Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Choreographers: Peter Wright, Lev Ivanov and Vincent Redmon ‘What did the Christmas Season, Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB), Peter Wright gifted Nutcracker, ever do for us (suggests a suspiciously imagined voice in the sell-out auditorium tonight) – apart from the re-imagined romanticism of Tchaikovsky’s seductive score, reclaimed from Classic FM’s daytime evergreen-loop? The bedtime, fairy tale embrace of Clara’s Christmas Eve enchanted dream? The animated wizard-wand wonder of the set designs – not to mention rodents with attitudes. Apart from that?’ Before the imminent curtains-up, the disembodied sonorous tones of Carlos Acosta CBE explain exactly what’s what…
Author: The Reviews Hub - Central
The Reviews Hub - Central
The Central team is under the editorship of Selwyn Knight. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.
Book, Music and Lyrics: Willy Russell Directors: Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson Originally developed as a school play, Blood Brothers became one of the most successful musicals of the 1980s. First seen in 1983, Willy Russell’s exploration of nature versus nurture through the separation of fraternal twins saw phenomenal success, running in London for nearly 25 years and over 10,000 performances. With the show’s 40th anniversary on the horizon in 2023, the musical is again touring the UK. Blood Brothers sees struggling mum Mrs Johnstone (Niki Colwell Evans) pregnant again, this time with twins. Knowing she’s unable to afford to keep…
Writer: Charles Dickens Director: Rachel Kavanaugh From proto-Punk-Metal explosive-brick chewing Vivian in the early 1980s TV series The Young Ones to an equally violent sociopath, Eddie, in the 1990s Bottom, The Reviews Hub, appositely, had Adrian Edmundson marked-out for this most famous of Dickensian antagonists following his barnstormer, 2017, RSC Twelfth Night: ‘His Malvolio struts with sepulchral gravitas. Scrooge-withered of gait and parchment skinned, there are suggestions of Gormenghast’s Mr Fley. Vulture-like,’ Writer, David Edgar’s generous flexibility in fiction teasing fact-driving fiction forms the ingenious conceit of director, Rachel Kavanagh’s, voluptuous, bells and penny-whistles, holly, mistletoe and plum-brandy pudding production of…
Composer: Giuseppe Verdi Director: Alessandro Talevi Conductor: Jonathan Webb Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata is one of his most famous and most performed works. Based on La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas and premiering in Venice in 1853, La Traviata is about a ‘fallen woman.’ Questioning the divinity of love over pleasure set against a beautiful stage design and formidable chorus, Opera North’s La Traviata is sure to devastate and delight Nottingham audiences. La Traviata is the story of Violetta Valéry, a young woman living it up in Paris. We first meet her at a party thrown to celebrate her…
Writer: Stephen King Adaptors: Owen O’Neill and Dave Johns Director: David Esbjornson The law says that banker Andy Dufresne shot his wife and her lover. And the evidence does appear to be overwhelming and so he finds himself serving two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank Penitentiary. Shawshank is a pretty grim place with corrupt and uncaring staff from the warden down and the ‘sisters’ who rule the roost through a combination of casual violence and rape. But Andy never wavers from his unlikely story that he is entirely innocent. Andy is befriended by fellow inmate and fixer Red. Quietly spoken…
Writer: Agatha Christie Directors: Ian Talbot and Denise Silvey Agatha Christie’s venerable whodunnit celebrates its 70th Anniversary – it was first performed in October 1952 before moving to London in November of that year – by embarking on another nationwide tour so that more might be able to enjoy its twists and turns. Christie, the Queen of Misdirection, is well-known for her complex plots that cover the who, how and why of the crimes – along with plenty of red herrings, of course – but not so much for depth of characterisation – and that is all true of The…
Writer: Agatha Christie Adapter: Rachel Wagstaff Director: Philip Franks Agatha Christie remains a firm favourite with theatre audiences, and this week you can find Original Theatre’s version of The Mirror Crack’d at the Royal & Derngate. On the face of it this looks like a typical Country House whodunnit, but as it starts you realise that it is a long way from the typical formulaic detective story you might expect. It’s the 1960s and things are changing in St Mary Mead. There’s a new housing development which unsettles many in the village, and there’s even now a supermarket. Then to…
Writer: Arthur Conan Doyle Adaptor: James Nicholas Director: Oliver Hume A Study in Scarlet was the first Sherlock Holmes story to be published and set in motion the crime novel genre still going strong. It’s been adapted for stage and screen many times since its 1887 appearance; this version has been adapted for Birmingham’s Blue Orange Theatre by James Nicholas, a stalwart of the Blue Orange who also plays Holmes. A static set stands in for Holmes and Watson’s rooms in Baker Street and the various hotel rooms and other important locations. It’s slightly less successful when we are outdoors…