Author: The Reviews Hub - Central

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Robert Hastie It’s official: the Programme notes cite as much – Much Ado is the original Rom-Com, sort of. ‘Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue…’ Yes Bill, raise your quill and give it up to Ramps On The Moon’s possible ex-communication for their heinous, … ’trippingly on the tongue,’ blasé, anarcho-bard, nouveau-bohemian inclusivity…and then some. Sheffield Theatres/Ramps On The Moon’s take on Hamlet’s advice to the actors is best seen as more flexible guidance than a commitment to textual absolutes. They have form here, harking back to their…

Music: Roman GianArthur and Nate Wonder Writer: Steven Knight CBE Director and choreographer: Benoit Swan Pouffer Strictly meets post WW1 Brummie street-crime with full-on, lock, stock, two-barreled, ‘This is our Zone Boys!’ braggadocio. Meet the mean, cobbled-lane slum Digbeth dudes in de rigour flat-caps. Rambert just licks up this sort of challenge for breakfast and then raids the Rag Market for costume inspiration after a light lunch of distilled shooting-star spangled dancing dust. Derby hats are worn by the chain-slaver factory bosses who are about to experience an extreme change of management. For the Rambert renowned ballistic-balletic aesthetic, this gig…

Music: Richard Rodgers Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Book: Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan Director: Daniel Evans Since its first performance in 1949, a few scant years after the events it depicts, South Pacific has entered the public consciousness so that few can be unfamiliar with at least the name – even if exposure might lately have been limited to Morecambe and Wise’s brilliant spoof of There is Nothing Like A Dame with newsreaders as the Seabees, or Captain Sensible’s 1982 version of Happy Talk. In fact, very nearly every song in South Pacific would go on to become a…

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Robin Belfield ‘This (school) hath a pleasant seat; the air, Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself…Unto our gentle senses.’ (Didn’t quite work out for Duncan, mind.) A charméd welcome indeed awaits on arrival at Nelson Mandela School, situated almost at the epicentre of Birmingham’s celebrated Balti Triangle. Formal niceties observed with busy bonhomie courtesy of host headteacher, Amy Lassman, an entourage of Year 6 ‘Shakespeare Ambassadors’ lead a whistle-stop tour of the building before being escorted to their most impressive Drama Suite. The lucky beggars! Part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) nationwide Schools Tour of Twelfth Night, visiting…

Writer: Tabby Lamb Director: Jamie Fletcher The Belgrade is home to the last leg of this tour of Happy Meal by Tabby Lamb, co-produced by Roots Touring, Theatre Royal Plymouth, and in association with Edinburgh Traverse Theatre and Oxford Playhouse. As the audience enters the B2 stage – the smaller venue inside the Belgrade – one of the actors stands onstage in a penguin costume, cheerfully greeting each person in the theatre. This personalised, wordless, flightless welcome sets the room as a safe space and allows the audience to warm up to each other as well. The play starts off…

Music and Lyrics: Bob Marley Writer: Lyricist B Adaptor: Rush Theatre Company Rush Theatre’s mission statement reads – ‘To influence, provide opportunities, educate, and instigate change that leads to a more diverse and equitable society and cultural landscape.’ Admirable ideals and after their two hour and twenty minutes barnstorming, does-what-it-says-on the-album-sleeve, celebration of Bob Marley’s life and work they’ve hit the ground running. It might be forgiven suggesting that a sword of Damoclean litigation hangs above this show’s conceit given that the gushing publicity is explicit in avoiding naming whose life and musical legacy it is actually celebrating. The name…

Writer: William Shakespeare Adaptors: Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett Director: Scott Graham First staged in 2008, Frantic Assembly are venturing out with their first show post-pandemic with a fan favourite, Othello. Set in a West Yorkshire pub called The Cypress, the show explodes into life with an exhilarating 10-minute sequence outlining the backstory of sex, booze, and brawls. The visual storytelling on display is sharp and contemporary without ever losing the essence of the story itself. Then, as we settle into the narrative of the show, we observe an adapted version of Shakespeare’s original text whereby Othello is the leader of…

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Lucy Bird ‘Prithee prattling knaves and flighty wenches! Anon with thy jest and japes lest the seams of my doublet burst asunder under thy siege of wit.’* With admirable disregard for the purists, Paperback Theatre has taken the surgeon’s knife with an incision precision approach to abridging the original text. Cutting away any and all extraneous expositional baggage. In with good/out with the flab’s their banner. The fun bits essentially and don’t they just run with it, literally in some cases with gallivantings all round the park, prat-falls, tripping over stage-canopy guy-ropes, near decapitated from low-hanging…