Tag Archives: Charlie Brooks

Writer: Alex Oates Director: Dominic Shaw Reviewer: Heather Deacon All any writer can wish for is to ignite impassioned debate with their script and all a producer could wish for is that the production furthers that debate. Given the protesters outside of the Southwark Playhouse on Monday evening, All in a Row is doing just that, with a play that ...

Writer: Torben Betts Director: Alastair Whatley Reviewer: Scott Matthewman There is a moment where dinner, as prepared by Caroline Mortimer (“Britain’s second favourite TV cook”) emerges from the oven, charred and smoking, overdone because the character’s attention was wandering all over the place. As goes the family roast, so goes Monogamy, which collapses under its writer’s inability to focus. Torben ...

Writer: Torben Betts Director: Alastair Whatley Designer: James Perkins Reviewer: Ron Simpson Monogamy is far from a wasted evening in the theatre – there are too many good lines and dramatic situations for that, plus three fine performances – but it is a disappointment for those who anticipated more solid and consistently entertaining fare, given the strength of the casting ...

Writer: Jonathan Harvey Director: Nikolai Foster Reviewer: Natasha Hegarty Jonathan Harvey’s dark comedy takes the audience back to the early ‘90s in a London council estate. The main characters all congregate on the balcony of their flats – which is set by three battered-looking doors and some hanging baskets, which feisty single mother Sandra (Charlie Brooks) is extremely proud of. ...

Writer: Jonathan Harvey Director: Nikolai Foster Reviewer: Phil Lowe It is easy to forget that sometimes in an audience member's life it is the first time they have viewed a play despite it being around for a couple of decades with a worldwide cult following. On a first time viewing of Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing, a play centred round an ...

Writer: Jonathan Harvey Director: Nikolai Foster Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Transport yourself back to the early 1990s to Thamesmead, a rundown largely working class estate in south London. The residents have their own problems to deal with – drug abuse, anti-social behaviour, just trying to rub along. Central to the story are Sandra, a thirty-five year old barmaid, her latest partner, ...

Writer: Jonathan Harvey Director: Nikolai Foster Reviewer: Tim Frost   Before Brokeback Mountain's mainstream story of gay love in an ‘unlikely’ setting there was Beautiful Thing, Jonathan Harvey’s play of teenage love set on a Thamesmead housing estate. It is a big-hearted story of characters whose lives clash on the balcony outside their three council flats. Sandra is the loud-mouthed, ...