Author: The Reviews Hub - Central

Book and Lyrics Alan Jay Lerner Music: Frederick Loewe Director: Bartlett Sher In Greek mythology, master sculptor Pygmalion carves perfection of the female form in ivory. Naming her Galatea, he worships her beauty. Goddess Venus, so moved by this devotion (and a self-indulgent frisson of flattery), bestows mortality on her. A daughter comes along whom they name Pathos. She lends her name to the location dedicated to the goddess of Love. Nearby, the cockleshell heroine, Aphrodite, rises from the waves. Bernard Shaw’s eponymous ‘humane comedy’ explores issues of class and required pronunciation as a pithy vehicle for his social(ist) satire…

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Holly Race Roughan “Busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels”. These are the words of the dying Henry IV to his son, words that we hear in this production as a replacement for the usual familiar prologue. In other words, if people get restless, keep them occupied by picking arguments with foreigners. It may be 400 years since the play was written, and over 600 years since the events portrayed, but the approach to government has varied little from that time to this, as this relevant and modern take on the play shows. This is a view…

Book: Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice Music: Bob Gaudio Lyrics: Bob Crewe Director: Des McAnuff In the 1960s, it was practically impossible to avoid hearing the powerful falsetto of Frankie Valli fronting The Four Seasons as they had a string of hits penned by songwriter Bob Gaudio. Jersey Boys seeks to tell the story of the group from their shaky start in the 1950s to success in the 1960s and beyond. Members of the band each act as narrator in turn in sections labelled with the seasons in a clever piece of storytelling – so, for example, Spring looks at…

Writer: Stephen King Adaptors: Owen O’Neill and Dave Johns Director: David Esbjornson Shawshank Penitentiary is the setting for this harrowing, powerful and strangely uplifting production. Those familiar with the film will be all too aware of its success captivating its audience as we are thrusted into engaging with the day-to-day battles and dilemmas that surviving Shawshank involves. This stage production adapted by Owen O’Neill and Dave Johns, is no different. Gary McCann’s design work is complemented by the lighting of Chris Davey, as Shawshank is portrayed with all the disturbing grimness expected of such an environment. The cold, harsh lighting…

Writer: Paul O’Donnell For someone with diabetes, it is a form of masochism to watch a show about your everyday slog and even your deep-seated fears (including the one when your feet fall off). Though if anyone could manage it, it possibly could be someone in this position. After all, as Paul O’Donnell points out in this show exploring diabetes, the condition means you’re used to shoving needles in your own body every day and having to relentlessly confront the weight of little decisions today affecting your quality of life in the long term. With a central subject unknown to…

Book: Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce Director: Craig Revel Horwood Scott Hastings is a ballroom dancer. Brought up in a dancing family, he’s very good. Now he has set his sights on the one competition he hasn’t yet won. The only problem is that some of the steps he wants to include aren’t exactly approved by the strict Australian Federation. When he gets disqualified from a competition for dancing these radical steps, his long-term dance partner splits up with him, leaving him with three weeks to prepare and no partner to work with. In comes Fran, who’s still in the…

Writer: Michael Rosen Adaptor: Roy Williams Music: Yaya Bey & Conrad Murray Director: James Dacre Shona is struggling. Her beloved mother has died and her father has no work – so they are forced to move from place to place, living on benefits and desperately trying to keep things together. She starts a new school, where her class is studying Oliver Twist. As the story unfolds, unnerving parallels between the book and the lives of her family and her new friends start to appear. Then she’s given a new phone by someone she’s only just met, and when her father’s…

Writer: Jonathan Harvey Director: Cal McCrystal We may be heading towards the end of February but panto season is far from over at Wolverhampton Grand as Mother Goose flies in as part of a national tour – and what a delight it is. Mother Goose is that rare thing, a panto where the Dame is the main protagonist. It’s not one of the shows that crops up like clockwork every Christmas either, so for the majority of theatre-goers the story will be unfamiliar too. And how often do you get to see a panto set in a department store? Caroline…