Jez Butterworth and Sam Mendes are names pretty much guaranteed to make any theatregoing regular pay attention, both are synonymous with high quality productions (Butterworth’s Jerusalem regularly crops up among best play lists while Mendes’ list of director credits is too long to replay here) and they worked together on Spectre, the most recent movie […]
Blondel @ The Union Theatre
As a regular theatre goer I’m often asked by friends what plays and musicals I’d most like to see a production of… not the shows I just haven’t had a chance to catch but the ones that don’t really get to see the light of day. Somehow in the past year The Union Theatre has […]
Touched @ The Spring, Havant
Stephen Lowe’s Touched is a curious play… flat on the page, it comes alive on the stage! Lowe’s story of a trio of sisters, their friend and family and the curious time between VE day and the end of the war perfectly highlights the struggles these women had to face, and the freedom they were […]
Sweet Bird of Youth @ Chichester Festival Theatre
Bright sunshine, a warm breeze and a gleaming classic American car greeted theatregoers in Chichester ahead of the press night for Sweet Bird of Youth, a lesser known but intriguing play from Tennessee Williams.
Antony & Cleopatra @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Josette Simon and Antony Byrne. Photo by Helen Maybanks After the heated political tension of Julius Caesar, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Rome season continues with a foray into Egypt for Antony & Cleopatra. The mood here is, initially at least, much lighter than the previous visit to Mark Antony but there are still tensions in […]
Julius Caesar @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Andrew Woodall as Caesar. photo by Helen Maybanks It’s an accepted cliché that, whatever the prevailing political mood there is a Shakespeare play that adequately reflects, comments on or holds a mirror up to it. Like all the best clichés it has become so ingrained in the consciousness of theatregoers because it is largely true. […]
Blondel is Back!
A brand new version of the Tim Rice musical comedy Blondel (long a guilty pleasure of those of us here in the Cheap Seats), which follows the trials and triumphs of an ambitious minstrel in King Richard the Lionheart’s court, will get its London premiere at the Union Theatre from Wednesday 21 June – Saturday 15 July!
Forty Years On @ Chichester Festival Theatre
Alan Cox, Richard Wilson & Jenny Galloway Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On is a curious play. His first outing as playwright (back in 1968) is charmingly eccentric, wonderfully witty and every bit a Bennett play. In fact it comes across as if the History Boys stumbled into a production of ‘Oh What a Lovely War’ […]
Titanic Plots A Course for Southampton!
Here in the Cheap Seats we never used to be big fans of Titanic, but when we saw Danielle Tarento and Thom Southerland‘s sublime production last year our minds were totally changed (you can read our rave review here). Now we’re thrilled that this glorious production is coming back and will set sail from it’s spiritual home […]
CCADS Present Double Bill!
Following the recent success of their highly acclaimed production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at The Kings Theatre, multi award-winning CCADS Theatre return to Hayling’s intimate Station Theatre and Portsmouth’s atmospheric Square Tower with two very different but equally compelling two-person shows – one musical and one play.