Tag Archives: Manchester

Book: Arthur Laurents  Music: Jule Styne Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim Director: Jo Davies Reviewer: Dave Cunningham How times have changed. Being a theatre-in-the round The Royal Exchange once struggled to stage musicals; now such shows are the high point of the season. Their storming production of West Side Story returns in the New Year and, in the meantime, we have Gypsy. ...

Music and Lyrics: Andre Catrini Book: Allan Knee Director: Johnathan O’Boyle Designer: Gregor Donnelly Reviewer: Dave Cunningham Author Allan Knee takes a surprising approach to the daunting challenge of devising a sequel to one of the most-loved festive stories ever- Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. In The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit the title character, the former Tiny Tim, is ...

Writer: Gerry Smyth Director: Ellie Hurt Adapted from the Murder Ballads by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Reviewer: Matt Forrest According to one internet source the body count on the 1996 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album Murder Ballads is 76. A high body count for even the bloodiest of horror films, let alone a near hour long ...

Writer: Simon Stephens Director: Sarah Frankcom Composer: Jarvis Cocker Reviewer: Dave Cunningham Sarah Frankcom bows out as Artistic Director of The Royal Exchange not with a star-studded bang but an intimate, bittersweet family drama that has surprising bursts of humour and bags of charm. Christine (Rebecca Manley) is an alcoholic whose grown-up children have scattered to various northern towns. In ...

Writer: Alexander Dinelaris Music: Gloria Estefan, Emilio Estefan and Miami Sound Machine Director: Jerry Mitchell Reviewer: Dave Cunningham Popular music is fertile ground for drama. Staple features of the music scene include individuals with immense talents and bigger egos exposed to unscrupulous management and the temptations of drugs and depravity. However, Gloria and Emilio Estefan make a happily married couple ...

Director: Sean O’Connor Writer: John Osborne Reviewer: Andrea Allen Performed to rave reviews on its opening night in 1957, Sean O’Connor’s 21st Century revival of ‘angry young man’ John Osborne’s play, unfortunately, doesn’t live up to the same acclaim. In the correct hands, The Entertainer might be a timely choice for 2019, a year marred with political uncertainty, economic turbulence ...

Writer: Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee (book) and Jerry Herman (music and lyrics) Director and choreographer: Nick Winston Reviewer: Dave Cunningham Hope Mill has earned a reputation for producing high-quality shows. However, the theatre has exceeded its own high standards with a blissfully intoxicating Mame. The title song is so famous it is easy to think you have already seen the ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Christopher Haydon Reviewer: May Mellstrom Shakespeare’s murderous tale of power, greed and ambition is reinvented in Christopher Haydon’s Macbeth, notable for the casting of a woman in the title role and therefore offering a fresh perspective on an oft-performed play.  With war raging it is Lucy Ellinson’s Macbeth who emerges victorious from the battleground; hailed as ...