Tag Archives: Original Theatre Company

Writer: Alan Bennett Director: Philip Franks Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Neil has meticulously researched his latest play, Caliban’s Day, in which he imagines a meeting between poet W. H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten in 1973, shortly before the death of each and at the time Britten was writing Death in Venice. Today, the director can’t make it so the rehearsal ...

Writer: Alan Bennett Director: Philip Franks Designer: Adrian Linford Reviewer: Ron Simpson Aside from his wonderful monologues, Alan Bennett tends to write plays that are not what they seem, made up of seemingly irreconcilable elements: even the perennially popular History Boys goes off at what seems to be a bizarre tangent with a crippled presenter of television history shows. When ...

Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art, a play within a play based on a fictional meeting between poet W.H Auden and composer Benjamin Britten, premiered at the National Theatre back in November 2009 with the production going on to tour in the Autumn of 2010. This year, the Original Theatre Company and York Theatre Royal will present the first ever ...

Writer: Torben Betts Director: Alastair Whatley Designer: James Perkins Reviewer: Ron Simpson Monogamy is far from a wasted evening in the theatre – there are too many good lines and dramatic situations for that, plus three fine performances – but it is a disappointment for those who anticipated more solid and consistently entertaining fare, given the strength of the casting ...

Writer: Oscar Wilde Director: Alastair Whatley Reviewer: Bill Avenell What a wonderful conceit it is that a relationship should be founded upon a name and what a wickedly witty script Oscar Wilde produces to lure audiences into that conceit. But alas the input of the author is the only really wonderful part of the Original Theatre Company’s production of this ...

Writer: Torben Betts Director: Stephen Darcy Designer: Victoria Spearing Reviewer: Ron Simpson Following its extremely successful tour last year, Original Theatre Company’s production of Invincible, now directed by Stephen Darcy and with one change of cast, has embarked on a second tour that will take it through to April. No wonder, this is a fine production of a play as ...

Writer: Torben Betts Director: Chris Harper Reviewer:Kelyn Luther Invincible invites comparison with Alan Ayckbourn’s work in its tragicomic look at domestic life. The play explores the north-south class divide, as middle-class southerners Emily (Emily Bowker) and Oliver (Alastair Whatley) move up North and attempt to befriend their neighbours, football-loving Alan (Graeme Brookes) and his glamorous wife Dawn (Kerry Bennett). The ...

Writer: Torben Betts Director: Chris Harper Reviewer: Michael Gray Social class is at the heart of much British comedy. Ayckbourn, in particular, is master of the awkwardness, the inferiority complex, the snobbishness and the culture clash. Torben Betts’ play mines much the same seams. A bourgeois couple has downsized, thanks to the recession, from London to the terra incognita of ...