IF you are following talented young Street actor-singer Toby Turley on I Have a Dream*, the quest for the new Sky and Sophie for the West End’s Mamma Mia, you will know that the ingredients for a perfect theatre on-stage partnership are not only acting (or singing) ability but also that intangible quality, chemistry. If…
ONE of the advantages of reviewing a pantomime at a schools matinee, rather than the official press night, is that you really get a feel for how children enjoy the show. For many youngsters it will be their first experience of live theatre – and if it’s a good one, they may come back, not…
BRISTOL’S Old Vic Theatre is transformed into a magical city state in Arabia this Christmas. There’s a palace, a prison and a house where some of the “ordinary people” live, as well as sea monsters and a marvellous flying horse. And Schere is telling her stories to the petulant and babyish king. This brilliant retelling…
TELEVISION scriptwriter Reginald Rose was called to serve on a New York jury in 1954, and his experiences in the locked jury room inspired him to write what became his best-known play, performed countless times on stages across the English speaking world and famously filmed with Henry Fonda in the lead. It is a timelessly…
TWENTY years ago the members of Mere Amateur Dramatic Society staged Peter Gordon’s spoof murder mystery Murdered to Death, to great acclaim by the audience who named it the funniest play the company has ever done. So it’s no surprise that director Chris Wood (who played the more-than-bumbling Inspector Pratt in the 2003 production) decided…
ONE of the criticisms leveled at the musical Annie is that it is too sweet and sentimental, and to an extent that is probably true, which only goes to prove how far this feelgood musical adaptation of the adventures of Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip that was printed in American newspapers from 1924 to…
AS a nation, we love quizzes – look how many people enjoy weekly or monthly pub contests! And the television block-buster Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (which ran from 1998 to 2014) was the biggest quiz of them all, with the biggest prize. It was fun to watch, amusing to see if you could…
IN the days before genetic modification and new methods of long-term storage robbed us of the pleasure of enjoying fruit and vegetables at a specific time of year, as they came into season, you looked forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of the first English tomatoes, fresh peas, kidney and broads beans. Fortunately those…
MINIMA – Mick Frangou, Greg Hall, Alex Hogg and Andy Taylor – made their Take Art debut providing original live music for a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film The Lodger – A Story of the London Fog at Caryford Hall. The Bristol-based quartet plays instruments including cello, double bass, regular and baritone guitars,…
EMILE Zola’s 1868 novel Therese Raquin scandalised readers at the time, with its depiction of adultery and murder. Now Fiona Ross has adapted the story, and directs her own version with performing arts students from AUB, setting the action in immediately post-war Paris, and in the land of the wicked dead. Played without an interval,…