Tag Archives: World War II

Writer: Helen Forrester Adapter: Rob Fennah Director: Gareth Tudor Price Reviewer: Charlie Senate By the Waters of Liverpool is Rob Fennah’s stage adaptation of the third book in Helen Forrester’s widely-read autobiographical series detailing her family’s trials during World War II and the Liverpool Blitz. This is Fennah’s third such adaptation from the same source material, following successful musical and ...

Writer: David Haig Director: John Dove Reviewer: Scott Matthewman The 1944 Normandy landings proved to be a turning point in World War II. D Day has become so renowned that it would seem a drama about the prospect of Operation Overlord happening at all should have little, to no, suspense. And to a certain extent that is true in David ...

Director and Choreographer: Matthew Bourne Music: Sergei Prokofiev Reviewer: Dominic Corr At the heart of any fairy-tale, is love. It’s the basis of almost all narratives, communicated in a plethora of ways, through spoken word, music but most primal through dance. The Grimm brother’s Cinderella is perhaps the crowning pinnacle of the folklore world. Multiple in its variations, adaptations and ...

Book and Lyrics: Jonathan Kydd  Music: Andy Street  Director: Jonathan Moore  Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Every so often, a musical comes along that reminds you just why you fell in love with the genre. That musical is Hamilton. And as the night follows day, a piece of work comes along which tempts you to agree with the latest piece of clickbait ...

Writer: Joseph Zellnik (Music), David Zellnik (Book and Lyrics) Director: James Baker Reviewer: Christie-Luke Jones The Zellnik brothers bring their exuberant off-Broadway success story to The Big Smoke, affording Londoners a thoroughly engrossing view of the unfamiliar battleground of same-sex romance during World War Two. Yank! hinges around the breakneck wartime metamorphosis of Stu, played with wide-eyed believability by Scott Hunter, a clumsy ...

Writer: Arthur Miller Director: Phil Wilmott Reviewer: Scott Matthewman With the state of current political events, and right wing ideologies gaining strength and power both sides of the Atlantic, it is perhaps inevitable that our live theatre is responding with material heavily influenced by themes of fascism in World War II. Into that category falls Incident at Vichy, a play ...

Writer and Director: Claudio Macor Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Homosexuals were among many of the groups targeted for extermination by the Nazis during World War II, that much is known. Lesser known is the involvement of Danish doctor Carl Værnet who, under the watch of Heinrich Himmler, conducted a series of hormone experiments on gay prisoners in an attempt to find ...

Writer: Catrin Fflur Huws Director: Angharad Lee Reviewer: Ann Bawtree   The historic and ground-breaking Kings Head Pub Theatre, first founded since the days of Shakespeare, has continued its laudable work of putting on new and profound plays. It is currently running a double bill of Catrin Fflur Huws’ To Kill a Machine and Kate Lock’s Russian Dolls (see separate ...