Book: Douglas Day Stewart & Sharleen Cooper Cohen Director: Nikolai Foster Choreographer: Kate Prince Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Another day, yet another iconic 80s movie is adapted as a stage musical. This adaptation of An Officer and a Gentleman by Douglas Day Stewart (with Sharleen Cooper Cohen) of his own original 1982 screenplay, is a cheesy, overblown but ultimately likeable production ...
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Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys It's rare that five minutes into a show you're begging for an escape route from the auditorium and ever rarer when the show does nothing to persuade you from fleeing to the exit for the entirety of its running time. Unfortunately, Liquid Sky is such a show. Influenced by Doris Lessing's feminist science fiction novel The Marriages ...
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Writer: Isobel McArthur after Jane Austen Director: Paul Brotherston Designer: Ana Inés Jabares-Pita Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Sometimes a production comes along that sends you to the street with a smile on your face, The Tron Theatre Company and Blood of the Young’s Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of) is one (sort of). Promising to deliver a re-worked version of the Jane ...
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Writers: Agatha Christie & Frank Vosper Director: Lucy Bailey Designer: Mike Britton Lighting: Oliver Fenwick Sound Designer & Composer: Richard Hammarton Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Adapted from a 1934 short story Philomel Cottage, Agatha Christie wrote an unperformed stage version of the same name which itself was re-written as Love From a Stranger by actor and playwright Frank Vosper in 1936. ...
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Book: Tim Firth Music: Take That Director: Kim Gavin & Jack Ryder Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Firstly, a fact needs to be stated that this is not the Take That story. The words Take That are never uttered in the entire two and a half hours of the show. You would also be mistaken for thinking that the boyband recruited from the ...
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Book: Stephen Greenhorn Music and Lyrics: Craig and Charlie Reid Director: James Brining Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Stephen Greenhorn’s original musical, Sunshine on Leith, predates the movie version by seven years. Originally commissioned by Dundee Rep’s artistic director James Brining. Brining, now artistic director at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, returns to the work, breathing new life into the piece for this ...
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Book: Lorne Campbell (original book by John Logan & Brian Yorkey) Music & Lyrics: Sting Director: Lorne Campbell Designer: Fifty Nine Productions Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Sting’s musical love song to his Tyneside homeland, The Last Ship, is in his own words to: “repay a debt” to the area he left early in his career. Starting life unsuccessfully in the US, ...
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Director and Choreographer: Matthew Bourne Music: Sergei Prokofiev Designer: Lez Brotherston Lighting Design: Neil Austin Sound Design: Paul Groothuis Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Following on from the critically-acclaimed new work, The Red Shoes, Matthew Bourne's New Adventures delve deep into the back catalogue to 1997 to revive their much-loved production of Cinderella. Re-set to World War 2, Cinderella and her shell-shocked, ...
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