North East & Yorkshire Reviews

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Lindsay Posner Designer: Lee Newby Reviewer: Ron Simpson In both Lindsay Posner’s contributions to the four-play Shakespeare season at York’s pop-up Elizabethan theatre, he opts for a radical and precise updating. However, while the 1932 Italy setting of Romeo and Juliet is integral to the production and offers a different angle on the play, the contemporary ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Juliet Forster Reviewer: Jim Gillespie The Globe Theatre, on London’s South Bank, has given theatre-goers a real feel for the experience of theatre in Shakespeare’s own time. Open to the elements, and the noises-off from a busy city, intimate and involving, with little of the technical wizardry available in a modern theatre setting. The London Rose ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Lindsay Posner Designer: Lee Newby Composer: Olly Fox Reviewer: Ron Simpson For over two months this Summer Clifford’s Tower in York will be joined by another relic of a bygone age, this one smartly and imaginatively re-created. Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, a pop-up Elizabethan theatre, sits on the castle car-park with a jolly little “village” of stalls ...

Written and Directed by Guy Unsworth Based on the original TV series by Raymond Allen Reviewer: Mark Clegg Despite the strange fact that it doesn’t get repeated very often, the original TV sit-com Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em remains as iconic as ever. Certainly, Frank Spencer as immortalised by Michael Crawford was probably the most imitated character in the UK ...

Writer: Caryll Churchill Director: Caroline Steinbeis Designer: Max Jones Reviewer: Sheila Stratford The regional premiere of Love and Information, at the Crucible Studio, has a cast of six actors to perform over 100 characters. It was first performed at the Royal Court in 2012 with a cast of 16 actors. British playwright Caryll Churchill’s play is experimental and challenging. Sheffield ...

Writer: Patrick Barlow Adapted from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Director: Paul Robinson Designer: Helen Coyston Reviewer: Ron Simpson It’s good to see The 39 Steps back in North Yorkshire, in a production full of zip and imagination. Just over 20 years ago Richmond-based North Country Theatre toured Nobby Dimon and Simon Corble’s version for just four actors to huge success. Then ...

Music and Lyrics: Sting Writer/Director: Lorne Campbell                              Original Book: John Logan and Brian York Reviewer: Dawn Smallwood Sting’s The Last Ship has been touring since March with York Theatre’s Royal marking the penultimate stop on this successful tour.  Due to technical issues on the night of this review, the musical started half an hour later.  With the complex hi-tech ...

Writer: Evan Pacey Director: Wendy Harris Designer: Kate Bunce Composer: Dom Sales Movement: Joel Daniels Reviewer: Ron Simpson Leeds-based, but with strong links to York Theatre Royal, tutti frutti and director Wendy Harris have a sure touch with plays aimed at children from the age of three upwards. Coming now towards the end of a longish tour taking in closed ...