Review

Music: Giacomo Puccini Original Director: Phyllida Lloyd Revival Director: Michael Barker-Craven Conductor: Renato Balsadonna Reviewer: Jim Gillespie Puccini’s opera La Boheme premiered in Turin in 1896. Just over a year later, it received it’s UK premiere at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, only a few miles from Salford’s Lowry Theatre, where Opera North brings its latest incarnation. The Manchester debut was supervised ...

Writers: Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière Translator/Adaptor and Director: Jeremy Sams Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Originating in France in 2010, Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière’s Le Prénom found success in over 30 countries before this British adaptation by Jeremy Sams, which first premiered at the Birmingham Rep in 2017. Now on tour, this Ayckbournesque comedy of manners ...

Devisers: Fusion Theatre Director: Katie Merritt Reviewer: Scott Matthewman The legend of Medusa is well-known. Or at least, parts of it are: most notably that she was a Gorgon with snakes for hair, and anybody who looked upon her face would turn to stone. Beyond that, things get a little fuzzy. Like all good stories, it improved with age: Medusa, ...

Devised and Performed by the Active Inquiry Spect-Act network Reviewer: Dominic Corr They say Home is where the heart is, but what happens when your home is the place you fear most? Or you haven’t got one? As we strive for a world in which everyone feels safe and secure, Active Inquiry’s Home comprises three pieces made by various theatre ...

Writer: Mary Shelly  Adaptor: Rona Munro Director: Patricia Benecke Reviewer: Matthew Forrest At this time of year, there is a tradition of ghost stories and a touch of the macabre in the air and here in Liverpool the Playhouse has bought into this big time with the staging of Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece Frankenstein. Adapted for the stage by Rona ...

Writer: Agatha Christie Director: Gareth Armstrong Reviewer: Tim Harding “When the snow melts lots of things may have happened.” An isolated Manor House.  A blizzard cutting the inhabitants off from civilization. A mismatched assemblage of characters thrown together by circumstance and forced to endure together by fate.  Where else could we be but in an Agatha Christie plot?  Specifically, we ...

Writer: Henry Filloux-Bennett Director: Jennie Riordan Reviewer: Andrea Allen “It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you…once the warm, salty butter has hit your tongue, you are smitten, putty in their hands”. The visceral, evocative language which opens this show is perfectly complemented by the smell of burnt toast hitting your nostrils as you step into ...

Writer: Nick Darke Director: Richard Avery Sound: Ray Williams Reviewer: Ron Simpson As a playwright Nick Darke, who died in 2005, was known for his work at the extremes of British theatrical life: the major national companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and small quirky or innovative companies such as the Victoria in Stoke and Kneehigh in his native ...