Saturday, March 1, 2025
Veteran director, who originally opposed adapting 1967 film for the stage, is ‘very proud’ as Menier Chocolate Factory production will move to London’s Garrick theatre
The Menier Choco…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:42PMWednesday, February 26, 2025
Tron theatre, GlasgowJemima Levick’s superb production sets Arthur Miller’s tale of family, immigration, poverty and passion in the modern-day Brooklyn docks
Is it an innocent domestic m…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:36AMSunday, February 23, 2025
Tramway, GlasgowSandy Grierson is astonishing as a talking monkey working in a Japanese bathhouse in this slight but theatrically beguiling slice of magical-realism
Mizuki Ando has a distres…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMWednesday, February 19, 2025
Live theatre, NewcastleA South Shields family are torn by opposing forces as Ishy Din cleverly taps into the emotive memories of a weekend in the summer of 1977
It is a reasonable question. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:06AMFriday, February 14, 2025
Hull Truck theatreSnappy movement and a Billy Nomates score can’t make up for the lack of emotional range in this portrait of the 18th-century writer
It was quite a life. Having escaped a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54PMThursday, February 13, 2025
Royal Exchange theatre, ManchesterHiding behind the fluttering dialogue and domestic chatter lies a dark poetry in a pair of plays that address terrifying futures head on
Last month, wildfir…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:36PMWednesday, January 29, 2025
Royal Court, LiverpoolBubbling with quirky detail, Sarah Whitehead’s full-length debut captures the contradictions of close relationships between sisters without sentimentality
The past ha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:06AMThursday, January 23, 2025
Royal Lyceum, EdinburghJohn Douglas Thompson is a commanding Shylock in a vision of an apparently benign city where tolerance buckles all too quickly
He likes a bit of a laugh, this Shylock…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:32AMTuesday, December 10, 2024
The Dukes, LancasterWith a cumbersome script and no sense of danger or atmosphere, this production loses its way
If you are in any doubt that this adaptation of the 1952 Mary Norton novel ha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AMMonday, December 9, 2024
Derby theatreAbsorbing adaptation is faithful to the original, with sepia lighting and a whiskery, curmudgeonly Scrooge pinching pennies in hard times
Even the proportions of Ebenezer Scroog…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24AMStephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughThe titular hero’s coming-of-age tale takes advantage of local tourist attractions and a bright hard-working cast in this brisk and cheerful production …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:02AMFriday, December 6, 2024
Octagon, BoltonThis musical adaptation of the classic tale is full of charm and catchy new numbers with a captivating turn by Kiara Nicole Pillai as Mowgli
There is a startling piece of tran…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AMMonday, December 2, 2024
Royal Lyceum, EdinburghDuncan McLean’s riotous adaptation begins in a care home for retired pirates, from which the resourceful heroes set sail in a washtub buoyed by imagination
Who is th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:36AMFriday, November 29, 2024
Royal Exchange theatre, ManchesterJustin Greene and the late Steve Brown’s musical about a working-class woman who wins big on the pools and blows the lot is given a moving dream twist
As …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:12AMWednesday, November 27, 2024
Tron theatre, GlasgowThere are cursory mentions of crocodiles, clocks and boys who never grow up, but Johnny McKnight’s script charts its own course in a hilariously daft production
I have…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06AMThursday, November 21, 2024
Pitlochry Festival theatreIn our dark times, the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics offer a sugar-coated disguise for a show with political heft
Elizabeth Newman’s six-year tenure as Pitloch…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:32AMFriday, November 15, 2024
Royal Court, LiverpoolWolf-like property developers are set to evict the grandmother, who is on a night of drug-fuelled abandon, in this enjoyable show
This is Liverpool, so the most frighte…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:48PMThursday, November 7, 2024
Alphabetti, NewcastleWritten and performed by Matt Miller, this tender solo show weaves in bittersweet childhood memories with car maintenance metaphors
We have signed up for a 12-week cours…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AMFriday, November 1, 2024
Playhouse, SheffieldThe actor plays a dozen roles with aplomb in a small-town US tale co-written with Ed Stambollouian
What an astonishing performance. In a kind of true-crime version of Und…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:31AMThursday, October 31, 2024
Birmingham RepRae Mainwaring’s award-winning drama about a young woman with multiple sclerosis is given a playful production
This play’s title refers to the patches of an MRI scan that i…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06PMWednesday, October 23, 2024
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughAn unlikely crew, including a vicar and two pensioners, sail a dodgy ship on a voyage to honour an explorer. But the sitcom setup fails to deliver much com…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AMTuesday, October 1, 2024
Everyman, Liverpool Julian Moore-Cooke is terrific as Padraic, avenging his pet, but the mix of humour and gory violence needs fine-tuning in this revival
The joke at the heart of Martin McD…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:32AMÒran Mór, Glasgow A plain-speaking policeman finds himself confronted by one of history’s great impostors in Jonny Donahoe’s entertaining play
Anastasia is attempting to look regal in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:32AMSunday, September 29, 2024
Tron, GlasgowNearly 30 years on, environmental activists’ occupation of the North Sea fuel store gets an ambitious, heartfelt musical treatment
This time last year, Just Stop Oil protestor…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:12PMWednesday, September 25, 2024
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeThe pack prowls the stage and falls from the sky in this dark and dynamic production combining Carter’s rich gothic language with impressive aerial skills
The…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AMThursday, September 19, 2024
Northern Stage, NewcastleVast amounts of shagpile set the scene for Jack Bradfield’s production of the grotesque classic about materialism and status chasing
It ends with a blast of Prince…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:32AMWednesday, September 18, 2024
Shakespeare North Playhouse, PrescotExuberant production sees spoken word and physically expressive BSL users mirroring each other as they audition to take the lead roles
Unusually for a Sha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:02PMThursday, September 12, 2024
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughWhen the retired MD of a department store books a theatre company to perform at his home, relationships and reality begin to unravel
If, like Alan Ayckbour…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:48AMFriday, August 23, 2024
Pitlochry Festival theatre Harry Mould’s sweet and sexually frank debut focuses on the female volunteers at the Samaritans in the 1970s charged with talking to ‘telephone masturbators’…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:36AMTuesday, August 20, 2024
Back for its 15th year, this festival favourite finds a bespectacled primate sitting silently on stage for 56 minutes – to wild applause
The queue snakes around the bar, stretches down the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:24AMMonday, August 19, 2024
Gilded Balloon at the Museum, EdinburghAlan McHugh’s play is about grief and the agony of treatment – but also hope and laughter in the face of adversity
What a lovely thing to have done…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AM 
