Tag Archives: Kevin Shaw

After twenty years of working at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, Sarah Frankcom has announced that she is stepping down as the theatre’s Artistic Director. Frankcom joined the Company as Literary Manager in 1998; ten years later she was made Joint Artistic Director and in 2014 took up her current position as sole Artistic Director. Frankcom is leaving the Royal Exchange ...

Writer: Fine Time Fontayne and Kevin Shaw Director: Kevin Shaw Reviewer: Matthew Forrest The Oldham Coliseum is garnering quite the reputation for putting on great productions and this year’s pantomime Cinderella is no exception. This is an absolute treat for kids from 6 to 86, that will have them grinning like Cheshire cats! It is a tale we all know and ...

Writer: Philip Goulding from the book by Compton MacKenzie Director: Kevin Shaw Reviewer: Selwyn Knight The programme notes for Whisky Galore tell us about a troupe of strolling players, The Osiris Players, which was an all-female theatre group touring adaptations of the classics to schools and other community spaces. Formed in the mid-1920s, the women-only rule might have been caused ...

Writer: Compton Mackenzie Adapted by: Philip Goulding Director: Kevin Shaw Designer: Patrick Connellan Reviewer: Ron Simpson Oldham Coliseum’s touring production of Whisky Galore is based on at least three promising ideas. Unfortunately, in Philip Goulding’s stylish, but dramatically inert, script and Kevin Shaw’s oddly conservative direction, none comes to fruition. Indeed sometimes the intentions seem to conflict with each other. ...

Writer: Compton Mackenzie Adaptor: Philip Goulding Director: Kevin Shaw Reviewer: Donna Kelly As Britain marks 100 years since women first gained the right to vote, Oldham Coliseum Theatre, Hull Truck Theatre and New Vic Theatre present a brand new, all-female adaptation of Compton Mackenzie’s comedy classic Whisky Galore. Set in 1955, Whiskey Galore tells the story of the islanders of ...

Book & Music: Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, Charles Chilton, Gerry Raffles,  and members of the original cast Director: Kevin Shaw Reviewer: Jo Beggs When Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop conceived what was to become their most lasting piece of theatre, the Second World War was still a vivid memory for most of the cast. Littlewood herself had lived through two, having ...

Writer: Florian Zeller Translator: Christopher Hampton Director: Kevin Shaw Designer: Patrick Connellan Reviewer: Ron Simpson Florian Zeller’s play has had remarkable international success. First produced in Paris in 2012, it gained him the Prix Moliere and since then in Christopher Hampton’s translation has won or been nominated for all the major awards in the UK and the USA, both for ...

Writers:  Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton Director: Kevin Shaw Reviewer: Richard Hall The Coliseum’s final in-house production of the spring/summer 2017 season is a bold and innovative choice for this venue. The Father, by French novelist and playwright Florian Zeller, is a powerful, dark, tragic comedy about the harrowing and devastating impact of dementia on one man and his family. ...