Tag Archives: Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre

The Wedding, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Performers: Lucia Chocarro, Fionn Cox-Davies, Chris Evans, Madeleine Fairminer, Anna Finkel, Amit Lahav, Katie Lusby, Ryen Perkins-Gangnes, Uros Petronijevic, Dan Watson, Kenny Wing Tao Ho.

We are all slaves to one kind of dance or another, even the most freest of souls have to answer to some faceless leader who marks out the time between the tick and the tock with a sense of rhythm, from birth to the time of our death, we are married to life, to a job, to the system, and it is only over time that we lose the affection for the wedding dress and the all trimmings we associate with ignorance and purity and begin to see the faceless ones who call the tune as nothing more than puppets themselves.

The Jungle Book, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Rachel Dawson, Diogo Gomes, Lloyd Gormon, T. J. Holmes, Ruri James, Avita Jay, Keziah Joseph, Chipo Kureya, Dyfrig Morris, Deborah Oyelade, Tripti Tripuraneni.

The life of a writer and their creation is often seen as being so intertwined that when the reader takes a more interested look, a more critical eye over what they are being implored to read, often the join seems to flush, that whatever the writer of the novel has written must be what they believe in their own hearts.

A Pacifist’s Guide To The War On Cancer, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A Pacifist’s Guide To The War On Cancer. Photograph by Mark Douet.

Cast: Eva Alexander, Bryony Kimmings, Gemma Storr, Lottie Vallis, Lara Veitch, Elexi Walker.

There is always going to be an emotional stance when it comes to Cancer, we are all either directly or indirectly affected by this disease, almost impossible to not know someone who has been changed by the feeling of having something alien inside them, influenced in their thinking or who has in modern world sense, fought it. It is that very sense of the phrase fought that is the emotive part for some, and for Bryony Kimmings it is a word that doesn’t sit right, it implies perhaps fighting, war, taking up arms in a body of troubles and ultimately in a war, nobody wins, there are only casualties.

Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Jay Taylor and Patrick Robinson as Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson in Baskerville: Photograph by Ellie Kurttz.

Cast: Bessie Carter, Edward Harrison, Ryan Pope, Patrick Robinson, Jay Taylor.

There is a demonic howl that punctures the thick Devonshire Fog and finds the way to install the first wave of fear in a man’s heart, the moors have the air of the unnatural and spectral feeling its way like spindly fingers through a solid, almost impenetrable web, the hand upon the shoulder, the heavy, phantom breathing of the curse that has weaved its way into the family history is close by and the eyes start to glow blood red, evil and death locked in its slavering, hungry teeth.

People, Places & Things, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Lisa Dwyer Hogg, Michael Balogun, Trevor Fox, Susan Lawson-Reynolds, Ekow Quartry, Andrew Sheridan, Imogen Slaughter, George Somner, Aimee Lou Wood, Matilda Ziegler, Ellen Warwick, Natalie Ann Boyd, Emily Jane McNeill.

To beat addiction you need to stay away from the triggers that send you off the rails, to recognise those People, Places & Things which can harm you and your self belief and then start by being honest, more than you have been before in your life. Addiction is such that you don’t recognise it for what it is and to watch someone go through it, in which ever form it takes, is to understand the depths that a human being can sink to when nobody listens to them silently scream.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: James Atherton, Taj Atwal, Sally Bankes, Gemma Dobson, Samantha Robinson, David Walker.

Jealousy can tear friendships apart, it is a aspect of life that is seen through every social class, every feature of society in all its rich forms and its often desperate situation, jealousy rips at the very seams of the fabric that binds and nobody outside of Shakespeare arguably understood that more when writing about two young girls from Bradford and the power of sex than Andrea Dunbar.

My Country; A Work In Progress, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Seema Bowri, Cavan Clarke, Laure Elphinstone, Adam Ewan, Penny Layden, Stuart McQuarrie, Christine Patterson.

Our voice is important, our opinions even more so and yet we decry others without even understanding them, without taking the time to truly listen without interrupting to what they are saying; at times it can seem like we have never gone past the ethics of the playground, whoever shouts loudest wins the argument. It is one that can be seen to have divided the nation, in some ways irrevocably, for the long foreseeable future as we continue to discuss the almost senseless act of offering a hopeful reasoned debate on the expectation of Britain’s role in the European Union, its position of a once in a lifetime vote of in or out.

Gabriel, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Paul McGann, Belinda Lang, Jules Melvin, Robin Morrissey, Sarah Schoenbeck, Venice Van Someren.

It is Human nature to forget, to wipe out the memory, collective or individual, of some of the evils, the deeds carried out in the name of occupation and survival; it is those actions that were in use every day during World War Two on the continent and were mercifully missing from Britain’s streets as the sheer evil of the Nazi war machine dragged its way from the Atlantic edge to the forests and surrounding areas of Stalingrad.

Cyrano, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Christian Edwards, Sharon Singh, Adam Barlow, Andrew Whitehead, Andy Cryer, Paul Barnhill, Angela Bain, Jessica Dyas, Francesca Mills, Anthony Hunt, Robert Wade, Perry Moore, Michael Hugo.

It is always a match made in heaven, a sense of theatrical gold in which Liverpool audiences always receive so much in terms of gratification, of charm and a story in which you leave the building knowing you have seen theatre at its most complete, personable and down to Earth; no matter the subject, Northern Broadsides and Liverpool theatres are blessed with each other’s company and it is one in which people instinctively know is going to make their week.

Pygmalion, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Alex Beckett, Ian Burfield, Gavi Singh Chera, Flaminia Cinque, Natalie Gavin, Racheal Ofori, Liza Sadovy, Raphael Sowole.

Refreshing, radical and engaging….whilst the sweet saccharine taste of My Fair Lady sits in the theatrical playground like some street urchin outside of sweet shop, eyes aglow at the treats inside, deep in the interior of George Bernard Shaw sits the happiness of a man content at the thought of his tremendous play Pygmalion getting the sincerity of the performance that it fully and rightfully deserves.