IN an effort to scupper the reputation of opera as an elitist artform, recent productions have moved towards The Big Idea, in which directors impose their often peculiar interpretations on classic works. This is supposed to attract new and younger audiences. Here in the south west, audiences are lucky enough to have the most beautiful and…
MOST of us would recognizes a Chagall painting, with its vibrant and unexpected coleurs and its flying people, but the story of the passionate Russian artist is less familiar. The perfect subject for a Kneehigh work, thought Exeter playwright Daniel Jamieson. And so The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk was born, to provide the finale for…
MICHAEL Frayn’s classic fly-on-the-wall farce Noises Off is the story of a third rate theatre company performing a fourth rate farce, Nothing On, on a regional UK tour. For anyone who remembers such tours, the humour is heightened, but this is a play for all audiences, a riot of dumb show and luvviedom, pratfalls and…
PRINCESS Ida was the eighth comic opera of the fourteen that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote together and of which I have seen about half. This was a new one to me, and I was intrigued to hear from an aficionado at Milborne Port Opera that it is written in blank verse, in three acts, about…
THE annual BOVTS tour is always eagerly anticipated, bringing the newest students from the world famous theatre school to their audience in a production designed to be played in a variety of venues around the region. This year’s, of course, has to be Shakespeare, and director Christopher Scott has chosen A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He…
HAVING thoroughly enjoyed Sasha Regan’s all-male version of The Pirates of Penzance last year, I was pretty certain that her treatment of HMS Pinafore was going to be just as much fun. How right I was; with MD Richard Bates’ sparkling piano playing and some astonishing and athletic choreography from Lizzi Gee, this high energy…
TWO drag queens and a transsexual travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret. That seems such a mundane description of the 1994 film this show was based on, but that’s all you get on iMDB or on-screen television listings, not even a mention of the fact that the desert is in…
WHAT kind of world do we live in where making music is an act of defiance? What kind of country is it where it requires huge courage for girls to learn to play instruments? What kind of god asks its adherents to smash exquisite traditional instruments and bans the making of music or even singing…
RONA Munro’s trilogy The James Plays opened in Edinburgh for the 2014 Festival, attracting enthusiastic reviews from both critics and audiences. This year the epic undertaking has been revived, touring Scotland and England before its ten day stint in Toronto. The plays came to the Theatre Royal in Plymouth for the late May Bank Holiday weekend,…
THERE is always something very special about site-specific productions, many of which tend to be promenade performances too. Some of the most remarkable pieces of theatre I have seen have been conceived along these lines. I can still recall an open air performance about Carl Linnaeus, and the thrill of catching a fleeting glimpse of…