On its 40th anniversary tour, Mike Leigh’s iconic comedy of dreadful aspirational suburbia still resounds with us. We love dysfunctional marriages. We love and laugh at the pretence of Margot in The Good Life or Hyacinth in Keeping Up Appearances. And even when in this play a main character actually dies onstage the audience howls with laughter at the situation.
Co-written by satirical magazine Private Eye editor Ian Hislop and writer/cartoonist Nick Newman, this play is funny, sharp, annoying, self-indulgent but highly relevant in our age of fake news, corrupt Governments, and mob rule.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s hit musical Evita seems to feature emerging stars on a regular basis and this touring production by Bill Kenwright and Bob Thomson, keeps that tradition going.
Shakespeare did it in Hamlet – the device of a play within a play – actors playing actors to “hold the mirror up to Nature”.
Rhydian Roberts and Jonathan Ansell are a powerful duo in the mould of Michael Ball and Alfie Boe, with the same magic formula of stunning singing ranges, humour and chemistry. This songs from the shows compilation which came to Brighton as part of a national tour of one-nighters, is middle of the road stuff which musical theatre goers will all know, though there’s a notable absence of anything by Sondheim, Porter or the Gershwins.
This show is exactly what an escapist stage musical does best – it’s highly entertaining, doesn’t tax your brain or your ethics and after boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again – we all walk out into the sultry rainy night happy.
The String Quartet’s Guide To Sex And Anxiety Theater Royal Brighton Festival The claustrophobic close and tempestuous relationship between sex, anxiety and music comes to a head in this remarkable highly focused production from one of Europe’s most exciting theatre directors, Calixto Bieito – he grabs music and drama and collides them head on with the […]
Sussex-born actor, writer, director and translator Neil Bartlett directs the explosive one-man show Medea – Written in Rage at this month’s Brighton Festival. Brian Butler talks to him about his sexuality, gay politics and Greek tragedy.
What do retired opera stars do in the twilight of their years? They move in together to a retirement home and bitch, reminisce and dream of what might have been. So we find a trio of almost-great singers planning their contribution to Joe Green ‘s birthday celebrations – Joe to you and me better known as Guiseppe Verdi.
It would be fitting if I could open this piece with a statistic on how many times the Rambert has performed at The Theatre Royal or indeed how often I have seen them there but alas all I can serve up is probably the well-known nugget that the Rambert is Britain’s oldest dance company and, as such we must be grateful that the post-war decision was made to discontinue touring with traditional popular pieces but rather return to the contemporary dance roots established by the company’s founder, Marie Rambert, in 1926.
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