Month: December 2022

What happens when you take a questionable plot, loud and wonderful costumes, a string of terrible jokes and an evening of sing-a-longs and slapstick? Yes, that’s right, it’s panto season again, except this time there aren’t COVID or omicron outbreaks to disrupt the fun. The Cambridge Arts gala panto night is quite renowned in these… Continue reading Dick Whittington and his Cat

There was an explosion of energy when Evolution’s Jack and the Beanstalk was performed at the Lyceum last night. Actors, ensemble and musicians were supercharged and delighted a packed audience with gags, familiar routines, a blaze of light and colour and a sequence of foot-tapping popular songs. Damian Williams is again Sheffield’s outrageous Dame in an array… Continue reading Jack and the Beanstalk

Michael Grandage’s sumptuous and colourful production of Neil Bartlett’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel begins with the teenage young lordling in his nightshirt asking “Who am I? Whom do I love?” Then there are four centuries of finding out a multiplicity of answers captured in a non-stop eighty minutes. Woolf herself is there as… Continue reading Orlando

People are often dismissive of pantomimes, and I can understand why. After all, they are designed to be silly and throwaway, relying upon a catalogue of well-established conventions that allow children—many of whom will be experiencing live theatre for the first time—to follow what is happening on stage. At worst, they can be dull affairs,… Continue reading Dick Whittington: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto

VOXED, associate company at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, premièred its latest work It’s not me… at Dance City on Friday 2 December to a well-filled auditorium. It’s a strong and moving dance theatre performance about climate change using text, dance and music. The premise is a conversation between Earth, played by an unseen Juliana Lisk, and a… Continue reading It’s not me…

When the English-language version of Les Misérables made its West End debut in 1985, the critics immediately began sharpening their knives. For Francis King, writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the musical was a “lurid Victorian melodrama produced with Victorian lavishness”. Other commentators complained that Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schőnberg—the creators of the original French production—had… Continue reading Les Misérables

Things are not looking good for Jack at the start of Chickenshed’s festive version of Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack (performed in the blue rota by Ellie Carroll) lives with her family in dire poverty, often relying on food banks to eat. Her father, who used to run the local amusement arcade, died when she… Continue reading Jack

The highly successful production team of Plested, Brown and Wilsher return with their fifth pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, at the Corn Exchange and it’s a giant, fun-filled family show that sparkles with seasonal cheer. The capacity audience were certainly in for a Christmas treat. There were many new twists to this well-known story starting… Continue reading Jack and the Beanstalk

John Major’s disastrous 1993 privatisation that split the railways into 113 fragments and preceded four major rail disasters may at first seem more a matter of historical interest rather than of current relevance, notwithstanding ongoing strikes now and there having been three Transport Secretaries within a couple of months. All four calamities, Southall, Ladbroke Grove,… Continue reading The Permanent Way

120 years ago, just as legendary Dame of Drury Lane Dan Leno was taking to the stage in a role that would cement his place in pantomime history, Hackney Empire opened its doors for the first time. To celebrate both these anniversaries, this year the Empire turns to Mother Goose for its festive tale, putting… Continue reading Mother Goose