Central Reviews

Writer: Roddy Doyle Director: Caroline Jay Ranger  Reviewer: Maggie Constable For fantastic fun and a ‘whole lotta soul’ there is no better place to be this week than Milton Keynes Theatre to share in The Commitments musical direct from an incredibly successful two years in London theatreland where it has played to critical acclaim. The show is based on the much-loved ...

Writer: Alan Ayckbourn Director: Robin Herford Reviewer: Selwyn Knight  Ginny and Greg met a month ago but the attraction was immediate and they are now happily cohabiting. Not an unusual story nowadays, perhaps, but maybe more so in 1965 London, the setting for Alan Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking, his first West End hit play. First performed in 1967, Ginny and Greg’s storyline ...

Writer: Agatha Christie Director: Ian Watt-Smith Reviewer: Clare White Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is the world’s longest running theatre production. It opened at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal in 1952 before embarking on its current record-breaking West End run and recently celebrated its 26,000th performance. The UK tour, seen by over one million people, marks the 60th anniversary of the popular whodunit, which ...

Writer: Eleanor Bergstein Director: Federico Bellone Reviewer: Natasha Hegarty Dirty Dancing isn’t so much a stage adaptation of the now classic 1987 movie starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze as the two lovers from different worlds, but almost a complete transcription. Set in 1963 when America was under the watchful eye of John F. Kennedy, Frances “Baby” Houseman (Katie Hartland) is ...

Conductor: Michael Seal Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Classic fm has been asking its listeners to nominate pieces of music each year for a Hall of Fame – the top 300 pieces nominated. This concert is a celebration of the latest in a long line of Halls of Fame, featuring favourites old and new, including current and former number ones. So it ...

Book and Lyrics: Howard Ashman Music: Alan Menken Director: Tara Louis Wilkinson Reviewer: Nicole Evans A somewhat unexpected and unprecedented success, Little Shop of Horrors started life as a low-budget B-movie back in 1960. Subsequent stage adaptations, and the better-known movie remake of 1986, have ensured the cult status it quickly gained has remained a large part of popular culture ...

Writers: The Company from the short story by Edgar Allan Poe Director: Adam Carver Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, seems to be a fragment of a conversation between two people, an unreliable narrator and another. The narrator is keen to prove his sanity but to do that he must admit to the murder of ...

Reviewer: Carol Lovatt The Canadians have arrived in the UK in the form of The Next Step: Wild Rhythm Tour, much to the delight of their adoring audiences and Birmingham Symphony Hall is the perfect venue to see them in action and just about big enough to accommodate their legion of followers. This production centres on the hit TV series ...