★★★★☆ Based The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Concert Theatre under the direction of An-Ting Chang, a concert pianist and chemistry and theatre graduate, presents a novel way of combining classical music performance with theatrical production. The result is a powerful coupling that faithfully recreates the emotional intensity of Brontë’s story, performed in an unforgettable period setting.
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★★★★☆ The entire show is performed in rhyme and song with genuinely funny lyrics performed in an impressive variety of styles and with a wide range of instruments. The script, written by the company, is an absolute joy and consistently hits the funny bone, introducing peripheral characters including the gorgeous Nina, the running mentor.
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★★★★☆ To see a revered and ancient tradition bursting, refreshed and unapologetic into the present day is something to behold. Riverdance, the interval entertainment at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest in Eire, was in that respect phenomenal. The subsequent show, which was an expanded version of that seven minute piece, was a phenomenon, touring the world and breaking records as it went.
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★★★★☆ In Sasha Regan’s production, W S Gilbert’s story is told as a kind of midsummer night’s dream of a boy scout’s camp concert party in which all characters are played by young men in shorts (the women’s parts with their shorts rolled up) . . . This is as imaginative, clever, witty and unstuffy a production of Gilbert and Sullivan as you are likely to find and may be just the thing to tempt people who think comic opera is not for them.
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★★★★★ Paula Sides made for a wilful and impassioned Tosca – one could fully buy into the violent transition from lover to murderer to defiant rebel. The character of Cavaradossi can be tricky because he is a cat’s paw batted back and forth by so many of the major characters in the opera but Samuel Sakker does an excellent job of imbuing him with a sense of agency and, ultimately, pity.
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★★★★☆ In this age of ‘alternative facts’ and fake news, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory could not have chosen a more apt play to update than Tartuffe. There occasional references to specific current issues, such as Brexit and Trump, but it is the play as a whole that has a very relevant message for our times.
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