ONE hundred and twenty years after it was first published, a bright new adaptation of E Nesbit’s classic children’s tale Five Children and It comes to the egg in Bath, late due to Covid but on until 16th January. To the delight of the audience, it all starts as the purple sand fairy, the Psammead, tries…
PANTOMIME is the most British of entertainments, traditionally staged over the Christmas period and aimed at all the family. Its essential elements are magic, laughter, colour, baddies getting their come-uppance and a happy, romantic ending. They REALLY don’t come better than Bath Theatre Royal’s Cinderella. We might have been delighted by Jon Monie in Bath…
TAKE 18 characters in the entrance hall of a country house on Christmas Eve, a cocktail tray, illicit romances, true love and the best laid plans, throw in four actors, sleight of hand, fleet of foot and versatile of voice. You have the perfect recipe for an evening of astonishing fun and frolics, served up…
UNTIL halted by the pandemic, Bristol’s Tobacco Factory Theatre had built up a reputation of arguably being the best Christmas show on offer in the area. This new adaptation of L Frank Baum’s classic OZ stories, by Sarah Henley, Zoe Squire and director Emma Earle, has been greeted with such enthusiasm that before the opening…
THE auditorium was packed with excited children and their parents, all dressed up in panto garb, for the first Sunday matinee of the Poole Lighthouse Beauty and the Beast, based on Andrew Pollard’s script first seen in Salisbury in 2018. Adapted and directed by Chris Jarvis, back at Poole as Dame Betty Bon-Bon, it also…
I’VE been banging on for decades about the importance of giving a young audience a magical experience of live theatre at their first visit – usually a pantomime or Christmas show. And at Bristol Old Vic this holiday season, it’s as though all my wishes have come true in one event – Wardrobe Ensemble’s marvellous…
THE Merlin’s Christmas community show has built up a reputation for invention, spectacle and energy, and the eager and talented performers were, like so many others around the country, frustrated and disappointed by last year’s prohibitions. So there was great delight and anticipation for the 2021 show, a production of Julian Fellowes’ 2016 version of…
MIKE Akers, well known for his work at Bristol Old Vic, wrote his new take on the Snow White story, first seen in 2018, for a cabaret audience and a girl band in London. Now it reappears on stage at Salisbury Playhouse until 31st December, picking up the pastel delights of the Wiltshire theatre’s wonderful…
WHILE it might be a bit of an exaggeration to claim that the last line if the title (The Finest Panto in the Land) is 100% true, this is certainly a production that sets out, and does leave a lasting impression. There are two reasons for making that claim. One is the visual effects created…
YOU wouldn’t call Agatha Christie an obvious feminist, but in Witness for the Prosecution, which she considered her best play, she does a great job puncturing the pompous superiority of her principal male characters. It’s classic Christie – more twists and turns than an Alpine mountain pass. It’s not so much red herrings as unpredictable…