WHEN you have a stage full of brilliantly created life-sized puppets, expertly manoeuvred and voiced, the storyline within the play being presented can undermined, at times almost forgotten. In the case of Robert Icke’s intense adaptation of George Orwell’s 1945 novella there was never a chance that the story would slip into the background. Brutally…
GERALD Sibleyras’s play An Hour-and-a-Half Late is recognisably French, a sort of Yasmina Reza-lite, following a pattern set by both she and Florian Zeller of small-cast, intense, domestic stories of family function and dysfunction. But the new play, adapted and directed by Belinda Lang and starting its six-venue UK tour at Bath, is also very…
IT is all very well to let modern technology take over from old fashioned pieces of paper for checking entry to a theatre, but when, as happened for a short while last evening, that technology goes awry, a long queue quickly develops. The result was a 15-minute delay before this polished and rehearsed-within-an-inch-of-its-life production could…
ON their classic 1962 album Nat King Cole sings, George Shearing plays, those two great artists combined to give a truly memorable rendition of Jerome Kern’s 1936 song Pick Yourself Up. Dorothy Fields lyrics start with the lines “Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again”, and those…
THE story of the Little Mermaid is complicated enough, but when the denouement happens at the same time as 22 small children decide to stand pressed to the front of the stage, jumping up and down and shouting instructions, it takes a good deal of skill and volume from the actors to keep a play…
MOST lovers of the 2007 film Waitress – and there are millions of them throughout the world – will be happy with Jessie Nelson’s adaptation and Sara Bareilles music and lyrics. Between them they have captured the quirky humour and distinct Southern States of America atmosphere. The music, which for the most part works almost…
IT used to be common for popular books or plays to be adapted into films – now, it’s films being made into plays. In recent years we have had Billy Elliot, The Lion King, Hairspray and The Girl on the Train. Just last week, Bath had the disappointing stage version of Dan Brown’s The Da…
AFTER the deprivations and difficulties of lockdowns, furloughs and closed theatres, dance fans at Frome were delighted to welcome the resident Mark Bruce Company back on stage for the triple bill of new works, Phantoms. Once again the multi-talented creator has turned his dark imagination to interpreting stories through dance, set to powerful music, against…
WHEN a 30-year-old production , even one which was enormously successful in its original presentation, is revived and sent out once again to face the public, more often than not it has the look and feel of an antique piece of furniture tarted up with a fresh coat of paint. When however, the show has…
DAN Brown’s 2004 novel The Da Vinci Code was, and still is, hugely successful with readers around the globe, brought to even greater public attention by the furore it caused among Catholics for its storyline of Jesus and Mary Magdalen being married and having a child. Two years later a film, starring Tom Hanks, Audrey…