Author: Editor

Once again, a joyful, fun-filled panto has arrived at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. This time, Cinderella has rolled into town on her flying pumpkin carriage, bringing magic and sparkle to the dark winter nights. Al Lockhart-Morley’s script is full of ‘dad jokes’ and one-liners, with some great political jibes (how quickly ‘Suella’ has become a… Continue reading Cinderella

This may not be for everybody, two solid hours without interval of Brecht’s writings delivered in German with English surtitles, but it is for me. Some extracts are in English; I prefer the original. I’m moved almost to tears, which takes me by surprise. Maybe it is its relevance to today’s global events that jolt… Continue reading Stranger Than The Moon / Fremder als der Mond

Two marquee names—Dickens and Marie Jones—combine for A Christmas Carol, this year’s seasonal offering on the main stage of Belfast’s Lyric Theatre. Translated to Victorian Belfast, Jones’s script is laced with the city’s broad, barkish vernacular, a dollop of its occasional lapsing into sentimentality and its robust way of storytelling. Little is changed of Dickens’s seminal… Continue reading A Christmas Carol

Based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger and the movie made from it, The Devil Wears Prada is set in the world of high fashion. It is the story of Andrea (known as Andy), a would-be journalist just out of university who gets a job as junior assistant to Miranda Priestly, the formidable editor of… Continue reading The Devil Wears Prada: A New Musical

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

Mashed-up fairy tales, eye-popping visuals and saturated sound and colour go hand in hand in Patrick J O’Reilly’s exuberant The Adventures of Red Riding Hood at Belfast’s The Mac. It’s busy, loud, paced with enough adrenaline to light up a small town and doesn’t so much bend the fairy tale genre as turn it upside down and… Continue reading The Adventures of Red Riding Hood

Framed posters announcing a Hamlet musical, which closes after one night, a red plush curtain, this is penny-pinching fringe theatre for producer Max Bialystock who boasts of once being king of Broadway. Into his shabby office walks nerdish nebbish accountant Leo Bloom with his baby blue comfort blanket, come to check the creative accountancy in… Continue reading The Producers

We think of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a comedy, but it is full of duress, anger and upset, of disruption and downright cruelty and director Eleanor Rhode doesn’t hide this, they are there from the start with Sirine Saba’s Hippolyta turning her back and walking away from the conqueror whom she now has to marry. Andrew… Continue reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream