Reviews

All My Sons, Street Theatre at Strode Theatre, Street

ARTHUR Miller’s All My Sons is regarded as one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, yet it is performed rarely, requiring a level of emotional and intellectual concentration from its audience that is unusual in these 90-minutes-and-off-to-the-bar days. Set in the back yard of a house in a well-to-do neighbourhood of an American…

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Bad Girls – The Musical, Athenaeum Masqueraders, Warminster

THIS production by Warminster’s Masqueraders was back by popular demand after a successful sell-out production on the Athenaeum stage earlier this year. That demand was certainly evident as this vibrant show, which really delivers what the title promises, once again played to full houses. It is set in a women’s prison, and the stark set…

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Youth at the helm at The Lighthouse

DVORÁK: Symphonic Variations DVORÁK: Violin Concerto SIBELIUS: Scene with Cranes SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 5 THE 34-old-year Scottish conductor Rory Macdonald and the 29-year-old Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma are well past the stage when they could be called ‘promising’: both are in the thick of highly-successful careers. But the youthful zest that both bring to their…

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Top Hat, Bristol Hippodrome

TOP Hat has only been a stage show for three years, and after a successful run at the Aldwych Theatre in London’s West End, the show began a year-long National tour in August, and is at Bristol for the next two weeks.  It started life as one of the famous Fred and Ginger musicals, made by…

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The Addams Family, Yeovil Youth Theatre at Yeovil Octagon

YEOVIL Youth Theatre has been one of the great successes of the past decade, from the astonishingly confident Les Miserables at the Gateway in 2005 to the barnstorming CATS at the Octagon two years ago, and subsequent shows. So it was disappointing, both for the company and their fans, on the opening night of The…

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The Kite Runner at Salisbury Playhouse

THE audience at Salisbury Playhouse is not given to spontaneous displays of emotion, but at the end of the Nottingham Playhouse production of Matthew Spangler’s adaptation of The Kite Runner, almost everyone sprang to their feet to applaud. This after an unpromising start, as the touring company battled with the technology to raise and lower…

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William Tell, Welsh National Opera at Bristol Hippodrome and touring

FOR many of us, the name William Tell takes us straight back to childhood. I have vivid memories both of Conrad Phillips (complete with crossbow and apple of course) on TV in the late fifties as well as of the American western series The Lone Ranger where Rossini’s familiar and exuberant music was used as…

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Dracula, Mark Bruce Company at Salisbury and touring

MARK Bruce, the dancer and choreographer who has developed much of his work in Somerset, was born in London born 45 years ago, and trained at the Rambert. He founded his company in 1991 and since then has been astounding, delighting and disturbing audiences around the country and beyond. His latest work, Dracula, started life…

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Taking Steps, Churchill Productions at the Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne

THE rarely-performed 1979 Alan Ayckbourn play Taking Steps, regarded as his only true farce, had a welcome outing at the Tivoli in Wimborne by courtesy of the excellent Churchill company, again directed by Pete Talman. Set on three floors of a dilapidated Victorian mansion miles out of town, and originally played on a flat stage,…

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Dead of Night, Halse Players at the Halse Village Hall

HALSE Players’ latest production, and their first thriller, provides excellent entertainment and some fine characterisations with only one significant flaw (hopefully corrected on later nights). Peter Whalley’s Dead of Night (not to be confused with the classic black and white movie of the same name) is a taut small-cast thriller which probably deserves to be…

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