Author: The Reviews Hub - Central

Writer: Neil Gaiman Adaptor: Joel Horwood Director: Katy Rudd In the programme, Neil Gaiman tells us that his award-winning book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was partly inspired by an old farm near where he grew up, a farm that was, apparently, mentioned in the Domesday Book, and by his younger self. His book weaves together themes of memory, magic, shared heritage and survival. Subsequently adapted for the stage by Joel Horwood, the play now gives us the opportunity to share in the experience of what happened that fateful time to our 12-year-old protagonist and how our…

Writer: L. Frank Baum Adaptor: George Attwell Gerhards Director: Lucy Bird A lusty breeze, low-flying aircraft, proximal building work, squealing kids, park pond duck-on-duck thrashing and splashing hot beak action: Birmingham-based Paperback Theatre certainly embraces a challenge alright. And fortune smiles on the brave as Moseley Park enjoys a sun-dappled Saturday afternoon with an autumnal cusp’s nip in the air. Theatre folk are superstitious enough so why on Earth tempt the thespian fates further with an outdoor production in late September? Paperback are celebrated for their skip-rescue, stage and sets aesthetic and all the more fun for it. They’re young…

Writer: Tom Wright Director: Stephen Bailey What do we really know about Joseph Merrick, otherwise known as the Elephant Man? Alongside some of his background, we have some details of the treatment he was given which were written by the surgeon who was responsible for him spending his final years in hospital, and that is pretty much all. Above all, there has traditionally been a fixation on his appearance. What we don’t have is Merrick’s own perspective, his own thoughts and feelings. This is where The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man comes in, putting Merrick at the…

Writer: Helen Forrester Adaptor: Rob Fennah Director: Gareth Tudor Price “What would you do to earn your freedom?” Helen Forrester’s autobiographical series is well received not just in Liverpool, but across the country. By the Waters of Liverpool accurately paints the picture of her fight for freedom, independence, companionship, and, ultimately, her happiness. Against the rising tide of poverty and war in Europe, her quest for such freedom comes at a price. Forced to relocate following a tumultuous period from a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in the South West, Helen’s family choose Liverpool as the destination to rebuild their lives and…

Book, Music and Lyrics: Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe Director: Andy Fickman Following its musical theatre debut in 2014, Heathers The Musical has won countless awards and gained a dedicated, loyal fanbase which rivals the popularity of some of the longstanding musicals in recent decades. The musical is a highly successful stage adaptation of the 1988 film, which, for all the plaudits it gained for tapping into sensitive themes, never became the box office hit it always hoped to be. Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe have brought new life into this powerful story for the stage. The cult following from its…

Conductor: Kazuki Yamada It’s the Dies Irae that resounds! It can’t be rendered in words, but it’s the one with the whopping great percussion, some soaring, passionate choral work and a banging melody – no horror film or TV commercial in the seventies would have been complete without it. You’d know it if you heard it and it is played at least three times in the programme. Kazuki Yamada’s stonkingly vibrant musical direction and emotive conducting invoke a stunning rendition of Verdi’s Requiem. Once known as the Manzoni Requiem, Guiseppe Verdi (or in English Joe Green) wrote this in memory…

Writer: Susan Hill Adaptor: Stephen Mallatratt Director: Robin Herford For thirty years, Arthur Kipps has carried a huge burden. When his family, in all innocence, ask him for a ghost story one Christmas Eve, he is driven to try to tell them his story in the hope that by doing so he may be relieved of the horrors it has left him with. He knows he has but one chance to get the telling right so hires an actor to help him to prepare. The two men form a strange alliance as they rehearse the telling of the story in…

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Wils Wilson “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…” Or rather, something weird, in the form of the RSC’s latest production of Macbeth, directed by Wils Wilson in her RSC debut. Initially, things appear promising, with a suitably bizarre and supernatural opening on the misty Scottish moors in the company of three feral witches (Eilidh Loan, Dylan Read, and Amber Sylvia Edwards) thanks to Georgia McGuiness’s atmospheric set design, complete with dead birds falling from the sky. Sadly, the play almost immediately dissolves into something that feels underwhelming and confusing throughout. In…