Tag Archives: theatre review

Gaffer, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Simon Hedger.

Life’s a pitch for a good manager, in the testosterone filled world of football, there is the hard work but also the banter, the great times of winning a trophy or two, of the desperate times in which a club can come so close to extinction that it threatens a whole community, it can destabilise it to the point where it may never recover. A club’s fortunes doesn’t just depend on what happens on the pitch, with the supporters or indeed with the person who bank rolls it all, it depends on the everyday making headway and for supposed social stigma’s to be recognised as just life. There is no wrong in being different; if you can do the job then you are good enough, no matter who you are.

Gaffer, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(480 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

Dead Dog In A Suitcase And Other Love Songs, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Carly Bawden, Audrey Brisson, Andrew Durand, Rina Fatania, James Gow, Martin Hyder, Giles King, Patrycja Kujawska, Dominic Marsh, Justin Radford, Ian Ross, Sarah Wright.

Dead Dog In A Suitcase And Other Love Songs, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(560 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Subusiso Mamba, Tonderai Munyevu.

How far would you go to survive in a regime that treats you worse than a cockroach; that demands total obedience of your every waking hour and who can control every moment you make, only reluctantly allowing you to live your life as a free member of society once they have humiliated you enough. The mark of oppression stamped across a nation and deeply into the faces of those who are its citizens.

Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(467 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

L’Étranger, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Luke Barton, Charlotte Wilson, George Doran, Liam Hale.

Two of life’s undoubted pleasures are seeing a piece of work for the first ever time on stage, played and directed with so much passion you could almost believe someone could be having an affair with the themes and words of Albert Camus and sending them flowers every weekend, and watching someone you first saw on stage many years ago, trusting your gut that their performance was magnificent, then catching them again and knowing that what you thought of their early promise was correct and they are now just sublime and outstanding. Two great pleasures in one play, L’Étranger, at the Everyman Theatre; life really is surrounded by strangers, clowns and shining brilliance.

L’Étranger, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(413 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Then And Now, Theatre Review. Gregson Institute, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 71/2/10

Cast: Darren Pritchard, Helen Turner, Paul Taylor, Zoe Vaux.

Writer: Tom Critch.

Time has a habit of playing tricks on you. What can seem, through the eyes of a 17 year old a bedroom like palace with more space than you know how to fill, 26 years later you wonder when seeing that room again, just how you got every possession you owned in the cramped, confined plot you called a bedroom. What happens though when you allow your eyes access to time and consent it to see things that aren’t there, that somehow accepts time to play a trick on your perception of the scene playing out in front of you? For those who made their way to the Gregson Institute, Tom Critch’s play, Then and Now, did exactly that and for such a young writer, Tom Critch nailed it on the head with such accuracy it positively glowed in the sparks that followed.

Then And Now, Theatre Review. Gregson Institute, Liverpool. full post

(386 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

The Blue Touch, Theatre Review. The Gregson Institute, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Daisy Leigh, Shaun Stanley, Claire Kelly, Andrew Walsh.

Writer: Karla Sweet.

Grin Theatre delights in the story in which causes a ripple a shock throughout the audience, whether the well-intended, the deeply fascinating or the type that leaves a seismic tremor waiting to erupt in your stomach, Grin Theatre have it delightfully covered.

Karla Sweet’s contribution to Grin Theatre’s Young Playwrights Showcase certainly fell in to the final category to the point that anybody within a mile radius of the Gregson institute might have felt the lurking beginnings of a judder as the audience realised just exactly what was happening to the family in the play but also the trembling violence and retribution in which to come.

The Blue Touch, Theatre Review. The Gregson Institute, Liverpool. full post

(365 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Laying Tracks, Theatre Review. The Gregson Institute, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Elaine Stewart, Ben Sherlock, Ann Edwards.

Writer: Jack Stanley.

Grin Theatre and new writing, it goes hand in hand with a newly temperate person finding they adore the taste of Ginger Beer, an England football team being lauded and dismissed in equal measure and the hope that at some point an unpopular Government will fall upon their collective swords.

Laying Tracks, Theatre Review. The Gregson Institute, Liverpool. full post

(432 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Carousel, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Julie Evans, Phil Birss, Franki Burke, Camille Machin, Jamie Barfield, Jak Malone, Ruth Dalton, Charlotte Dawson, Sarah Hale, Rosemary Barfield, Trev Fleming, Ady Thompson, James Hill, Andy Godden, Carrie Cushman, Edward Feery, Andrew Abrahamson, Clare Fozard, Andy Walker, Tom Lox, Lorna Foley, Eugene Chong Hon Zhen, Sara Barnes, Jayne Strahan, Ellie Gray, Steph Minshall, Zoe Thirsk, Danielle Fernando.

There are times, not often, but on the wonderfully rare occasion, where you think you know how a play or a musical can play out because it is of the immense stature that surrounds its very core that it can only be played out in a particular, perhaps reliable fashion.

Carousel, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(613 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)

Two Tides, Theatre Review. Writing On The Wall. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Lisa Parry, Carl Cockram, Joel Shipman, Daniel Hayes, Paul Duckworth, Laura Campbell, Lois Young, Tom Wilson, Nicola Bentley, Alice Bunker-Whitley, Andy Frizzell, Phil Saunders,

There are pivotal moments in history that may go unnoticed by the wider world in general but to whom are just as earth-shattering, just as profoundly important to the greater good of the community and ground breaking in the lives it touches upon that they also deserve a time of reflection, of wide-spread celebration and revisiting.

Two Tides, Theatre Review. Writing On The Wall. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(494 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Catch 22, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: * * *

Cast: Daniel Ainsworth, Philip Arditti, Geoff Arnold, Victoria Bewick, Simon Darwen, Michael Hodgson, Liz Kettle, Christopher Price, David Webber.

Joseph Heller adapted his novel Catch 22 for the stage in 1971 and today the script is more or less unchanged. As it is difficult to get the rights to adapt the script, Northern Stage’s director Rachel Chavkin has done what other companies have shied away from, and has put her own mark on this classic war tale.

Catch 22, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(349 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)