EVERY BRILLIANT THING at the Tobacco Factory, Bristol

Imagine writing down everything that makes you smile, uplifts you, pleases you, makes you momentarily happy. Now suppose you start the list aged seven (starting with ice cream) and keep adding and adding with everything that delights you and those around you, including first love and abiding love. Like much of what is good in life it is inclusive: so here we find ‘peeing in the sea when no one knows’, ‘the jangling sound of keys’, ‘the smell of books’ and ‘a hairdresser who listens to what you want’. . . To spin gold from a mere list is no mean feat and this show produces it by the yard.

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FIRE IN THE NORTH SKY at The North Wall, Oxford

The storytelling and music in the production are brilliant, but for me, the main strength lies in its rawness. In true storytelling tradition, the narrative doesn’t feel perfectly scripted – the words seem as though they might change to suit the audience or the storyteller’s mood. This feels very true to the spirit of passing on an oral tradition. I could imagine this performance would work equally well in front of a roaring fire in a pub, in a family living room over mugs of hot chocolate, or under the Northern Lights where Väinämöinen himself might stop to listen.

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DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS at the Bristol Hippodrome

The stylish Michael Praed is wonderfully languid and vain as Jameson, masquerading as a prince from some Ruritanian backwater as he smoothly seduces wealthy ladies into handing over their jewellery. In comic contrast, Noel Sullivan is outrageously uncivilised as Benson, a Jack-the-lad who makes up for his lack of sophistication with formidable cunning. Much of the fun in this hugely entertaining show comes from the disguises they adopt as they try to dupe their chosen victims and outwit each other at the same time.

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BEFORE THE PARTY on tour.

Rodney Ackland was, in the 1930s, ranked alongside Terence Rattigan, Noel Coward and J B Priestley as a playwright of note. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls never goes away, Rattigan is always being revived and Coward is, well, Coward. But Rodney Ackland? His play Before the Party, adapted from Somerset Maugham’s short story, does little to persuade us of the status he once, apparently, commanded. Whereas the plays of other the three aforementioned writers are equally stuck in time and place they are either relevant today or are very witty. Before the Party, sadly was neither

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HAIRSPRAY at Malvern Theatres

The effervescent musical, Hairspray, explodes on stage at Malvern Theatres for the first time this week. Bringing a whole new audience demographic to the venue, this latest incarnation of the show delivers awesome vocals, vibrant choreography and a feel good factor that would soften the hardest of hearts. Set in Baltimore in 1962 at a time of monumental political and social change, it is a giddy tale of one teenagers belief for a brighter future and the lengths she’ll go to achieve her dreams . . . Brenda Edwards is stunning as Motormouth Maybelle and gives the most incredible, awe inspiring rendition of I Know Where I’ve Been

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RAYMONDO at the Bristol Old Vic

Marcus Hamblett’s clever music score augments the atmosphere, and shifts in mood are emphasized by skillfully placed changes in the lighting, but above all Raymondo is a dazzling display of unconventional story-telling. There will be those who find the language a little too self-consciously aware of its own cleverness, but I was totally absorbed by this strange and beguiling tale. Annie Siddons has described Raymondo as being about ‘resilience, adversity, fraternity and love.’ By delivering these themes through the medium of magical realism she has been able to let her imagination run free, to great effect.

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