Writer / Director: Rachael Boulton Reviewer: Maryam Philpott It’s all for nothing so it seems, everything we do, every contribution we make doesn’t count, no loyalty, no trust, one day they will come for all of us. Rachael Boulton’s new play Exodus may not sound like the cheeriest 80-minutes, but this semi-absurdist comedy is an interesting examination of responsibility, community and ...

Book, Music and Lyrics: Scott Alan Director: Scott Alan Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Scott Alan’s songwriting has a definite cachet among musical theatre cabaret performers. His pensive, yearning ballads provide a great opportunity for a singer to emote and demonstrate emotional depth as part of their set. A whole evening of such numbers, though, can risk monotony. There’s an earnestness to ...

Music: Dave Brock, Mike Batt Conductor: Mike Batt Reviewer: Jo Beggs The first and only other time this reviewer has experienced Hawkwind live was in a packed tent at the Bluedot Festival at Jodrell Bank last summer, the perfect backdrop for their particular brand of space rock. The Lowry’s Lyric Theatre has quite the opposite vibe, although the bar is doing ...

Writers: Mark Bomback, Bathsheba Doran, David Harrower, James MacInnes, David Mackenzie Director: David Mackenzie Reviewer: Maryam Philpott Every nation has its myths and heroes, ones they return to again and again to explain their identity. England recently discovered that its Empire heritage is still ingrained in spirit if not in practice, while Scotland looks to its pre-medieval freedom fighters to ...

Writer: Nicole Taylor Director: Tom Harper Reviewer: Maryam Philpott The BFI has made considerable efforts to celebrate working-class experiences, including a dedicated mini-season on the Working Class Hero at their Southbank home and funding movies that look at the lives of ordinary people from all over the UK. One such project, Wild Rose, has been 10-years in the making, a sweet ...

Writer: Frank Cottrell Boyce Director: Carl Hunter Reviewer: Maryam Philpott Screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce really likes to write about fathers and sons; last year his movie Goodbye Christopher Robin examined the relationship between the shell-shocked A.A. Milne and his son, woven into the magical landscape that inspired Winnie-the-Pooh. More modestly this year Cottrell Boyce’s new film Sometimes, Always, Never, premiered at ...

Writers: Matt Bai, Jason Carson and Jason Reitman Director: Jason Reitman Reviewer: Maryam Philpott Personal indiscretions have the power to end political careers but that hasn’t always been the case. In the UK it was the Profumo affair of 1961 that permanently altered the relationship between the press and Parliament, while in America after Watergate in the 1970s corruption and ...

Music and Lyrics: Jim Steinman Reviewer: Ruth Jepson After topping the charts in 1977, and with over 43 million sales worldwide, the iconic Meat Loaf album Bat Out of Hellmade Jim Steinman's songs household names. Two further Bat albums went on to be produced by the pair, not to mention the dozen or so other albums they put out, together and ...