TO borrow part of the lyric from Johnny Mercer’s popular song, “When an irresistible force such as you, meets an old immovable object like me, something’s gotta give”. You would expect the same sort of reaction if two geniuses clashed head on, but far from one giving way one to the other when composer Pyotr…
EDWARD Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? remains one of most shocking dissections of the mechanics of marriage ever written, as challenging for audiences as it is for its quartet of actors. Philip Turley has chosen the 1962 play for his latest production at Yeovil’s Swan Theatre, where it is on stage until Saturday…
THERE are some shows – musicals and plays – that stay in theatres for years and regularly tour to large audiences. Sometimes as a reviewer you see them first time around and sometimes, unaccountably, you keep missing them. Sometimes, when you eventually catch up with them, you ask yourself, Why? (This applies, for example, at…
PERHAPS Thomas Hardy’s greatest book, Far from the Madding Crowd, entered public awareness via two excellent films in 1967 and 2015, both bringing this story of rural Dorset to vivid life. You might think that the vast resources of film would frighten off a student production, but Arts University Bournemouth’s brilliant new version, adapted and…
THE Devon-based Scratchworks theatre stepped in at short notice to fill a couple of spaces on the Artsreach schedule, much to the delight of the audience at Stalbridge Village Hall. The four women toured the The Great Train Robbery during 2018, and were able to revive it, at the same time as preparing their new…
THE 700 year old thatched tithe barn, which is home to Messums Wiltshire gallery and arts venue, is often described as a “rural cathedral” and that never seemed more appropriate than for this concert by the Monteverdi Apprentices, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. The Monteverdi Apprentice Programme is an artist development scheme that offers…
IT’s quite a challenge, playing to an audience who know your character – and even your words – as well as you do. But the Salisbury Studio Theatre company rises to the challenge and pretty much brings the house down with Dad’s Army, which runs to 16th May at the Ashley Road theatre. In the annals…
ANY production of Shakespeare’s comic splatterfest Richard III stands or falls by its central performance. So it’s no wonder that Headlong and Bristol Old Vic, co-producers of the version that opened in the city and goes on to launch the refurbished Alexandra Palace in London, were excited to cast Tom Mothersdale in the role of…
THE majority of crime fiction fans count Ian Rankin among their favourite writers, but, somehow, I have missed out on his best-selling books. Coming to Rebus: Long Shadows free of preconceptions or expectations about the stories or their protagonists, but as a great fan of adaptor Rona Munro, I can say that this tense, taut…
WHEN John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger burst on the theatrical scene in 1956, changing the face of English theatre completely from the mainly escapism plays that had dominated the scene for the previous half century, it ushered in the new era of the angry young man. The targets may have changed since that date…