Originally published by L.S. Media. May 23rd 2012.
L.S. Media Rating *****
Cast: Paul Duckworth, Carl Cockram, Joe Shipman, Daniel Hayes.
The exceptional applause that rang out within the confines of the Unity Theatre’s studio two space said it all. From the exceptional performances by all the actors on stage, to the direction and the incredible writing of Mike Morris and Steven Higginson, Waiting For Brando was one of the most outstanding productions of our times.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Paul Duckworth, John Burns, Carl Cockram, Keddy Sutton, Joe Shipman, Aimee Marnell, Scott Lewis, Adam Byrne, Victoria Hammond, Erin O’ Connell.
In a city where football is the main topic of conversation, where old ladies carrying their shopping home from The Strand in Bootle, to the young children playing on the streets of Toxteth and the public houses rammed full with those who cannot get a ticket to the next game, congregate and chat about the near religious experience they had watching Kenny Dalglish, Joe Royle, Andy King, the young and older version of Wayne Rooney and Ian Rush ply their trade on the stages of Goodison and Anfield, the city of Liverpool always has room for a play about the love of the game and the characters, the fans who make it what it is.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Joel Shipman as Baloo in The Jungle Book at The Unity Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph by Brian Roberts.
Cast: Fionnuala Dorrity, Asif Majid, Samuel Pérez Durán, Joe Shipman.
The tale of a lost boy raised by wolves, taught by a panther, guarded by a bear and hunted by the king of the jungle, it is story that speaks down through the last century and one that resonates with joy and charm, with meaning, still to this day. The Jungle Book, arguably one of the most loved pieces of literature of the late 19th Century has had its followers, those who bang the drum for its introduction of its well written characters into the national thought and understandably its detractors who see the book with a certain 21st Century outlook compared to its original sentiment.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Joe Shipman, Nina Yndis, Lucas Smith.
Musicians: Lizzie Nunnery, Martin Heslop, Vidar Norheim.
In many ways the war in Norway has been pretty much forgotten by many in the U.K. and beyond. The thought these days seems to centre on the fields of France, the systematic destruction of Eastern Europe and the polarised viewpoints of the war in the Far East. Yet Norway and especially for her citizens, the uneasy liaisons that lay between opposing Nazi rule and the fraternisation that reigned in the hearts of her young women starved of male attention and the deaths of so many her young men has somehow been cleansed, sanitised and thrown into the same realms of forgetfulness as those faced by the Channel Islands.