Writer: William Shakespeare Company: Oddsocks Perennial favourite touring company, Oddsocks, return to tread the astroturf of the Brighton Open Air Theatre with an uproarious production of Shakespeare’s seasonal romantic comedy. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is perfectly suited to the company’s focus on cramming as many jokes into a pared down two-hour performance as possible. Shakespeare’s text remains at the centre but we get winky asides, pop culture references and plenty of innuendo, combining to create an enormously enjoyable night out in this fabulous – and thankfully dry – open air venue. A restaurant called The Taste of Athens provides the…
Author: The Reviews Hub - East Anglia & South East
The Reviews Hub - East Anglia & South East
The South East team is under the editorship of Peter Marcus. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.
Based on the novel by C.S. Lewis Based on the original production by Sally Cookson Director: Michael Fentiman Ever since its first release in over seventy years ago, avid readers of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia have been desperate to be immersed in the fantasy realms of Narnia and all the magic that it conjures. Luckily for modern readers, Michael Fentiman’s enchanting direction of Sally Cookson’s original production absolutely charms, transporting us into Lewis’s fictional world. It is a well-known and well-trodden story. Evacuees Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund are whisked to Scotland, taken in by the Professor in his…
Gaetano Donizetti Wild Arts Ensemble Directed by: Guido Martin-Brandis Donizetti’s comic melodrama is given a fabulous treatment by the Wild Arts Ensemble, translated into English by Joseph Morris with plenty of local references inserted into the text, a very able cast and a small orchestra combine to great effect bringing out all the fun of the original. Re-imagined from the original setting of the 1830s in the Basque country to the 1950s at an unspecified seaside town, this production keeps the focus on the singing and music helped by a very simple set design, just…
Book, Music and Lyrics: Richard O’Brien Director: Christopher Luscombe Risqué jokes, crude humour, and an intergalactic space battle are all on show yet again as The Rocky Horror Show, much like Frank-N-Furter’s creations, undergoes yet another energetic revival. The show sees an uptight and stranded couple, Brad and Janet, succumb to their desires and temptations at the hands of the devilish Dr Frank-N-Furter. Like all versions of the show, it is packed full of terrific numbers and gags that will make you blush, and for the most part, this also lands. Oddly, it is a production that struggles to find…
Writer: Alan Bleasdale Adaptor: James Graham Director: Kate Wasserberg It has been over 40 years since Alan Bleasdale’s hit TV series aired on BBC Two, focusing on the lives, trials and tribulations of working-class men and women in Liverpool, savaged by economic depression and mass unemployment. Almost half a century later, playwright James Graham, well-versed in ‘state of the nation’ style scripts, has revisited Bleasdale’s work with this gripping and heartfelt stage adaptation. Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff follows six unemployed men scrambling for work, having been laid off from their road-laying jobs previously after making some wrong choices.…
Has Hove’s The Old Market ever before laid witness to a mandated, mass audience make-out session? Well it has now. Enter Trygve Wakenshaw. Trickster. Loon. New Zealander buffoon. He promises us Silly Little Things. Does he deliver? Our answer: by the bucket-load. In addition to his latest show, we’re treated to snippets from his much-celebrated odyssey, Nautilus. Our main man/mime emerges in cow print, a mash-up of mohican and madness, ready to get his clown on. For the grammar nerds in the room, his name is pronounced ‘trig-vee’ – a bit like HISBE, the much-missed wholefoods shop. We are in…
It’s Friday night, and we’re listening to a moustachioed clown with his midriff out, singing songs about loving his nan. No, it’s not that guy you met outside Wetherspoons at 1am. It’s Aussie comedian and clown, Josh Glanc (to rhyme with dance). And oh boy, will he dance. With a millennial soundtrack that will have every 90s kid in a toe tapping trance, Glanc’s show Family Man offers a one-man clown-slash-sketch frenzy you won’t want to miss. From lessons in instrumentless musicianship to shady surname-based occupations, Glanc serves a steady stream of funnies for our delectation. Who can resist laughing…
Book: Harvey Fierstein Music and Lyrics: Cyndi Lauper Director: Nikolai Foster Charlie Price is at a crossroads. Between coping with a relationship going sour and cobbling an inherited failing shoe factory together, Price’s life looks to be heading in one direction before meeting drag queen Lola, whose sparkle and energy provide fresh opportunities in this revival of Kinky Boots The Musical. As Price, Dan Partridge shines again as a musical’s leading man. Price is a nice blend of a troubled businessman and an employer desperate to do right by his employees, and Partridge strikes the right balance in his portrayal.…