Theatre Reviews

_______ 7 July 2025 ______ 4**** ______ The opportunities for four highly experienced actors to take to the stage in a play just featuring them are very few and far between; Ronald Harwood’s 1999 play ‘Quartet’ fulfils that function and does so perfectly. Set in a retirement home for opera singers and musicians – possiblybased […]

______ 30 June 2025 ______ 5***** ______ There are a few elements that are required when delivering a farce on stage; a good script is handy, physicality, great pace in line delivery, plenty of entrances and exits on stage, immaculate timing … the list goes on. For the second play of the Summer Repertory Season

______ 26 June 2025 ______ 5***** ______ I have seen many shockingly judged versions of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and the current outdoor touring production by Sun and Moon Theatre Company is not one of them. This utterly glorious and incredibly funny interpretation is a complete joy. The Company aim to bring Shakespeare to as

______ 23 June 2025 ______ 3*** ______ The opening of another summer play repertory season at the Manor Pavilion Theatre in Sidmouth is very much something to celebrate. This is the 67th year of this great event since starting regularly in 1958, with only 2020 missing out on the annual festival of plays. The rollercoaster

______ 22 June 2025 ______ 5***** ______ The remarkable story of the displaced people when US airspace was closed following the 9/11 attacks and the town of Gander in Newfoundland where many ended up for some days was developed into a small-scale musical – with book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein

_____ 20 June 2025 _____ 4**** ______ From the moment Natasha Newsam-Mabey, impressively, gives voice to the title song of the show, you just get the feeling that ‘Grease’ is in safe hands. The 1971 musical was given longevity by the 1978 film which catapulted it into the stratosphere. In essence it is a curiously

_____ 30 May 2025 ______ 4**** ______ If you were to take at face value the basic thread of Nick Payne’s highly successful play ‘Constellations’, then it would seem straightforward and, maybe, fairly unremarkable. However, Payne isn’t playing with a straight bat here and creates a four-dimensional puzzle within that story. With the subject of

______ 29 May 2025 ______ 5***** ______ In his programme note, director, Rob Ashford  makes direct comparisons between the Mods and Rockers and the Montagues and the Capulets, the Jets and the Sharks; rivalries of great note – some fictional some for real. Set against a backdrop of music originally created in the 1970s by

______ 20 May 2025 ______ 4**** ______ Running for over 20 years ‘Only Fools and Horses’ is regularly voted one of the favourite TV comedy programmes ever. John Sullivan created a raft of memorable characters, played by a cast who would become synonymous with them. The musical version created by Sullivan’s son Jim along with

______ 29 April 2025 ______ 4**** 1/2 ______ One of the huge pleasures of the theatrical year last year was to witness some of the best storytelling I have seen for a long time. Nicolas Ridley’s biographical play about his Father, the playwright and actor Arnold Ridley, is revelatory, funny, touching, fascinating and deeply moving.