This, thankfully, is a version which remains largely true to the spirit of the original while clearly having a direct relevance to our own troubled times. Writer Brendan Kennelly’s language is vigorously contemporary, employing rhythm and rhyme but often shockingly direct and free from poetic euphemism when describing the fate that awaits these women when the winners take the spoils of victory.
Read More
Even by the shaky standards of show-biz biography this production pushes its luck, not least in the casting of its lead man. Glenn Miller’s plane disappeared over the English Channel in 1944, when he was 40; Tommy Steele is in his eightieth year. Miller was leader of the most successful of the great swing bands; Steele is a one-time rock and roller, now long- established as a song and dance man. How can that possibly work?
Read More
It tells the story of three young Bristol boys, friends since primary school, who enlist in the army to escape the banality and tick-tock drudgery of civilian life. Arthur has been driving cars off the container ships at Portbury docks: ‘… parking them in perfect lines, like headstones in a cemetery… Every day. Every week. Every month.’ Geraint – inevitably known as Taff – has been working as an apprentice, ‘on crap pay to a St Paul’s plumber’, and he is hungry for something different . . . I left the theatre feeling deeply grateful that neither of my boys followed the path taken by Arthur and his friends. Pink Mist is unmissable.
Read More
Tremolo Theatre’s The Hours Before We Wake is a little gem of a show, multi-faceted and polished to perfection. It begins in balletic slow-motion, with a young man swimming in dangerous waters. After evading snarling monsters he triumphantly dons a superhero cape and… wakes up. It is 2091 and almost all is well in Ian’s world . . .
Read More
Aoife Duffin’s portrayal of the girl has been described as ‘career-defining’, and it is certainly hard to imagine how anyone could do it better. . . Duffin swiftly changes from one character to another with protean skill; one moment she is a threatening playground bully, the next the lascivious uncle, a snobbish aunt or a condemnatory grandfather. . . An astonishingly brave performance, and one not to be missed.
Read More
Had enough of Twitter / X?
Now follow StageTalkMag on Bluesky Social and Threads too