Tag Archives: Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre

Plastic Figurines, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Remmie Milner, Jamie Samuel.

It is a credit to the theatre attendees of Liverpool that there are writers of such great quality with a unique modern perspective out there who are willing to see their plays performed on the city’s various stages, that no matter how difficult the subject matter may be to perhaps take in, they know with hand on heart that the audiences will give every ounce of their concentration to and be thoughtful in their considered response. This is especially true when someone of the calibre of Ella Carmen Greenhill brings her play Plastic Figurines to the Playhouse Theatre Studio stage.

Plastic Figurines, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(452 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

The Boy In The Stripped Pyjamas, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Helen Anderson, Lisa Bird, Eva Bell, Andrew Bone, Ed Brody, Phil Cheadle, Kit Lessner, Marianne Oldham, Robert Styles, Eleanor Thorn, Rosie Wyatt, Javez Cheeseman, Colby Mulgrew.

Some pieces of literature are perhaps arguably not intended to be envisigned in anything other than cinema’s light, some perhaps are so sensitive that to try and show that singular emotion on the stage is to invite crass remarks and tactlessness in return.

The Boy In The Stripped Pyjamas, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(550 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

The Absence Of War, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Reece Dinsdale, James Harkness, Cyril Nri, Maggie McCarthy, Amiera Darwish, Charlotte Lucas, Gyuri Sarossy, Theo Cowan, Barry McCarthy, Helen Ryan, Don Gallagher, Ekow Quartey.

History could have been so different but it is the joy of speculation that only makes the subject interesting, for the time the events take place, the winner and the loser are only remembered for being in the same race. It is up to the historians, the journalists and the playwrights to put flesh on the bones and the gloss of pallor of imagination on the cheeks of the long since departed. History though is not quite viewed in the same way when there is The Absence of War dictating the proceedings.

The Absence Of War, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(673 words, estimated 2:42 mins reading time)

The Three Lions, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Dugald Bruce-Lockhart, Antonia Kinlay, Ravi Aujula, Séan Browne, Tom Davey, Lewis Collier.

The performance on the field of play is what sells newspapers and lights up the hope in a nation. It is though the commotion, the sometimes arrogant fuss and nail chewing excitement that goes on behind the scenes that captures the imagination and provides the truth behind the success and failure, the unbelievable high and the very desperate low which makes drama so fulfilling.

The Three Lions, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(538 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Educating Rita, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Educatibg Rita at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph by Stephen Vaughan.

Educatibg Rita at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph by Stephen Vaughan.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Leanne Best, Con O’Neill.

The further we move away from a time in history, the more it seems to resonate with us in the present. In 1979 the social climate of the country changed, events and news from around the world started to mould Britain in a way not seen since the start of the Second World War and the pace of life altered, stagnation, alienation and guilt in some quarters, not enough in others, became a new breeding ground to hit people with a terrifying new stick with. Yet somehow, as if in rebellion to this flowering want, great music started to reflect the times once more and the mood of education was to be heard in many a great rock and pop song and into this world Willy Russell’s Educating Rita was born.

Educating Rita, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(656 words, 1 image, estimated 2:37 mins reading time)

Sex And The Three Day Week, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Catrin Aaron, David Birrell, Natalie Casey, Edward Harrison, Javier Marzan, Robin Morrissey, Eileen O, Brien, Lucy Phelps, Graeme Rooney, Voice of Ken Dodd.

History has a way of repeating itself, what goes round will no doubt come round again. It is the comfort in the despairing knowledge that for every action…the same mistakes will be played out, over and over again and the same fortitude shown in national absurdity relied upon. For those old enough to remember the period in which an inept leader of the country was finally shown the door and the nation stumbled upon the lost ideals of the Sexual Revolution, Stephen Sharkey’s Sex And The Three Day Week is an homage to the strife, internal conflict of repressed sexuality and people making the most of the black-outs.

Sex And The Three Day Week, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(408 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

She Stoops To Conquer, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Alan Price, Oliver Gomm, Howard Chadwick, Guy Lewis, Jon Trenchard, Andrew Whitehead, Robert Took, Gilly Tompkins, Hannah Edwards, Lauryn Redding, Alan McMahon.

The 18th Century was one of richness in the field of theatre. By the time Oliver Goldsmith’s play, She Stoops To Conquer, had been performed for its debut performance the sight of women acting on the stage was so commonplace that it was an absurdity to have been forbidden from performing in the first place. There had been so many plays that had benefited from King Charles II proclamation a century before, so many talented writers getting more emotion from a finished piece and so many gifted women being rightly lauded that it the art of the Comedy of Manners took off in such a way and perhaps no more so than in the fantastic She Stoops To Conquer.

She Stoops To Conquer, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(504 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

This Is My Family, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Evelyn Hoskins, Bill Champion, Clare Burt, Terence Keeley, Marjorie Yates, Rachel Lumberg.

Everybody has a family somewhere, even if it is one of their own making. They are loved, loathed, loved and despised in equal measure, they are the insanity that makes us smile, they are the thread that makes us weep; a family is there to keep us grounded, whilst allowing us the freedom to believe we can fly. Somehow Tim Firth, the man with the Laughing Cavalier pen attached to his enormous soul, has created a play of great artistry and comic value that reflects all of this in This Is My Family.

This Is My Family, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(494 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Juno And The Paycock, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

 

Niamh Cusack in June and the Paycock at the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre. Photograph by Stephen Vaughan.

Niamh Cusack in June and the Paycock at the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre. Photograph by Stephen Vaughan.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10Cast: Niamh Cusack, Des McAleer, Neil Caple, Jonathan Charles, Louis Dempsey, Donal Gallery, Maggie McCarthy, Aoife McMahon, Robin Morrissey, Maureen O’ Connell, Fionn Walton.

 

When you have nothing, you can only go one way, unless of course life conspires against you so much that all your efforts, all the trials you have endured come back to haunt you and you end up with less than you could have imagined.

Juno And The Paycock, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(554 words, 1 image, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

Betty Blue Eyes, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Laura Baldwin, Tobias Beer, Kit Benjamin, Adam C. Booth, Amy Booth-Steel, Jeni Bowden, Ricky Butt, Matt Harrop, Oliver Izod, Rachel Knowles, Lauren Logan, Rebecca Louis, Sally Mates, Joe Maxwell, Hayden Oakley, Anthony Ray, Kate Robson-Stuart.

Winston Churchill, the war-time leader of Great Britain, once exclaimed that to look a dog in the eyes was to see it acknowledge it saw its master, a cat would see its slave but to look a pig in the eyes, well the pig sees its equal…for Betty Blue Eyes, it’s doubtful you will ever see anything to equal this well written and superbly performed play again.

Betty Blue Eyes, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(557 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)