Tag Archives: Twelfth Night

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Jo Davies Reviewer: Andrea Allen                    “What country, friends is this?” It’s Illyria, so expect cross-dressing, mistaken identity, music, booze and a few cruel tricks, “nothing that is so, is so”.  As the lights dim, music that can be inadequately described as Eastern European Gypsy-punk envelopes the room, setting a tingling tone of faraway lands where all ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Sean Holmes Reviewer: Karen Bussell If you like your Shakespeare in tights and big sleeves, avoid Filter’s recreated Twelfth Night. With music being the food of love (along with pizza and Frosties in this production), it is apt that Illyriais seemingly set in a recording studio with ever present wires, instruments and electronic mixing devices. There’s ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Sean Holmes Reviewer: Donna Kelly Music is most definitely the food of love in Filter’s adaptation of Twelfth Night. In fact, rock music meets Shakespeare head on in this explosive reworking of Shakespeare’s lyrical play. Twelfth Night tells the story of Viola, a young girl who is separated from her twin brother Sebastian following a shipwreck ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Directors:Sean Holmes, Oliver Dimsdale, Ferdy Roberts Reviewer: Fergus Morgan Filter’s attempts at Shakespeare seem to flip-flop between the tremendous and the terrible. Their 2012 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, recently revived at the Lyric Hammersmith, was gloriously witty and palpably uplifting. Their 2014 production of Macbeth was abstract to the point of tedium. Happily, their 90-minute interpretation of ...

Book: Joe DiPietro Director/Choreographer: Karen Bruce Reviewer: Jacqui Onions Set in a small backwater in America, Love Me Tender tells the story of a town “all shook up” by the arrival of a guitar playing, motorcycle riding roustabout. When our roustabout, Chad, is told at the start that the mayor has outlawed loud music and basically anything fun, one could ...

Book: Joe Dipietro Musical Director: Patrick Hurley Director/Choreographer: Karen Bruce Reviewer: Jamie Gaskin   If you’re gong to have a high-octane blast of Elvis Presley numbers you’re definitely going to be All Shook Up. And that’s just what Love Me Tender does: It shakes up the accepted musical show genre. In effect it is a spoof of musicals set in ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Vik Sivalingham Reviewer: Karl O’Doherty We can pretty much say that the annual return of Iris Theatre to take over the garden of St. Paul’s church at Covent Garden is a calendar highlight for London theatre. They’re a creative bunch, turning in top quality shows of Shakespeare and fairytale over the last sevenyears and have kept ...

Writer and Performer: Tim Crouch Reviewer: Glen Pearce It is an odd twist of fate that sees Malvolio being given the stage to himself. The puritan hater of theatre visibly winces as each member of the audience filters in, his contempt at the very thought of being in a theatre obvious as he huddles at the back of the stage. ...