★★★☆☆ Being a one-hander, the success of the drama rests on Claire Sweeney keeping the audience rapt throughout and this she certainly manages. Willy Russell’s scripts are of course renowned for capturing the humour of everyday life, the frustrations of class, and the rhythm of speech and nattering.
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★★★★★ What is ‘realistic’ about these Joneses lies not merely their surface naturalism, but in the way that, in their desperation and in their need for each other, they speak movingly of our shared mortality.
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★★★★☆ Bidding farewell to youth, becoming the next older generation, being solely responsible for one’s life, can all be fearful freefall-type moments. Diverse City pull no punches here, but in this brutally honest exposé of mid-life menopausal crisis, there is something endearingly human about Claire, Jacqui and Karen’s stories. And by the end we are literally dancing with them to the tune of I Am What I Am by Gloria Gaynor.
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★★★★☆ This is a play about mental health and depression; it’s about dysfunctional families, and death, and love. Philip Osment has written a short drama that encapsulates how difficult it can sometimes be just to exist, and how sometimes all it takes is offering someone a little hope.
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★★★☆☆ ‘Light and airy’ could serve to describe the pervading mood, for this production of Dial M For Murder does not have darkness at its heart. In an attractive and nimble performance, Tom Chambers portrays Tony as a fast-talking charmer whose increasingly desperate, last-minute escapes from detection are masterpieces of quick-thinking under pressure.
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★★★★★ Contemporary dance, like contemporary theatre can take many guises. To the unfamiliar it may appear baffling or overly technical or even, dare whisper it, pretentious. It can also be thrilling, challenging and downright entertaining. Thank goodness the Mark Bruce Company falls firmly in the latter category.
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