Category Archives: Theatre

The Rainbow Connection, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *

Cast: Angela Simms, Daniel O’Brien

Can two friends of the opposite sex ever really be friends, especially when one is straight and one is gay? Joanne Sherryden’s play The Rainbow Connection looks at life and friendship between Shelly, a woman who has been scarred early in her time and who is hanging on the end of a line by her married lover and Joe, an agoraphobic and badly bruised by life and whose obsessive behaviour threatens to drive him further into his own self made prison.

I Love You Because, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *

Cast: Lucy Mulvihill, Katie Louise Jones, Zoe Evans, Phil Teles Amaro, Stuart Crowther, Peter Fendall

The faint sounds of New York Jazz filter through the Unity Theatre and from there the audience is taken on a rollercoaster of emotions in which the modern day musical, I Love You Because, is the perfect way to spend time with those you love, even if they don’t know it’s you they are looking for.

The Rocky Horror Show, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Oliver Thornton, Ben Foster, Roxanne Pallett, Rhydian, Philip Franks, Kristian Lavercombe, Abigail Jaye, Ceris Hyne, Joel Montague, Maria Coyne, Chrsitos Dante, David Gale, Rachel Grundy.

For 40 years Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show has thrilled audiences all over the globe. It’s songs of debauchery, sensational and brilliant depravity such Timewarp, Sweet Transvestite, I Can Make You a Man and The Sword of Damocles get audiences laughing, dancing and enjoying every time they get performed, for all that it is no wonder that crowds flock to watch it in their abundance.

Oliver Reed: Wild Thing, Theatre Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

To portray a man on stage whose reputation preceded him takes exceptional talent, to portray the wild man of British film in such demanding style deserves the largest plaudits possible and for that Rob Crouch should be taken aside and congratulated by anyone who ever worked with the Hell- raiser Oliver Reed in bringing this man’s essence back to life in the superb Oliver Reed: Wild Thing.

Titus Andronicus, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * ½

Cast: Sam Liu, Lauren Fitzpatrick, Karl Falconer, Jason Carragher, Alexander Bollands, Lowell Carragher, Russell Carragher, Matilda Swinney, Alexandra Walker, Siobhan Crinson, Sam Wright, Aimee Marnell, Elena Stephenson, Agata Jarosz, Con O’Neill, Justine Williams, Laura Ryan, Sarah Dwyer.

Roger McGough Thrills The Playhouse Theatre With Poetic Licence.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Very few poets can hold an audience’s attention in the same vein as Roger McGough. Even when he comes home to his native Liverpool, the crowds flock to see him in a similar way that you might expect to see pop stars that would find themselves surrounded by an adoring public, desperate just for a song or two. The crowds that make up the Playhouse Theatre are more discerning than the sight of those baying for blood from the latest protégé to come off the musical television conveyor belt and for an hour and a half, Roger McGough had all of them all spellbound in poetic glee.

Whole, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Annabel Annan-Jonathan, Jacob Beswick, Joseph Adelakun, Grace Willis.

Is anybody truly whole? That is the question bought to the Unity Theatre by the combined efforts of 20 Stories High, Director Julia Samuels and a host of others in what can only be described as distressingly real, wonderfully charged and written and acted with so much passion and brilliance that not only is Whole one of the finest things you are likely to see this year but it will also leave you grasping at thoughts of those you may have wronged at school.

The Pied Piper Of Liverpool, Theatre Review. The Casa, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Alan Bower, Alun Parry, Geraldine Moloney-Judge, Mike Leane, Kate Mulvihill, Richard MacDonald, Mikyla Durkan, Sarah Tryer, Adam Byrne, Laura Foulkes.

The Casa might not be the first place that audiences think of plays as being performed in the Hope Street area of the city. However away from the Unity Theatre down the road and the looming cultural giant that is the new look Everyman Theatre, The Casa offers the chance for local productions to shine with actors who may be making their first tempting steps into the profession.  This was no less the case in the entertaining and thought provoking Julian Bond and Burjesta Theatre’s play, The Pied Piper Of Liverpool.

The Art Of Falling Apart, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Tim Lynskey, Matt Rutter.

There can be no doubt that Tim Lynskey, Matt Rutter and Robert Farquhar make a formidable and astonishing team. The exhaustive and physical brilliance that Mr. Lynskey and Mr. Rutter bring to the Unity Theatre is matched stride for stride in the writing by Robert Farquhar and in The Art of Falling Apart there is very little time for the audience to get blasé as they are bombarded with a section of a man’s life that is unraveling and unwinding before everyone’s eyes.

Cinderella, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Coleen Nolan, Liz McClarnon, Pete Price, Pauline Daniels, Billy Boyle, Shaun Mason, Kieran Jae, Edward Griffith.

 

The Empire Theatre always has the reputation of hosting the most sumptuous and glistering pantomime productions and this year has been no exception as the cast for Cinderella provided a fantastic evening’s entertainment for the assembled audience.