Author: Graham Wyles

ERIC AND LITTLE ERN on tour

“. . . The timing is perfect, the idiosyncratic twitches and mannerisms, the playing with the glasses the tilt of the body, the thrust of a one-liner are all as you remember . . . You’ll find the Grieg’s Piano Concerto sketch and the paper bag gag done with as much freshness as at their first outing. Ashpitel and Stephens have worked hard to retrieve the original feeling of the routines and it has clearly been a labour of love. If you share the affection or if you ever wondered what your parents were groaning on about this show is for you.”

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ECHO BEACH at Cooper’s Loft at the Bristol Old Vic

” . . Her personal style is engaging and fluid and not without a sense of humour. . . . It’s a brave thing to do to think you can entertain a bunch of people in this way, but Hannah Sullivan does it in some style. Here is novelty and innovation on the unclaimed land between dance and mime presented with confidence and skill – rare talents. Where she goes next we shall have to wait and see and content ourselves for the time being with this little nugget.”

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THE WINDOW at the Bristol Old Vic Studio

“. . . Charlotte Melia, as the storyteller, turns in a commanding performance. Her style is the very lack of style in that she could be any intelligent, opinionated woman suffering anguish at what some may describe as low-level sexual harassment. She is in that sense, ‘everywoman’. However, what Semerciyan successfully succeeds in showing is that ‘even’ this kind of behaviour is not without consequences. . . Melia’s no frills, matter-of-fact, woman-next-door approach, provide the necessary ballast in the character’s journey from, ‘a kind of love’, for lonely neighbour, Ted (seen originally through ‘the window’), to a kind of hate after the sequence of events she relates.”

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THE FATHER at the Ustinov, Bath

“. . . To the final, wrenching, reversal of the roles of father/daughter and the ultimately unbearable last plea in the arms of his nurse this is a magnificent performance (I weep now at its recall). If Mr. Cranham wants to play Lear this is his calling card . . . The Ustinov continues to produce theatre, which by any standard is of the highest order and in this gem of a play has dealt a full hand of relevant, entertaining and moving. “

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MADAME BUTTERFLY at the Bristol Tobacco Factory

” . . . the opera concentrates on emotion . . . In last night’s performance the role of Butterfly was taken by Stephanie Corley, whose fine soprano voice and fluid movements were the perfect tools for articulating the character’s inner journey to suicidal despair. In one way we might consider the chamber sized orchestra to be better suited to the setting and intimate theme. In any case the orchestra under Jonathan Lyness was in perfect balance with venue, setting and cast. . . “

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