I OFTEN joke that were Her Majesty to nod to me in the honours lists, I’d have to skip the MBEs and OBEs and go straight to a Damehood, so many pantomimes have I reviewed in my career. So it is with delight that I can say that Salisbury Playhouse’s Aladdin, on until 7th January,…
THE story of Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up, is the 2016/17 popular choice for Christmas shows, and at Exeter, director Paul Jepson has taken most of Frederick Gaines’s stage adaptation and infused his own message of feminism and the pan-sexuality that Christine and the Queens have brought into this week’s news….
TWINKLING lights around the ancient farmyard, glittering Christmas trees and a menu packed with festive favourites – it would be hard to imagine a more magical setting for a pre-Christmas dinner than Symondsbury Kitchen. On the evening we went, it was cold, properly frosty cold, so you wanted to be inside, looking out at the…
THERE’S a new musical at Salisbury, created specially for young children and their families, but equally delightful for all generations. Musician and singer Glyn Kerslake and Playhouse artistic director Gareth Machin have got together to create a version of the Clement Clarke Moore poem The Night Before Christmas, and adding the essential audience participation and…
PETER Pan is a story that enchants generations of children and retains its fascination for adults, so what better family show to choose for a Christmas production. Salisbury’s enterprising Studio Youth Theatre has taken on the production in its entirety, with just a very little help from the grown ups, and it’s a delight. On…
THERE was an extra special atmosphere at the Corn Exchange at Dorchester last week for the Tim Laycock – Emma Hill production of Jack Shepherd’s stage adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel. Not only was the actor and writer present for Saturday’s performance, but the whole thing was given where Hardy himself watched it performed. And…
YOU could have measured the audience excitement on a seismograph at the Octagon on Saturday, when the band struck up for the annual pantomime and the lights went down. Peter Pan, the fifth production by Evolution at the venue, has everything – a strong story, colourful characters, romance, jealousy, songs, dances and just enough topical…
MADE in Dagenham is a British musical based on the film of the same name about the female workers at Ford’s Dagenham plant who went on strike in 1968 to try and get equal pay to the men, a campaign which, despite helping create the momentum for the Equal Pay Act in 1970, is still…
IF you want a family show filled with furry super heroes, a strong environmental message and great songs and dances, head for the Nuffield on Southampton University campus this Christmas. There Sam Holcroft’s stage adaptation of Roald Dahl’s favourite story is on stage until 8th January, when it begins its 17-venue UK tour until the…
FROME Drama Club’s radical reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest – one of the Bard’s “entry-level” plays – might have been just what the board of The Globe had in mind when they unceremoniously and controversially ousted Emma Rice in the early stages of her directorship. Director Stephen Scammell, who memorably played McMurphy in Frome’s One…