SARAH Waters’ story The Night Watch, set in London during and immediately after the Second World War, is told in reverse, opening in 1947. There the central character Kay warns of the dangers of living in the past. This literary device for filling in the blank spaces is a challenge for theatrical adapters, but one…
THERE was a distinct cool draught in the Assembly Rooms when Cuarteto Casals arrived onstage to start the concert with Mozart’s String Quartet in B flat major. In between movements, violinist Vera Martinez, wearing a lovely bare-armed dark green full evening dress, certainly not designed for a cold winter’s evening, had to resort to breathing…
PAT Barker’s Regeneration trilogy is one of the great literary achievements of the late 20th century – an evocation both of the sheer horror of the “war to end all wars” and of the different ways in which the soldiers, medics, governing class and military top brass dealt with the experience. The late autumn production…
I FIRST saw the current Classic Thriller Company touring production of The Lady Vanishes in Bath at the end of January, and now it is at Yeovil Octagon with a substantially new cast. Roy Marsden directs this adapation of a Hitchcock film, performed on an impressive and atmospheric set designed by Morgan Large and lit…
WHETHER you subscribe to Charles Spurgeon’s version “Begin as you mean to go on”, or the New Year resolution “Start as you mean to continue”, the idea is the same – that something has been started on a high note. And that certainly can be applied to the opening concert of this the 29th Bath…
AUDIENCES at Strode Theatre in Street are accustomed to pantomimes, musicals, comedies and classic dramas, but Mayfly, on stage until Saturday 9th November, is something entirely new. Director Neil Howiantz discovered Joe White’s play, produced only once before in London, and arranged to meet the playwright. A long chat resulted in the Somerset company getting…
IN many ways, the combination of names above the show title, Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s Calendar Girls-The Musical, tells you all you need to know about this telling of the now well-known story of members of a Yorkshire WI who have raised millions of pounds for cancer charities through posing for a nude calendar….
CHEF and food journalist Nigel Slater’s memoir, Toast, was a best-seller among his many fans and the film of the book, starring Freddie Highmore and Helena Bonham Carter, has become a classic. Now the story of how the nine-year-old Nigel learned to love cooking has been adapted for the stage by the Lowry Theatre, and…
ONE of the greatest plays of the 20th century, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, is a brave and triumphant choice for the Churchill company in Wimborne. The Tivoli’s is an audience not accustomed to big, serious drama, unless it’s in the form of a movie. But the many who all but filled the stalls on…
WILLIAM J Locke’s short story Ladies in Lavender is best known in Charles Dance’s film starring dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, but as so often happens with cinema adaptations, the stage play is a much subtler dramatic form. So it is with Shaun McKenna’s version, chosen by director Patricia Richardson for ImpAct’s autumn tour…