THIS is one of those “clever trick” plays which make up an ever-increasing part of Alan Ayckbourn’s work. There are plays that run concurrently on two stages, plays set on three different floors, all staged at the same level, plays that move forward and backward in time, and so on. The clever trick in this…
OPERA Project returned to Bristol’s Tobacco Factory earlier this week with its staging, in English, of one the most powerful works in the repertoire – Tosca. Following the company’s hugely successful production of that other Puccini favourite Madam Butterfly in 2014, this co-production with the venue is both gripping and compelling, the familiar if complex…
RUTH Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, and Marilyn Monroe, died a decade apart. One became a cause celebre in her final weeks, the other was a celebrity in her life. Both were bottle blondes. Actress Joan Ellis (no relation) imagined the last moments of both women for her solo show…
IT Shoulda Been You, a new(ish) musical comedy by Barbara Anselmi and Brian Hargrove, is currently enjoying what could well be its English premiere in the intimate setting of Cooper Hall, Frome. Originally performed on Broadway in 2015, where it was nominated for no fewer than twelve awards, this production was very nearly a UK…
ARTHUR Miller wrote his epic play The Crucible in response to the McCarthy witch hunts of the early 1950s, underlining the mass hysteria and paranoia that can overtake the American people. The play is particularly relevant today, in a US society increasingly polarised by suspicion, innuendo and “fake news”. Lois Harbinson’s production the play for…
CAN it really be 34 years since I saw Felicity Kendal and Roger Rees in this play? My old programme assures me that it was, at the Strand Theatre. I remember there being four characters in it, and it mainly about two couples and their relationships, including some clever trickery with a play within a…
EVERY time I return to this auditorium built into the side of a hill in Yeovil I prepare myself to be disappointed. I have enjoyed every production I have ever seen there, even of plays I do not like, so sensitive and detailed is the work by the actors, directors and crew. I will no…
Ensemble Askew Emily Askew, John Dipper, Jamie Roberts and Simon Whittaker 7-9 September 2017 The latest CD album, Alchemy, from Emily Askew and her band of early music musicians was recently reviewed in The Times as “unpredictable, impassioned and one of the albums of the year so far”. Hearing the CD programme live over their…
ALFRED Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2017, and what better way to mark its timeless relevance than a new production starring one of our greatest actresses, Sian Phillips. This Bath Theatre Royal production starts on the home stage, the first of an eight venue UK tour, teaming the octogenarian Dame with Derek…
THE Autumn season at Salisbury Playhouse starts with Jo Newman’s production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, which still has the aura of a very modern play although it was first seen in 1978. It has generated acres of words from the (predominantly male) critics and academics, and great public interest when Joan Bakewell, whose affair with…