Theatre Reviews

4**** 24 June 2021 Let us not beat about the bush, the joy of returning to the Manor Pavilion Theatre in Sidmouth is akin to wrapping yourself in a favourite blanket and indulging in a mug of the silkiest hot chocolate money can buy. The Summer Play Festival at Sidmouth has risen again following its […]

3*** 17 June 2021 First and foremost, it is brilliant to be back in a theatre – albeit with certain restrictions. I applaud Theatre Royal Plymouth for their attention to everyone’s welfare and for providing a smooth and well organised evening in difficult circumstances. 2020 was a special year for so many things. Big birthdays,

5***** 15 December 2020 This will be an unusual review. Given the circumstances of life in December 2020 I am taking into account the whole experience of this visit to the theatre after over 10 months. I make no apology for what follows. You don’t need me to tell you that we have been living

4**** 16 October 2020 Sitting down in a theatre to review a show for the first time in over 7 months will certainly be one of my highlights of 2020. I have been to the amazing, open-air, Minack Theatre a number of times both as audience member and performer and it is extraordinary in so

4**** 3 March 2020 When Stephen Daldry mounted a production of ‘An Inspector Calls’ at The National Theatre in 1992 he would little have imagined that 28 years the very same production would have been touring the USA and UK. Such was the leftfield nature of the presentation of the play that it made audiences

5***** 28 February 2020 Amidst the glossy musicals, the gender-fluid productions of Shakespeare and the avant-garde diatribes it is good to know that out there, tucked away, is some excellent, honest theatre. It is a relief, a surprise and a joy. The Coastguard by Marie Macneill and presented by Mundic Nation is a vivid, beautifully

3*** 25 February 2020 No one mounts a production of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ without first taking a very deep breath. It is a modern monster of a piece. Now, nearly 60 years old, it is, as director David Mercatali says in his programme note, still ‘edgy with a wicked sense of humour’. Listening

4**** 24 February 2020 As a self-confessed Agatha Christie fan since my early teens, it is a wonder that it has take me so long to get round to seeing a production of The Mousetrap. I did read the play over 40 years ago and thought it not her best, but watching a play unfold

5***** 19 February 2020 “I am ashamed that men are so simple”, so says Katherine, turning to the audience with a knowing look! Yes, but, of course, the original line uses ‘women’ rather than ‘men’; so the theme behind this gender-swapped production of another of Shakespeare’s ‘problem’ plays is summed up – to an extent.

4**** 13 February 2020 The Fourth Wall in a theatre – that invisible barrier between the players and the audience at the front of the stage – conventionally doesn’t get ‘broken’ by direct interaction between performers and those watching. In Shakespeare’s era, the convention did not occur. The audience was included in the action, fulfilled