Tag Archives: Playhouse Theatre

A View From The Bridge, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Bruce Alexander, Andy Apollo, Jason Carragher, Callum Coates, Daniel Coonan, Julia Ford, Scott Hazell, Lloyd Hutchinson, Denise Kennedy, Tom Peters, Joe Ringwood, Shannon Tarbet, Liam Tobin, Daryl Wafer.

Arthur Miller’s plays are such that to miss out on a production of them is simply not good form. All you really need to know about life in the United States in the 20th Century can be found in the writings of one of the keenest minds of the time and his look at certain frailties of life, emasculation, deceit, dishonour and the destruction of a system that was corrupt and hopelessly out of touch with his thinking, are repeated over and again in the hope that someone, anyone might understand what is going wrong in the country.

A View From The Bridge, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(661 words, estimated 2:39 mins reading time)

Private Peaceful, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Andy Daniel.

How would you spend the final few hours of your life if you had been labelled a coward after a hearing that would have lasted less than an hour, placed in a cell by yourself and far from home? Would you kick and scream, raging against a world that was off kilter to your actions and perception or would you spend it in isolation with your thoughts, all moments of transitory life flashing before you and the memories of happy times keeping you company till the dawn awoke in time to see you die?

Private Peaceful, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(441 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Dial M For Murder, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Christopher Timothy, Kelly Hotten, Philip Cairns, Daniel Betts, Robert Perkins.

They say a murder cannot be perfect for somebody will always at least know about it, even if they are the ones who end up dead. However a homicide can be near perfect when presented on stage in the form of Frederick Knott’s outstanding play Dial M For Murder.

Dial M For Murder, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Punt And Dennis: Ploughing On Regardless. Comedy Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Clever comedy used to be sneered at, it would be seen by some as the preserve of a university system that was, possibly rightly, too elite for many to understand. Perhaps with the great timing that the Cosmos affords us, the only creatures on the planet that deal in time as a concept rather than just the way of marking the difference between night and day or when to mate and eat and die, the 20th Anniversary of the legendary American Bill Hicks’ passing has been more kind to this type of humour.

Punt And Dennis: Ploughing On Regardless. Comedy Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(474 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Aladdin, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Aretha Ayeh, Marianne Benedict, Carla Freeman, Matthew Ganley, Lindsay Goodhead, Sam Haywood, Adam Keast, Sarah Moss, Griffin Stevens, Francis Tucker.

For Sarah A. Nixon and Mark Chatterton, the writers of the Playhouse Theatre Rock ‘N’ Roll Panto, the subject of Aladdin is one that they have revisited with pride a couple of times but never like this, not with the scale, the almost sense of the wonderful and wonderment all wrapped up in a festive feast that was exactly the production and performance that audiences could have wished for.

Aladdin, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(553 words, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

The Grand Gesture, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Cast: Michael Hugo, Samantha Robinson, Angela Bain, Howard Chadwick, Claire Storey, Paul Barnhill, Alan McMahon, Robert Pickavance, Dyfig Morris, Sophie Hatfield, Hester Arden.

Whilst the overall central theme of The Grand Gesture may be worrying to some and have others wondering how you can have a comedy set around the premise of a man wanting to end his life, it shouldn’t though detract from the very superb way that Northern Broadsides, perhaps one of the keenly anticipated companies that makes its way on regular basis to the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre, took on Nikolai Erdman’s brilliant work The Suicide.

The Grand Gesture, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

1984, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Mark Arends, Tim Dutton, Stephen Fewell, Christopher Patrick Nolan, Matthew Spencer, Gavin Spokes, Mandi Symonds, Hara Yannas, Richard Bremmer, Joshua Higgott.

To do justice to arguably one of the finest pieces of English Literature of the 20th Century on stage takes a team so immersed into what they are trying to achieve, that all else is secondary. To bring to life the horror that awaits Winston Smith from the spectre of Big Brother that is stamped like an impregnable tattoo all over the face of decency in 1984 takes a fantastic director, an adaptor of work who can make the simmering tension boil over again and again and two men you can believe in from start to finish to capture the spirit of a nation, of a world that has become the stuff of nightmares.

1984, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Scrappers, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: David Judge, John McGrellis, Ged McKenna, Molly Taylor.

The world is forever changing, no sooner have you got to grips with one situation than another comes along to take yet another swipe at you and push you to the brink. Such is the world of Scrappers and those living in a world in which is always under threat by new methods.

Scrappers, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Nina Conti, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is something of the endearing quality to Nina Conti and her ventriloquist act that just makes the audience fall in love with her. The rather special talent that drives a person to perform with a sarcastic monkey or an eight year old inner child on their arms and get away with the most irreverent sayings all in the case of entertainment is one to admired and nurtured.

Nina Conti, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(390 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Mark Thomas, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Not even a fire alarm going off with the manner of absurd authority can challenge the influence that Mark Thomas has on his fans and followers, for a brief time the Bandstand in Williamson Square became his stage as he gave an impromptu talk on some of the laws areas would pass up and down the country if the people truly had their own manifesto. In other hands the slight turn of events could have been a painful but Mark Thomas is nothing but a man with a plan, a man who doesn’t let convention get in the way of a great radical thought and in his own way he turned a moment of audience despair into perhaps a brilliant act of dissent.

Mark Thomas, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(464 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)