YEOVIL’s versatile and accomplished Swan Theatre Company has gone back to Shakespeare for the first time in 33 years – a long gap, but worth the wait, for this well-directed and often hilarious production of one of the Bard’s most accessible and popular comedies. Twelfth Night, directed by the experienced Ian White, brings some new…
“POSH feminists in drunken orgy” – doesn’t sound much like Noel Coward, does it? Obviously it’s a bit of a stretch to call Jane and Julia “feminists,” although they are undoubtedly posh – and drunk they definitely become in the hilarious second act of this early Coward comedy. In his portrayal of two still youngish…
THE works of Terence Rattigan have been widely revived in the past few years, triggered by the 2011 centenary of his birth, and one such play, Flare Path has survived this spate and is currently touring the country, visiting Bath this week. It is a period piece, set firmly in the Second World War, in…
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” (‘Hamlet’ Act 2, sc 2) Late lamented, Sir Terry Pratchett’s ‘madness’- as expressed in his magnificently hilarious ‘Discworld’ novels, disguises his comprehensive knowledge of our serious, so-called reality. Terry’s method was to turn his wealth of learning to good account, by exposing the fun that lurks…
UNTIL this evening, the name Waldorf meant a salad and a hotel to me, but now it is also the team name for seven of the girls playing Annie and her fellow orphans in this dynamic and thrilling production of this all-time favourite which spends this week at Bristol as part of a major tour…
BATH Theatre Royal ends its summer season in triumphant style with the world premiere of a new musical set in and around the Windmill Theatre in London between 1937 and 1940 Based on the film Mrs Henderson Presents, the show has a new collection of songs by with lyrics by Don Black and music by…
THERE really WAS a storm on the lawn for the final production at Prior Park after 18 seasons – the opening night was rained off! But the 36 young performers were ready to challenge the weather gods on Thursday, giving a powerful performance of Mark Powell and Ben Occhipinti’s new musical, The Teacup Poisoner. Based…
CARYL Churchill is surely one of this country’s leading playwrights, her best known plays probably being Top Girls, about the rise of women to the top of business and politics, written during the Thatcher era, and Serious Money, about stock market traders in the same Thatcher era or monetarism, and premiered in 1987, the year…
A STARTLING modern-dress and high-tech version of Macbeth played to 450 people in late summer sunshine in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s open air venue, The Dell. The two performances by Warminster’s Athenaeum Limelight Players was part of the RSC’s 2015 Open Stages programme and ALP chairman Adela Forestier-Walker said it had been a great challenge…
IF the spirit of Noel Coward hovers around any theatre where his plays are being staged, it must have been very blithe last week, when Dramatic Productions staged his delightful satire on the vogue for seances and spiritualism in the appropriately Art Deco setting of Wimborne’s Tivoli Theatre. Blithe Spirit is usually seen primarily as…