Composer and Libretto: Leoš Janáček Conductor: Tomáš Hanus Director: David Pountney Reviewer: C L Delft Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen had its genesis in a comic-strip printed in a Czech newspaper in the early 1920s: an ongoing tale about the adventures of a clever she-fox. In creating his opera, the composer transcended this very simple material to produce a multi-faceted work ...
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Director: Neil Dorward Reviewer: John Kennedy Circus 1903 celebrates an intoxicatingly dexterous, fin de siecle, imaginarium of itinerant acrobatic eccentrica; a through-the-looking-glass shimmering construct of eye-popping impossibilities conjuring reminiscences of Ray Bradbury’s American mid-west novellas. For most certainly tonight something deliciously well wicked this way comes. Relishing in exotic, alliterative narratives, Ringmaster Willy Whipsnade (David Williamson), part Emcee, part side-show ...
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Book, Music and Lyrics: Willy Russell Directors: Bob Thomson and Bill Kenwright Reviewer: Hannah Powell With our current political climate becoming heated by Brexit and an ever-growing divide between those at the top and those living on the bread line, now seems the perfect time to revive such a play that displays what those in desperate need can be forced ...
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Choreographers: Jack Lister, Cathy Marston, Twyla Tharp Reviewer: John Kennedy A Brief Nostalgia reveals two vertical, concreted-texture slabs. A vicious, horizontal fusillade of power-shadowed lighting splays the six dancers flaying in a dystopian matrix nightmare. Well, Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) just wouldn’t have it any other way when inviting the Queensland (Australia) Ballet to nimble/stomp tread their guest-spot balletic brilliance on the ...
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Book: Arthur Laurents Music: Leonard Bernstein Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim Director: Matthew Hawksworth Reviewer: John Kennedy Everything was possible in Bernsteins’s late 50s Atomic-Age ‘America’ where inter-racial antagonism imploded with incendiary, teenage trouser-powered cool, hormonal-hip braggadocio to a Romeo and Juliet riff. ‘Is that a GAT in your cod-piece buddy – or are you just frightened to see me?’ Plus ça change, ...
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Book: Thomas Meehan Music: Charles Strouse Lyrics: Martin Charnin Director: Nikolai Foster Reviewer: Hannah Powell The 2019 cast of Annie certainly does not disappoint. In a world of government bankers and a society which seems to treat the working classes as something to exterminate, Annie brings with it not only incredibly orchestrated music and intricate choreography but most importantly an ...
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Book: Marsha Norman, based on the novel by Alice Walker Music and Lyrics: Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray Director: Tinuke Craig Reviewer: Tim Harding Based on Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, The Color Purple tells a story with an epic sweep spanning over forty years in the life of Celie and the community in Georgia where she lives. It may be ...
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Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber Lyrics: Tim Rice Director: Bill Kenwright Reviewer: Clare White It was the first of musical writing duo Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s creations to be produced back in the 1970s and famously launched the West End stage careers of Jason Donovan, Philip Schofield and Lee Mead. Five decades later, Joseph and his coat of many ...
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