“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…
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 […]
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.
The Ferryman @ The Gielgud Theatre
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 […]
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 […]