All stories by Jessica Handscomb on BroadwayStars

Monday, November 20, 2017

Review: Network, Lyttelton Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

In 1964, Marshal McLuhan taught us that ‘the medium is the message’. Back then, that medium was television. Today, it is the internet, social media, smartphones that live in our pocket. …

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 11:36AM

Review: Coriolanus, The Barbican Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Rome season is upon us. Directed by Angus Jackson, the Royal Shakespeare company present three of Shakespeare’s plays centring on Roman history: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, and Corio…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 09:36AM
Saturday, November 11, 2017

Review: Reasons To Be Cheerful, Theatre Royal Stratford East by Jessica Handscomb

Ian Dury was born in Harrow in 1942. He contracted polio during the 1949 epidemic, which left him disabled in later life. In 1971, Ian Dury and the Blockheads were formed and quickly became …

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 12:06PM
Friday, November 10, 2017

Review: Tryst, Tabard Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

London, 1910 – George Joseph Love (Fred Perry) is a serial fraudster, wooing and tricking the desperate women of London. Adelaide Pinchin (Natasha J Barnes) is a seamstress, making and…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 06:36AM

Review: House on Haunted Hill, Leicester Square Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

After their success with last year’s Attack of the Giant Leeches, The Lampoons are back, with another classic horror film crudely condensed into almost two hours of slapdash, faux-improvis…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 05:33AM
Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Review: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Royal Opera House by Jessica Handscomb

Published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a story that has been loved and revered by adults and children alike for over 150 years. Now, since its creation in 2011, Christop…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 01:12PM
Sunday, October 29, 2017

Review: Ninagawa Company: Macbeth, Barbican Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

After its debut at the 1985 Brighton Fringe, Yukio Ninagawa’s revered production of Macbeth is back. A unique and beautiful fusion of East and West, Shakespeare’s timeless tale gets a Ja…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 11:33AM
Thursday, October 26, 2017

Review: Turkey, The Hope Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Turkey is Frankie Meredith’s first full-length play. It centres around Madeline (Peyvand Sadeghian) who desperately wants to have a baby. The fact that she is in a relationship with a woma…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 11:06AM
Sunday, October 22, 2017

Review: Le Grand Mort, Trafalgar Studios 2 by Jessica Handscomb

‘La petit mort’ is a phrase originating from the sixteenth century. Its literal translation is ‘the little death’, but it is more commonly used to describe the sensation of orgasm an…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 06:12AM
Monday, October 16, 2017

Review: Ink, Duke of York’s by Jessica Handscomb

“It’s just a bit of fun” – a phrase that almost always justifies and precedes a bad idea, a phrase that Larry Lamb (Richard Coyle) exclaims in numerous ways, on various o…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 02:06PM
Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Review: The Knowledge, Charing Cross Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Long before the days of Google maps and Satnavs, decades before Uber was even a twinkle in CEO Travis Kalanick’s eye, and before we had access to the entire world via an oblong in our pock…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 02:12PM
Thursday, September 21, 2017

Review: The Provoked Wife, The Hope Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

‘Restoration for the new generation’ – a bold claim, but I think Marooned Theatre’s production of The Provoked Wife pulls it off. It is the second of John Vanbrugh’s comedies, afte…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 08:33AM
Saturday, September 16, 2017

Review: Hot Mess, Lion and Unicorn Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

 Twins Polo (Timothy Renouf) and Twitch (Katrina Allen) are celebrating their 25th birthday. Born with only one heart between them, the twins are something of an unexplained medical miracle…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 04:12AM
Thursday, September 7, 2017

Review: King Lear, Shakespeare’s Globe by Jessica Handscomb

Written in 1606, King Lear is Shakespeare’s classic tale of the titular mad monarch. George Bernard Shaw wrote of the play ‘No man will ever write a better tragedy than Lear’, and Nanc…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 07:04AM
Friday, August 18, 2017

Review: Apologia, Trafalgar Studios by Jessica Handscomb

Apologia, noun: a formal written defence of one’s opinions or conduct, not to be confused with an apology. Directed by Jamie Lloyd, Apologia is a volatile family drama set in 2009 in the E…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 06:54AM
Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Review: The Wasp, Jermyn Street Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

After a successful run at the Hampstead Theatre, followed by a transfer to Trafalgar Studios 2 – The Wasp has made its way to the Jermyn Street Theatre. A two-hander centred on two childho…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 07:36AM

Review: The Community, The Lion and Unicorn by Jessica Handscomb

Of all the dystopian post-apocalyptic ‘comedies’ I’ve seen in the past year, The Community has undoubtedly been the most enjoyable. Reading the show’s synopsis, you’d expect anothe…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 07:36AM
Sunday, August 6, 2017

Review: Girl from the North Country, Old Vic by Jessica Handscomb

Minnesota, 1934. Following the Wall Street crash of 1929 America entered the Great Depression. The winters in the four years after were harsh and hit Americans hard, with more out of work, h…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 06:36AM
Sunday, July 23, 2017

Review: Fall of Duty, King’s Head Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Festival47 is currently running at the Kings Head Theatre, Islington, until 22nd July, and playing at the festival is Fall of Duty, a story of a baby boomer Mother and millennial Son who att…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 06:54AM
Friday, July 7, 2017

Review: Macbeth, St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden by Jessica Handscomb

Arguably one of his most famous tragedies, Macbeth is a crafted tale of a fight for power, regicide, murder and psychosis. Initially performed in 1606, Shakespeare taps into the fears of the…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 06:42AM
Monday, July 3, 2017

Review: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Wyndham’s Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Eleanora Fagan was just 44 when she died. Born in 1915, she was the great grandchild of a slave. Her mother had her when she just was a teenager and her father abandoned them both. She was r…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 10:36AM
Monday, June 26, 2017

Review: La Traviata, Royal Opera House by Jessica Handscomb

Based on Alexandre Dumas fils’ 19th Century novel La Dame aux caméllias, Verdi’s beloved opera has returned to the Royal Opera House once again. Richard Eyre’s revered production is b…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 10:04AM
Thursday, June 8, 2017

Review: Roller Diner, Soho Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Eddie ‘super-duper businessman’ Costello (Joe Dixon) runs a roller diner in a dreary gang-riddled Birmingham, with the help of his daughter Chantel (Lucie Shorthouse) and waitres…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 07:24AM
Thursday, June 1, 2017

Review: Snapshot, The Hope Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Written by George Johnston, Snapshot is somewhat of a modern-day love story. Plagued by social media, internships, and rising rent costs, it follows James (Brian Martin) and Daniel (Joey Aku…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 04:12PM
Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Review: Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, The Duke of York’s Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Adapted by Lee Hall, the creator of Billy Elliot, and based on the novel The Sopranos by Alan Warner, comes the new musical Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour. It follows the story of six Catho…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 10:18AM
Saturday, May 13, 2017

Review: Paper Hearts, Upstairs at the Gatehouse by Jessica Handscomb

After a successful run at 2016 Edinburgh Fringe, Paper Hearts has returned to the stage at Upstairs at the Gathehouse. Originally 75 minutes, the home-grown musical written by Liam O’Raffe…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 03:12PM
Monday, April 17, 2017

Review: Threads, The Hope Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Threads, written by David Lane, imagines a world in where ‘there are these invisible threads stretching between lovers and husbands and wives and couples’. The two-hander is the story of…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 07:06AM
Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Review: 46 Beacon, Trafalgar Studios by Jessica Handscomb

How many of us can look back at a specific night in our lives and recognise that it has changed who we are forever? Bill Rosenfield can, and 46 Beacon is a semi-autobiographical account of a…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 05:06AM
Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Review: Consent, National Theatre by Jessica Handscomb

Nina Raine, writer of well received Tiger Country and Olivier-nominated Tribes, is back with a fiercely witty new play that brings the politics of the courtroom into everyday life. Consent f…

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 01:54PM

Review: The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, Theatre Royal Haymarket by Jessica Handscomb

Modern drama, for me, often evokes the same reaction as modern art does. I consume it, I often enjoy it, but I also am left wondering ‘why?’. Why would someone make something like that? …

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 01:54PM
Monday, April 10, 2017

Review: The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, Theatre Royal Haymarket by Jessica Handscomb

Modern drama, for me, often evokes the same reaction as modern art does. I consume it, I often enjoy it, but I also am left wondering ‘why?’. Why would someone make something like that? …

SOURCE: A Younger Theatre at 07:12AM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards