It’s the simplest of structures for a play. A small group of people take turns telling each other stories. Nothing ground-breaking in the premise. Add a setting – a village pub in rural Ireland, a cast of 5, four local men and a woman new to the locale and give the stories a whiff of […]
Hamilton @ Victoria Palace Theatre
It’s the musical that blew Broadway away and for the last month it has been wowing audiences on this side of the ocean too. Just how is a musical about an almost forgotten founding father of the US driving so many Brits wild? Well there’s only one way to find out… you’ve gotta be in […]
Sunset Boulevard @ Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
“I am big! It’s the pictures that got small” With those words we learn everything we need to know about Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage adaptation of the classic Billy Wilder movie. Ostensibly an ode to the glory days of Hollywood and its first stars, this is really the story of a woman stuck […]
The Play That Goes Wrong @ Chichester Festival Theatre
We sent Emma van Kooperen to Chichester Festival Theatre to find out just what keeps going wrong as Mischief Theatre take on a murder mystery by way of Monty Python…
Shakespeare's Globe Announce Michelle Terry's First Season As Artistic Director
We’re huge fans of Shakespeare here at Sitting In The Cheap Seats and there are few things better than the Bard’s work, done well, in the open air at Shakespeare’s Globe. In her inaugural season as Artistic Director Michelle Terry brings us some old favourites, a couple of interesting choices and a trio of new plays. Read […]
Beauty and The Beast @ Chichester Festival Theatre
Mia-Cunningham-Stockdale as Beauty. Photo by Pete Jones It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… and there are few things more guaranteed to put us in the Christmas spirit than a Chichester Festival Youth Theatre production. Recent years have given us inspired takes on A Christmas Carol, Roald Dahl’s Witches and Peter Pan, all excellent […]
Coriolanus @ The Barbican Centre
Sope Dirisu as Caius Martius Angus Jackson bookends the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Rome season, his traditional dress Julius Caesar having opened it he now caps it off with a modern set Coriolanus. If the latter is the least well known of Shakespeare’s Roman plays its central theme – dissent of the masses against an ignorant […]
Remembering Gord Downie
We normally only cover theatre here, but those of you who have followed us from the beginning may be aware that long before I had the opportunity to cover theatre I wrote about music (at the now defunct Call Upon the Author). I was lucky enough to cover my favourite band The Tragically Hip a couple […]
King Lear @ The Minerva, Chichester
Ian McKellen as Lear with Phil Daniels as the Fool and Sinead Cusack as Kent. Way back in the early days of Sitting In The Cheap Seats we had our first opportunity to review a Shakespeare play. In Chichester Festival Theatre’s cosy Minerva space we saw Frank Langella lead a great cast and firmly add […]
King Lear @ Shakespeare's Globe
It’s somehow fitting that the last Shakespeare of Emma Rice’s final (summer) season is King Lear. A play that shows us how the established world can change based on one rash decision will certainly have some resonance at a venue who made the decision to terminate Rice’s employment as Artistic Director so early on.