Cormac Richards

4**** 28 October 2019 It didn’t take Alfred Hitchcock long to realise the potential of Ethel Lina White’s novel ‘The Wheel Spins’ – within two years of its publication in 1938 he had made a film out of it. Retitled ‘The Lady Vanishes’ it became one of the director’s most loved early films. With a […]

3*** 18 October 2019 Edmond Rostand’s late 19th Century work ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ is one of those rare pieces of literature which are handled with kid gloves. It’s a challenge in so many ways and it is fraught with many hurdles and possible pitfalls. There is the translation to use – unless you are performing in

5***** 14 October 2019 In watching a quality dance performance one can be mesmerised, awestruck and confused simultaneously.  One can wonder, thrill and debate with yourself. One can question, delight and admire.  Rambert is one of the foremost dance companies in the UK, in Europe and beyond. From its origins in classical ballet in the

3*** 9 October 2019 ‘We Walk. We Walk. We Walk’ goes the song, the beat, the rhythm, as three black men trudge across the hills and peaks on the Yorkshire/Derbyshire borders. Every month they do this in a group of up to 30; connecting with each other. However, on this occasion the weather is not

4**** 30 September 2019 If there is going to be one thing that polarises an audience when a book is adapted for a film or stage play, it will be those who know the original and those who don’t. When the book is a best seller such as Paula Hawkins’ 2015 thriller ‘The Girl on

3*** 24 September 2019 Agatha Christie remains a staple of the amateur theatre world, with the professional production of ‘The Mousetrap’ still, fairly inexplicably, running in the West End. Occasionally a new production appears, as it did earlier this year with an adaptation of Christie’s book, ‘The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side’ in which

5***** 20 September 2019 Pierre Beaumarchais’s stories have had a longevity envied by many of his contemporaries I can only imagine – the fact that two of them have become beloved opera’s which are continually performed are as much a tribute to the composers as to the original writer. Now, I will be honest, I

5***** 17 September 2019 Any study of the work of Emma Rice will reveal an inventiveness and creativity which can startle, shock and amuse – but she will always get your attention. Her first production for her new Company, Wise Children – the show is also called ‘Wise Children’ – was a huge success and

4**** 16 September 2019 When John Osborne wrote ‘The Entertainer’, the Suez crisis was consuming the nation and thus he used it as the backdrop for his gritty tale of a failed song and dance man, a failed Father, Son and Husband. Weaving back and forth from Music Hall stage to domestic life, Osborne pitched