Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Daniel Bye.
The nature of the Philosopher, the very act of being, is one that is largely ignored and yet remains one of the most telling lines of all William Shakespeare’s plays. To be or not to be, the very nature of existence and the art of acting upon will or allowing events to be dictated to you, to feel alive, to need, to ache, to live, to feel, these are fundamental questions in which truth of reality is achieved and highlighted.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Louise Jameson, Anna Andresen, Nick Barclay, Tony Boncza, Lewis Collier, Gregory Cox, Amy Downham, Oliver Gully.
Arguably Agatha Christie’s name will last in the annals of English Literature history as long as William Shakespeare’s and will always be as revered to her fans as the Bard of Stratford-Upon-Avon. It is easy to see why, the cold calculating pace of her mysteries, the beloved nature of two of her famous creations so entrenched in television’s grasp that they sell world-wide with ease and the secrecy installed in a play that might never see the light of day beyond the confines of theatre; it is to that end that Agatha Christie’s name will always be celebrated and whispered, the mistress of crime and the bogeyman all in one terrific role.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The evening might not, in spirit, have been as dramatic as the last time Mark Thomas performed at the Liverpool Playhouse, nothing as spontaneous as a fire alarm and a public meeting by the old bandstand on Williamson Square to get the comedy juices flowing. Yet the air of supreme command of the English language, of taking an audience down the path of playful anarchy is in itself one that catches the night as if being hunted down and paraded through the streets of the cities of the U.K. for its absurd notions that we have allowed our green and pleasant land to become a haven for business to tell us where we can and cannot walk.
Liverpool Sound & Vision Rating: * * * * *
Cast: Emma Gibson, Gideon Turner.
The Unity Theatre is attracting more and more exciting new projects and bringing incredible talent into the city. It has showcased not only art installations, but hip-hop, performance poetry and multi media. It has produced such a variety of different approaches to theatre that its latest arrival in Unity One fits in perfectly with the ethos of the theatre.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tahreen Kutub, Michael Cavanagh, Angela McComb, Ifan James, Gillian Paterson-Fox, Richard MacDonald, Peter Durr, Maria Hutchison, Kenny Lanceley, Yahya Baggash, Kaylee-Ann Meredith, Ian Gray, Pam Campbell.
The destruction of Troy has been assured for years yet for Odysseus the battle remains fresh in the memory as each day he is kept away from the island of Ithaca, his beautiful wife Penelope and son Telemachus, a plaything of the gods, a supplicant to the immortals, their whims and desires. For Odysseus the world has been against him and his men for two decades and all he wants is to be home, a home in which Penelope now is being courted by fresh suitors who abuse the hospitality and ransack the estate.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Ruth Alexander Rubin, Eithne Browne, Dennis Conlon, Annie Edwards, Greg Fossard, Hayley Hampson, Phil Hearne, Paul Kissaun, Olwen Rees.
It is a question of definition, of how your generation will be remembered, not by the politics it suffered or the times they live through, but by the music that they send up the charts and the beat they constructed in alleyways, clubs and bars. Music is the beat of the heart and if the heart keeps pumping then the music stays alive and in Dave Simpson’s gentle but absorbing musical comedy, The Golden Oldies, music is not just the food of love, it is the art that keeps all staying alive.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Wonderfully outspoken and a glorious acid wit, bundled together to make a woman of keen verbal desire; it’s possible that you might find many such outrageously verbose and sincerely talkative people on the comedy circuit but there are few like Katherine Ryan, there are even less that truly grab you by the short and undeniably curly in such a way as the comedienne from Sarnia in Canada.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Lesley Butler, Maximillian Chase, Peter Grant, Susan Hedges, Samuel Raymond Heller, Mark Lacey, Edwina Lee, Steve Macfarlane, Robert Southworth, Peter Turner, Ozzie Yue.
Life on Lark Lane is purr-fect for the Moggies, everything they could ask for, all they desire, is there to be enjoyed. All the furry feline’s nine lives are spent doing what cats do best, taking a stroll through the park, fine dining, watching the world go by with good friends and the only blot on the social calendar is having to deal with the squirrels, who are to be avoided just because they’re nuts.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Sarah Maher, Emily Heyworth, Alun Parry.
If Paradise was half as nice…we would probably sleep in our beds not with worry but with comfort, not with concern but with joy and certainly not with the idea that at any given time in a world of seven billion souls were we being watched, every move undertaken scrutinised and studied, dissected just in case of any misappropriation of feelings or of possible conflict with the state. If paradise was half as nice then writer Brian Coyle would have no need to write a play that gripped the soul and gave it steely resolve to not allow the world to come down to this Pinter-esque dystopia.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Harriet Wilson, David Ward, James Dorman.
When the inevitable breakdown in society comes, would you be searching for the best place to hide and wait it out till the authorities find a way to exert control back or would you spend it in a locked room talking about the breakdown in your personal life and that of those you love. It is a question many will hope to never answer but as Thomas Oléron Evans explores in his play to stage production An Everyday Apocalypse, sometimes the end of the world is a lot closer to home than we ever imagine.