Tag Archives: Bristol

Writer: Bernard Pomerance Music: Keith Tempest Set Designer: Caitlin Abbott Director: Lee Lyford Reviewer: Julia Beasley It’s a brave decision to take on such discomforting subject matter as the life of ‘elephant man’ John Merrick. But Bristol Old Vic, in collaboration with Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and diversity champions Diverse City, have triumphed with this theatrical gem that wrings ...

Adapted by: Hannah Drake and Justin Palmer, from the play by William Shakespeare Director: Hannah Drake Designer: Sarah Warren Composer: Ellie Showering Lighting: Edmund McKay Reviewer: Leah Tozer Shakespeare, ‘star-cross’d lovers’, ancestral strife, and … an open-air swimming pool? Insane Root Theatre’s ‘fair Verona’ is Eastville Park Swimming Pool, an empty, open-air pool just east of the city, and it’s ...

Writer: Moria Buffini Director: Lucy Pitman-Wallace Reviewer: Julia Beasley Thebes is a city in central Greece that once played an important role in the ancient world. The home of many myths and legends, the ancient city rivalled Athens, sided in battle with the Spartans, and was finally destroyed by Alexander the Great around 2,500 years ago. You don’t have to ...

Words, music and performance by RashDash (after Chekhov) Reviewer: Julia Beasley It’s Chekhov, but not as you know it. Actually, it’s not Chekhov at all. Or perhaps it’s Chekhov torn into bits, mashed up, smeared thinly over a feminist diatribe against patriarchy, and then set to live music and dance. RashDash imagines the original three Russian sisters Olga, Masha and ...

Director: Guillaume Pigé Composer: Alex Judd Devised by Theatre Re Reviewer: Leah Tozer Memory is a cruel mistress: meticulous and muscular, ephemeral and fractured and fragile, it’s all too easy to forget how crucial memory is to character; after all, what – or who – is left when memories are forgotten? Theatre Re’s thoughtful and affecting The Nature of Forgetting ...

Writer: Anders Lustgarten Director: Rod Dixon Set & projection design: Tim Skelly Reviewer: Julia Beasley In 1974, Don Revie replaced Alf Ramsey as manager of the England football team.  The job that Revie vacated – manager of Leeds United – was then filled by Brian Clough from Derby County. Clough was talented, charismatic and outspoken.  But his appointment at Leeds ...

Writer & Director: Rachael Savage Choreographer: Rachael Alexander Composer: Janie Armour Designer: Carl Davies  Reviewer: Leah Tozer‘His hardest battle is the one back home’: far from the battlefield, free from bullets and bombs, and back with family and friends, the fight is over – or is it? Vamos Theatre’s A Brave Face faces the fear and effects other than physical felt by veterans in the aftermath of ...

Book & Lyrics: Alain Boublil Music: Claude-Michel Schönberg Director: Laurence Connor Reviewer: Scarlet Wildhorn Hot on the heels of composers Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil’s smash hit musical, Les Misérables, just four years previous, Miss Saigon was first performed on 1989 and tells the story of a doomed romance between a then 17-year-old Vietnamese woman and an American G.I. It is ...