Tag Archives: Darlington Hippodrome

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 ...

Based on the novel by Helene Hanff Adaptor: James Roose-Evans Director: Richard Beecham Reviewer: Mark Clegg In an age of emails, Skype and instant messaging it’s now difficult to remember the not-to-distant past when the main way of people communicating over long distances was writing letters. Such trans-Atlantic correspondences provide the basis for Helene Hanff’s autobiographical book as the New ...

Adaptor: David Edgar Director: Kate Saxon Reviewer: Mark Clegg Like its Gothic horror stable-mates Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is both immediately familiar and strangely unknown to the general public. All three sets of characters are part of popular culture and yet the vast majority of ...

Director & Choreographer: Mitch Sebastian Reviewer: Mark Clegg Established in the 1950s but only cementing their brand of high-spirited bonhomie in their appearances together in the 1960s, The Rat Pack pretty much invented ‘cool’. A group of entertainers headed up by Frank Sinatra and consisting of four other core members including Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr, they appeared in ...

Adapted for the stage by Margaret May Hobbs Director: Michael Lunney Reviewer: Mark Clegg Prior to curtain up on press night of this play at Darlington Hippodrome, the audience were mildly entertained by a stray pigeon that had somehow got into the theatre and proceeded to flutter around the auditorium. Sadly, what followed on stage in this kidnap-themed potboiler failed ...

Director: Mark Bell Reviewer: Mark Clegg For a pretty obvious idea so rich in available humour, it’s hard to understand why it took so long for someone to create a play that was presented as a disastrous amateur production. This is the idea that Mischief Theatre came up with, in 2013 when The Play That Goes Wrong debuted above a ...

Writer: Warner Brown Director & Musical Staging: Craig Revel Horwood Reviewer: Mark Clegg Just when you think that the trend for jukebox musicals has exhausted every famous pop act’s back catalogue, along comes another one. To be fair, the songs of Dusty Springfield offer a rich and varied repertoire on which to base a musical but as Son of a ...