★★☆☆☆ Back in the day, before well-known actors were ‘celebrities’, a producer with a bit of clout could persuade a star to risk their reputation on the road for six weeks. Prior to the rise in popularity and ubiquity of TV the summer tour would be the only means whereby the provinces could get a good gawp at the folk they had read about or perhaps seen at the movies.
Read More
★★☆☆☆ It is intensely frustrating when there are clear virtues in a play but it is ultimately unwound by too many hiccups and overarching structural issues. Such is the case with Great Expectations . . . It’s a great pity. I just wish the talent off-stage had been working as hard as the people on it.
Read More
★★★★☆ From its first English run some twenty years ago the play has attracted strong casts; each character is allowed to run the gamut from indignation to pathos with a good dose of self-indulgent anger and self-pity on offer. The present cast of well-seasoned and likeable favourites, Messrs. Tompkinson, Havers and Lawson all rise to the challenge with nicely delineated characters.
Read More
★★★☆☆ Shakespeare’s play with its eternal insights into romantic love amidst feuding gangs resonates with modern youth, and transfers successfully to a current day setting. Just substitute knives for rapiers. And nobody mention the existence of that inconvenient plot-busting device, the mobile phone.
Read More
★★★☆☆ All the three unnamed characters want to do is lead their ‘normal’ lives. But normality is called into question by The Drill, a series of emergency planning rehearsals and scenarios designed to help them survive, respond and cope when faced with a disaster or terrorist atrocity. The distinction between normal and the unthinkable is gradually eroded over the hour of this quick fire drama.
Read More
★★★☆☆ Jonathan Fensom’s set of the study in 221B Baker Street was lovingly adorned with detail – picture rails, fireplace and gas and electric lights. The sweep of a full curtain across the stage revealed new tableaux each time it passed, but it failed to reveal the level of excitement that would have sustained a Conan Doyle original.
Read More