Tag Archives: Review

Creator: Jennifer Marsden Director and choreographer: Racky Plews Reviewer: Stephen Bates Perhaps it is inevitable that Game of Thrones: The Musical, will hit our stages one day, but, in the meantime, we have to make do with this fusion of classic rock anthems and a tale of heroism, bloodletting and tepid romance, set in a medieval kingdom where knights brandish ...

Writer:  Elliot Warren Director:  Elliot Warren and Olivia Brady Reviewer:  Richard Maguire If Shakespeare had written EastEnders instead of plays about kings and princes then maybe Flesh and Bone would be this summer’s hit at The Globe. Giving his characters Shakespearian-sounding lines, with both metre and rhyme, Elliot Warren’s play turns the ordinary into the epic. It is sweary and coarse, shouty ...

Book: Douglas Day Stewart Director: Nikolai Foster Reviewer: Dominic Corr With more cheese than a 70s fondue party, An Officer and a Gentleman is a jukebox-style music, replete with ‘bad boy’ attitudes and lovers tiffs. First attempted in 2012, thirty years after the film’s release it now has a revived life touring the UK. Would it really be any kind ...

Writer: Ben Weatherill Director: Tim Hoare Reviewer: Stephen Bates How do perceived misfits find their place in our society? Ben Weatherill’s gentle comedy looks bravely into sensitive issues by challenging preconceptions and prejudices, while serving up a fair number of good laughs in the process. Sarah Gordy gives a remarkably confident and mature performance as Kelly, a 27-year-old woman who ...

Writer: Bernard Pomerance Music: Keith Tempest Set Designer: Caitlin Abbott Director: Lee Lyford Reviewer: Julia Beasley It’s a brave decision to take on such discomforting subject matter as the life of ‘elephant man’ John Merrick. But Bristol Old Vic, in collaboration with Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and diversity champions Diverse City, have triumphed with this theatrical gem that wrings ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Blanche McIntyre Reviewer: Stephen Bates It may seem ironic that the Globe should launch its new production of The Winter’s Tale on one of the hottest evenings of the year, but anachronisms are rife in this, Shakespeare’s split personality play. In temperatures that help the banks of the Thames to pass for Sicily, the tale unfolds. ...

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. ...

Adapted by: Hannah Drake and Justin Palmer, from the play by William Shakespeare Director: Hannah Drake Designer: Sarah Warren Composer: Ellie Showering Lighting: Edmund McKay Reviewer: Leah Tozer Shakespeare, ‘star-cross’d lovers’, ancestral strife, and … an open-air swimming pool? Insane Root Theatre’s ‘fair Verona’ is Eastville Park Swimming Pool, an empty, open-air pool just east of the city, and it’s ...