PANTOMIME is a peculiarly British phenomenon, so when Crewkerne boy, Octagon favourite and successful actor and singer Thom Ford introduced his American wife Kathryn Nash to the genre, it was only natural for the versatile Texas-born actress to give it a go. She’s a perfect Snow White in Thom’s favourite theatre in Yeovil this year,…
THE dividing line between real emotion and sentimentality can be very narrow, and in a play, maintaining that division comes down to the insights of the director and the understanding of the actors. Never act with children or animals, they say, so you might think that David Wood’s Goodnight, Mr Tom, with children, animals and…
THE Merlin Theatre Productions Christmas show this year is a community presentation of a new version of Cinderella, written and directed by Claudia Pepler with new music by Joseph Church. Making full use of the wide, deep stage, with a 45-strong cast, this is a fresh reading of the original story that inspired the world’s…
THIS year the posters advertising Christmas shows are jostling for space with those pushing candidates for a general election. Both have their pantomime elements, but if it’s fun, good humour, slick jokes, colourful costumes and a large dose of love that you want, I’d suggest Salisbury Playhouse’s Robin Hood. It’s Good Good Good! It was…
SO successful was last season’s production of A Christmas Carol at Bristol Old Vic that they decided to bring it back again for 2019/20, with some new music and a substantially new cast. This time John Hopkins is at its centre, a more vulnerable Ebenezer Scrooge than Felix Hayes’s sonorous curmudgeon last Christmas, and more…
JUST how difficult IS it to sleep on the night before Christmas, when you’re waiting for the sound of Santa’s reindeer in the sky? You can find out in the studio theatre at Bristol Old Vic until 5th January, when Travelling Light brings its favourite show back to the historic venue. This time the performers…
IF you want the perfect alternative Christmas show, look no further than Bristol’s Tobacco Factory, where a wonderful new version of Snow White is on stage until 19th January. Adapted by Mike Tweddle and the company, and directed by Alex Byrne, it manages that gargantuan challenge of being woke, politically aware, plant-based and very, very…
THE 21st of the 80-plus plays written by Alan Ayckbourn Ten Times Table comes from the 1970s, one of the most prolific and successful periods in his writing career. No fewer than 17 of his plays were successfully professionally produced at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough and London’s West End during this decade. This…
AFTER five years of turn-of-the-year touring, Bumblefly Theatre has built up a tradition of opening on a Saturday afternoon at Greyfriars in Ringwood, and this year is no exception. The 2019/20 show is David Haworth’s new version of Little Red Riding Hood, peppered with the company’s usual selection of fairy stories and folk tales from…
AFTER the triumph of last year’s award-winning Christmas show, David Walliams’ Billionaire Boy, the city centre Nuffield Theatre had a hard act to follow, and has sensibly taken a very different approach for the 2019/20 production. This is the world’s favourite pantomime story, Cinderella, but not as you know it. In Michael Fentiman’s adaptation, which…