Tag Archives: Sophie Ward

Writer:  Robert Graves Director:  Fidelis Morgan Reviewer:  Richard Maguire This is an odd one: a ‘lost’ Robert Graves play which documents the aftershocks of war and, surprisingly, has two characters, one male and one female, struggling to come to terms with their homosexuality. Very funny and almost embarrassingly melodramatic, it’s difficult to label this play with a genre. Perhaps, as ...

Writer: Ruth Rendell adapted by Simon Brett and Antony Lampard Director: Roy Marsden Reviewer: Dave Cunningham After a decade producing stage versions of thrillers by the Queen of Crime The Agatha Christie Theatre Company has had a revamp to become The Classic Thriller Company. One cannot quibble with the choice of the late Ruth Rendell as a ‘classic’ thriller writer. She was an ...

Writer: Aldous Huxley Adaptor: Dawn King Director: James Dacre Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Imagine a world in which everyone is happy all the time under the benevolent eye of the State. Sounds Utopian, yes? But what if all that were achieved by genetically modifying and conditioning citizens to fit in, if strong emotions were banned because of their impact, if everyone ...

Writer: Aldous Huxley Adaptor: Dawn King Director: James Dacre Reviewer: Dave Smith Aldous Huxley once taught George Orwell and wrote his own dystopian vision of the future, Brave New World, in 1931, 18 years before his former pupil wrote 1984. Both are just as relevant today as when they were written; in many ways, Brave New World can reasonably be ...

Writer: Aldous Huxley Adaptation: Dawn King Director: James Dacre Reviewer: Dominic Corr It should, perhaps, worry some that a piece of satirical literature from the 1930’s manages to maintain its place as satire, but also draw legitimate parallels with our own 21st century lifestyles. Humorous references to monogamy and over-indulgence may still reverberate, but the production's revitalised treatment for the ...

Writer: Aldous Huxley Adaptor: Dawn King Director: James Dacre Reviewer: Natasha Hegarty Set in a dystopian future where embryos are factory farmed and their futures built on science, Brave New World is a force of a play. Based on the 1931 novel by Aldous Huxley, it opens with a lecture with the head of the organisation talking the audience through ...

Writer: John Van Druten Director: Anthony Biggs Reviewer: Stephen Bates Middle class dramatists of the mid 20th Century were swept out of favour by the new wave created by John Osborne and others in the late1950s. However, now, with Noel Coward’s works rarely absent from our stages and with Terence Rattigan having been rehabilitated into mainstream theatre for some time, ...

Writer: Agatha Christie Director: Joe Harmston Reviewer: Selwyn Knight [rating:3.5] The Official Agatha Christie Theatre Company is working its way through the great dame of crime’s canon of plays. This year’s offering is based on Christie’s 1942 novel, Five Little Pigs. In the novel, it is the great Poirot who takes the varying testimonies to find his way to the ...