Tag Archives: Hope Theatre

Writer and director: Peter Taylor Reviewer: Stephen Bates Peter Taylor’s riveting 70-minute one-act play, River in the Sky, was seen briefly at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in London just a few months ago. Its quick return for a longer run here is richly deserved. Taylor explores how a couple, both devastated by the loss of their child, find ways ...

Writer: Anton Chekhov, adapted by Brendan Murray  Director: James Stone  Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Plays by Anton Chekhov are many things: but short they are not. Brendan Murray’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya takes the original’s four acts and fillets them down into a single, 85-minute act of four scenes, reducing it to a scope reducible on a fringe theatre budget. Perhaps the ...

Book, Music and Lyrics: Stephen Dolginoff Director:  Matthew Parker Reviewer:  Richard Maguire Thrill Me certainly is thrilling. Based on the real-life case of Leopold and Loeb, the two lovers who killed a boy to prove that they were Nietzschean Supermen, this musical, despite its subject matter, is steamy and sexy. The 1924 murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks has inspired many writers, ...

Writer: Sam Edmunds Directors: Sam Edmunds and William Harrison Reviewer: Maryam Philpott What goes through the mind of a trauma patient in the hours and weeks before their death? Do they relive the incident that put them in hospital, consider heaven and hell or experience episodic fits of lucidity mixed with memories of happier times? Sam Edmunds’ award-winning one-hour play ...

Writer:  Meghan Tyler Director:  Paul Brotherston Reviewer:  Richard Maguire Mental illness is a tricky issue to explore on stage as it manifests itself within us rather than in what we say or what we do. How do actors communicate what they feel without soliloquising at length? In her delicate new play, Medicine, Meghan Tyler attempts to reveal the broken inner ...

Writer: Robin Hooper Director: Matthew Parker Reviewer: Stephen Bates All the World’s a stage in Robin Hooper’s new play, a bawdy romp set in 1603 when a production of As You Like It is being staged to please the newly-crowned King James I/VI.  The theatre, it seems, is the centre of everything in this tale of backstage backstabbing, political intrigue ...

Writer: Owen Thomas Reviewer: Maryam Philpott We think we understand the world around us that maths and science have or will give us the key to knowing exactly how everything fits together. But there are forces that remain entirely unexplained, and while scientists scoff at the concepts of fate, destiny and coincidence, there is still nothing to entirely disprove their ...

Writer: Joseph Moncure March Director: Rafaella Marcus Reviewer: Deborah Parry Think of the most disappointing party you’ve ever been to – one that left you feeling fairly deflated; perhaps you bumped into an ex who looked great and their plus one was annoyingly attractive – maybe you got ridiculously drunk, was sick everywhere and just generally made a bit of ...