Category: Reviews

Kurt HentschlägerEMPAC/ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing ArtsThe Drum, Theatre Royal Plymouth26–29 October 2022 So many questions and much to learn. EKO is the third audiovisual composition in an ongoing series staged in complete darkness. Starting with SOL in 2017 then SUB in 2019, EKO is the latest offering from Quartz Media Art Award-winning artist… Continue reading EKO

Dracula : The Bloody Truth. Or is it? Maybe, but who cares if it is Le Navet Bete who are performing. This exciting local theatre company makes a welcome return to Exeter Northcott Theatre with their popular remake of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Le Navet Bete has produced a fun-filled family night out of comedy horror… Continue reading Dracula: The Bloody Truth

Ghost stories are hard to stage as their nature is absolute; there are no degrees of success—if they do not scare the audience, they are a failure. The Other Side, from Switch­­_Mcr, does not hold back on the scares. The first act closes with moving furniture, doors opening mysteriously, a spectral figure at the window… Continue reading The Other Side

Orfeo, poet and musician, the biggest pop star of his era, was endowed with a lyre which he strummed and plucked all day, enchanting everybody and everything, animals, trees, rocks, you name it. He even tamed the Sirens. The golden lyre was a gift from his dad, Apollo, god of music and poetry. The opera… Continue reading Orfeo

I don’t usually review shows like this, but it was an irresistible invitation, so here I am in Seaton Delaval Community Centre, watching Meta4 Dance in Jumpers for Goalposts, their new touring show for families. Meta4 Dance was founded by Lily Horgan and Charlie Dunne in 2018 and has increasing community access to dance and widening… Continue reading Jumpers for Goalposts

With the country and indeed the world facing unparalleled problems, many people have been yearning for life as it used to be. The cost-of-living crisis and energy supply issues have meant that families have had to make cutbacks. For some members of society, making ends meet has become a difficult if not impossible task. So… Continue reading Twopence to Cross the Mersey

In the last but one Tory leadership race, Rishi Sunak told a gathering of ordinary Tory members in some countryside constituency that Labour had been putting money into deprived areas and that the Tories were now taking it out of those areas. An academic listening to that supposed Tory achievement wryly commented, “then they are… Continue reading King Hamlin

A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain, Sami Ibrahim’s latest play, is a poetic fable that begins with a young woman in a field shearing a sheep in a surreal land where the heavy fleece of an unsheared sheep doesn’t weigh it down to earth but enables it to float in the air and shit down… Continue reading A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain

After a short tour of its co-producers—and following the sell-out run of The Book Thief, which is a tough act to follow—this new production of Emma Rice’s adaptation of Brief Encounter arrives in Bolton. The original Kneehigh production was a spectacular West End show that toured to big stages, but director Paul Robinson and designer… Continue reading Brief Encounter

The buzz you get from this play is the kind that keeps your mind racing, long after. It’s about life, the universe and everything—but is so much more than that. Writer Lucy Kirkwood made her name with the award-winning Chimerica, later made into a TV series, and has set a standard for turning epic stories… Continue reading Mosquitoes