THERE is always a special excitement about going into a packed auditorium with an expectant buzz – and Yeovil’s Octagon was really buzzing with electric anticipation on the opening night of the YAOS autumn production of White Christmas. The large theatre was full and an additional Sunday matinee has been added to the 1st to…
OPERA is a relatively new thing to me – I tried one or two in the late 90s but have mainly been drawn to straight theatre and musical theatre since my childhood. I say this to frame my reaction to this production, as it was the first time I have ever seen Tosca, and knew…
YOU might call it Frankenstein – the Tribute Show, but whatever the title it’s monstrously entertaining. When Howard Coggins and Stu McLoughlin turn their extravagant talents to a story, the audience can be certain of fun and invention, and in this co-production with Salisbury Playhouse there is much more – a multi-talented live band, puppets…
IT has been eleven years since Billy Elliot opened in the West End, five years after the original film had wowed audiences worldwide, and I was lucky enough to see the original cast at the Victoria Palace, where the equally-anticipated latest musical sensation from Broadway, Hamilton arrives late next year. The anticipation in 2005 included…
IF you love the work of Kneehigh, the puppetry of War Horse and a barnstorming musical with a story that’s miles from hackneyed predictability, head without delay for Bristol Old Vic. The first official show of the theatre’s 250th anniversary season has been five years in gestation, and reaches the historic stage in sensational form. …
THE prolific inventiveness of Alan Ayckbourn is constant – and constantly remarkable. Snake In The Grass, chosen as IES’s autumn production, is that rarity among the Ayckbourn canon – a ghostly psychological chiller. The Scarborough-based dramatist, who is said to be the world’s most frequently produced playwright, has, over a career spanning more than 40 years,…
AS I said when reviewing the same play at the Swan in Yeovil earlier this year, Stepping Out is one of those plucky British tales where ordinary people with very real lives have to all work together to achieve a common goal. It is one of the earliest examples, written well before The Full Monty,…
THE eagerly-awaited new musical version of The Wind in the Willows, scripted by Julian Fellowes with music and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, opened in Plymouth on 8th October for a two-week run before touring to Southampton and Salford Quays. Rachel Kavanaugh’s sparkling production, choreographed by Aletta Collins and designed by Peter McKintosh,…
THE Beggar’s Opera, first performed in London in 1728, is the sole surviving example of a once-popular form of theatre, the satirical ballad opera. So it is difficult for a modern audience to know quite how to react to it. We see a bunch of low-life thieves, drunkards and whores, motivated mainly by lust and…
WHEN Father Ted writer Graham Linehan turned his attention to the 1955 Ealing classic comedy film The Ladykillers, he had to defend his actions against the purists. But, as anyone who has seen his stage version knows, it was a triumphant project, and the results can be seen at Salisbury’s Studio Theatre in Ashley Road…