Scotland

Music: Giacomo Puccini Libretto: Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa Revival Direction: Jonathan Cocker Conductor: Stuart Stratford Reviewer: Dominic Corr Puccini’s melodramatic masterpiece Tosca has it all; corruption, lust, heartbreak and the bureaucracy of history. Shifting the timeframe into the 20th century, there is still a stringent root to Puccini’s origins in 1900. Practically flawless in execution, Tosca moves beyond a ...

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: John Pielmeier Author: William Peter Blatty Director: Sean Mathias Reviewer: Tom Ralphs A good horror show is about more than haunted house settings and special effects, it’s how music, lighting, sound effects, stage designs and characterisation combine to create something truly chilling. A good horror show script is never about the words and actions that are playing out in ...

Book: Joe Masteroff Music: John Kander Lyrics: Fred Ebb Director: Rufus Norris Reviewer: Gareth Davies Possibly still the best known of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s body of musical theatre classics, Cabaret finds drama amongst the lives and loves of characters in and around a seedy Berlin nightclub of the early 1930s. Referencing the rise of Nazism, personal tragedies unfold ...

Writers: Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss Directors: Lucy Moss & Jamie Armitage Choreographer: Carrie-Anne Ingrouille Set Design: Emma Bailey Costume: Gabriella Slade Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived. Aragorn. Boleyn. Seymour. Cleves. Howard. Parr. Six women, six British Queens, reduced to six words in a rhyme. Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss give sassy 21st Century voices to ...

Writer: Ellie Stewart Director: Caitlin Stewart Reviewer: Dominic Corr Liaisons with a swan, gandering with the geese and partying it up with pigeons, it’s a peculiar premise for Ellie Stewart fantastical comedy-drama Hope and Joy, which centres on the peculiar arrangement of characters after Hope gives birth to a large egg, containing her swan-hybrid son Magnus. During which, she is ...

Principle Artistic Direction: Carlos Acosta Reviewer: Dominic Corr Dance doesn’t solely comprise movement, while the central aspect in a medium without voice, the ability to communicate with an audience through rhythm, music, construct and the beauty of abstract storytelling is paramount. Acosta Danza Evolution is the future of the industry, illustrating their imaginative capabilities with four pieces which, while sharing ...

Book: Berry Gordy Director: Charles Randolph-Wright Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Eight hundred dollars, a loan from his family, was all it took for Berry Gordy to set up the legendary Motown Records. Flash forward to 1983, and the eve of Motown’s 25th anniversary. Gordy is reflecting on his career at a point where the label is in deep decline, it’s biggest ...