Strangers on a Train Strangers On A Train is based on the 1950 novel by Patricia Highsmith with a heafty nod at that Oscar-Winning Alfred Hitchcock film. We begin the story as a fateful encounter takes place between two men in a carriage of a train crossing America. Guy is the successful businessman with a nagging jealousy; Charles is the […]
It’s a hard look at the chaos of the unleashing of hugely destructive violent social prejudice from the perspective of a small close nit family. Its use of personal catastrophe as an intersectional metaphor for national tragedy is relentless. It’s also a breathless, almost unbearable personal confession and scalpel edged searching for understanding and redemption, filled with wrong turns and cowardice which eventually, after endless trauma, shows that one small act of courage can provide hope for change and be a catalyst for transformation.
Stoppard’s words fly around, they are funny and caustic, the actors obviously enjoy speaking them, even if the sentences are often more than a mouthful, the set piece speeches are entertaining and irritating, clever, deep and shallow and it’s all very showy and apparently entertaining on one level, out came that cricket bat, but I was stumped.
This was an unforgettable evening with the Tales of the City author celebrating the launch of his long-awaited memoir Logical Family. From his early life in the conservative South to liberal San Francisco, from his palm-reading Grannie to an awkward chat about girls with President Nixon, Armistead Maupin revealed the extraordinary people and places that helped him become one of the world’s best-loved writers. Funny, poignant and unflinchingly honest, this was a unique opportunity to listen to the man from Barbary Lane.
After making its UK premier at Theatre Royal Windsor earlier this month, Gore Vidal’s 1960 political satire, The Best Man, has landed at Brighton’s Theatre Royal on the second leg of its UK tour. The plot revolves around the characters and ambitions of two very different fictional politicians vying for the Democrat nomination at the Presidential primaries in Philadelphia in 1960.
Voted The No.1 Greatest Musical in Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Musical – GREASE comes to the Theatre Royal, Brighton for Christmas 2017! In the absence of a traditional Christmas Pantomime at the Theatre Royal again this Christmas, it’s time to dust off your leather jackets, pull on your bobby socks and catch Brighton’s biggest Christmas party as Danny and Sandy fall in love all over again by the seaside.
This is a perfectly balanced cast, Sian Phillips as Miss Daisy captures the fierce but fragile nature of this woman whose humble beginnings and comfortable retirement dictate her relationship with the outside world. Derek Griffiths as her driver Hoke Colburn who ages and changes along with her is terrific, and the two of them get the accents and attention to detail just right.
Based on the 1998 box office breaking movie, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, The Wedding Singer’s original musical score written by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin has much to offer but sadly on first hearing, few memorable tunes.
When La Cage Aux Folles opened in 1983 it was very much a ‘piece of its time’ scripted by Harvey Fierstein with music by Jerry Herman and introducing the world to the fabulous Les Cagelles. Those were the days before we had gay marriage and many of the rights we now enjoy. The musical gave gay people at the time the chance to experience the fabulous illusion created at the La Cage nightclub in Saint-Tropez by middle age drag queen and star of the show Albin (Zsa Zsa) and his partner Georges who together owned the nightclub.
I could gush more, I will gush more, but book yourself a ticket now, this was an unexpected treat and I left feeling empowered by Russell’s life affirming writing, as relevant now as it was thirty years ago, and enchanted by this tour de force performance from Prenger. With the audience on their feet giving her a well deserved tumultuous applause; Prenger offers some of it to ‘The Rock’ sitting next to her in the second half beach set. Modest, charming and seriously funny, Prenger herself rocks!
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