodunnit? For the finale of their 18th birthday celebrations, Guildford Shakespeare Company (GSC) is on the road again, and instead of taking a flight of fantasy on a Boeing 747, they are instead in residence at the magnificent West Horsley Place. Star of BBC’s Ghosts and… Continue reading The Housetrap

For the fourth year running, Paul Hendy and Emily Wood’s Evolution Productions has teamed up with York Theatre Royal’s Juliet Forster to present a family-oriented and feel-good take on a traditional Christmas panto. Sticking closely to the conventional plot, Sario Solomon’s Aladdin (but you can call him Al) goes from rags to riches in his… Continue reading Aladdin

It’s that blooming time of year again, and Father Christmas has a busy night ahead. Pins and Needles has recreated Raymond Briggs’s much-loved cartoons to bring a day in the life of Santa to delight audiences young and not so young. Nathan Masterson is a rather grumpy St Nick whose dreams of a holiday in… Continue reading Father Christmas

For the third time in ten years, Derby Theatre is producing A Christmas Carol, described in the programme as a “timeless tale of redemption which captures the true spirit of Christmas”. The 2024 adaptation is by Mike Kenny, whose work has regularly been performed on the Derby Theatre stage. Shortly after Sarah Brigham took over as… Continue reading A Christmas Carol

Curl Girl Productions is a West Midlands-based theatre company, led by artistic director Kiren Jogi, which focusses on South East Asian culture. The Valley of Queens is a piece of verbatim theatre performed by a cast of five women. It was created out of a project funded by Creative Black Country in which women aged fifty and… Continue reading The Valley of Queens

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

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