Tag Archives: Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre

The Complete Deaths, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Aitor Basauri, Stephen Kreiss, Petra Massey, Toby Park.

Not every death in Shakespeare’s cannon of work was memorable, not every murder grizzly or foretold by the fortunate chance happening of witches and perhaps not as impressionable to the romantic painters as the death of Ophelia, but there were lots of them, there were hundreds and not all of them on stage and not all of them as well affected as suddenly being pursued by a bear across a wild and abandoned coast line.

The Complete Deaths, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(372 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

The Thirty Nine Steps, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. 2016.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Richard Ede, Olivia Greene, Andrew Hodges, Rob Witcomb.

The secrets of The 39 Steps have long been discussed, bandied around the drawing rooms of gentleman clubs and inner circles of foreign governments for such a long time that the dashing pencil moustache and rugged figure of Richard Hannay positively quivers at the thought of saving the country from the dastardly plot afoot.

The Thirty Nine Steps, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. 2016. full post

(438 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

The Herbal Bed, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: * * * *

Cast: Philip Correia, Patrick Driver, Jonathon Guy Lewis, Emma Lowndes, Michael Mears, Charlotte Wakefield, Matt Whitchurch, Heidi Morgan.

William Shakespeare will always be remembered for being Britain’s finest ever writer, however not many of us will know much about his life and family. In this revival of Peter Whelan’s The Herbal Bed, Royal & Derngate, Rose Theatre Kingston and English Touring Theatre have collaborated to bring this drama back to the stage.

The Herbal Bed, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(365 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

A Raisin In The Sun, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: * * *

Cast: Alisha Bailey, Mike Burnside, Solomon Gordon, Angela Wynter, Aron Julius, Everal A Walsh, Susan Wokoma, Ashley Zhangazha.

Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright and activist wrote A Raisin in the Sun in 1959 and was the first black woman to write a play that was performed on Broadway. The play highlights the struggles of black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago and follows the story of the Youngers; a lower middle class family who struggle to gain middle class acceptance.

A Raisin In The Sun, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(332 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

I Am Thomas, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: John Cobb, Charlie Folorunsho, Amanda Hadingue, Iain Johnstone, Myra McFadyen, Hannah McPake, Dominic Marsh, John Pfumojena.

The state sanctioned death of a person who argues or probes the idea that there is no God seems an abhorrence to modern day British society, after all the freedom to question is one that we rightly hang onto with dogged grip, that must never be allowed to slip through our fingers lest dark days revisit the land; the freedom to assert a position against a God, monarchy and ruling classes is something that a more enlightened age must strive to keep.

I Am Thomas, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(453 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Lord Of The Flies, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Luke Ward Wilkinson, Anthony Roberts, Freddie Watkins, Keenan Munn-Francis, Thiago Pigatto, Fellipe Pigatto, Dylan Llewellyn, Michael Ajao, Yossi Goodlink, Matthew Castle, Guy Abrahams, Benedict Barker.

Lord Of The Flies, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(466 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

The Haunting Of Hill House, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Emily Bevan, Chipo Chung, Angela Clerkin, Jane Guernier, Joseph May, Martin Turner.

Houses have a symbolism all of their own and they also carry the weight of expectation with them. A home should be the place where a person feels safest of all, where once the door is locked and the lights go out, nothing real or imagined should be able to disturb the peace.

The Haunting Of Hill House, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(389 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

The Winter’s Tale, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Conrad Nelson, Russell Richardson, Andy Cryer, Jack Lord, Hannah Barrie, Vanessa Schofield, Lauryn Redding, Andrew Whitehead, Jordan Kemp, Adam Barlow, Ruth Alexander Rubin, Mike Hugo, Jessica Dyas.

You can always trust Time to deliver a verdict that reconciles the world when it is damaged just as you can trust Time to play with the misfortunes of men when it suits to teach them a lesson for the insanity and jealous ravings.

The Winter’s Tale, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(475 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

The Flare Path, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Leon Ockenden, Olivia Hallinan, Philip Franks, Adam Best, James Cooney, Simon Darwen, Stephanie Jacob, Shvorne Marks, Siobhan O’ Kelly, William Reay, Holly Smith, Alastair Whatley.

The Second World War asked a lot of the men and women of Britain, of Germany and the greater population of the world, it asked of them for sacrifice, of more resilience than at any time and in many ways to be more selfish in the face of adversity; it is a selfishness of spirit, to not give in despite overwhelming odds and face the world with a smile. It is this selfishness, or at least a singular part of it, that sits at the heart of Terrance Rattigan’s World War Two drama The Flare Path.

The Flare Path, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

The Glass Menagerie, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Eric Kofi Abrefa, Erin Doherty, Tom Mothersdale, Greta Scacchi.

If you can place human experience into the realms of the zoo, the caged animal yearning for freedom, an escape from the rigid and the pawed upon control that comes with the overpowering smell that lingers with the cruelly defeated and gazed upon, then that tightness, that crushed inevitability of life’s cruel illusion is only tempered by the huge cosmic joke played upon us all and perhaps arguably no play best typifies this than Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie.

The Glass Menagerie, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(448 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)