Tag Archives: Theatre Review. Unity Theatre

Krapp’s Last Tape, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Nick Birkinshaw.

It is the shadow of what can happen to us all when we obsess over what has been and allow the memory room to breathe, take shape and distort what has been. The alienation of the future self as it withers into frosted, disgraced old-age as it rages against the impetuousness of youth and the exuberance of hope that resides in middle-age, all set down for posterity as mould settles on the floor and in the mind, these are the qualities that make Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape such an outstanding and rewarding play to see at the Unity Theatre.

Krapp’s Last Tape, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(458 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Over The Garden Fence, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Hayley Riley, Louise Evans.

Life is so much more than what the gossips, those that peddle the rumour mill around you and the idle talk of the garden fence brigade; however when your life starts to go down a certain path, when the fullness of your own memories start to dissipate into thin air, when the edges of the snapshot start to fade and lose definition, are you no more than the sum of the declining anecdote relied with glee by your neighbours?

Over The Garden Fence, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(340 words, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

That’s Amore, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Adam Davies, Eleni Edipidi, Jennifer Essex, Ross McCall, Caroline Ryder (voice)

Love is a many splendid thing – it can make the soul rise higher than thought imaginable, it can bring a person down to their knees as the situation of their plight becomes untenable. It can fill the heart with infatuation to the point where boundaries are cross, it can shelter and care for another with absolute clarity. Love takes all that you have and leaves you cold and distant, it makes the world seem a brighter and more approachable place, whatever the outcome, no matter who cupid’s arrow’s decided to strike within, whoever you fall in love with, nobody understands the turmoil and feeling of power you feel at that moment, That’s Amore after all.

That’s Amore, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

This Last Tempest, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jessica Hoffman, Richard Dufty, Neil Johnson.

There will always hopefully be adaptations of William Shakespeare’s plays in one form or another, the 1960s television series The Forbidden Planet is one such form in which the son of Stratford play The Tempest has been looted and perhaps in some ways abused; it is the nature of things that great works, in some cases legendary, can either be taken down with a sense of cruel irony or, as in the case of This Last Tempest, just enhance what has gone before.

This Last Tempest, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(510 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Mis Les, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. (2015)

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Gillian Hardie, Keddy Sutton.

The Scottie Road Two are at large in Liverpool, they are on the run armed with musical comic satire, a set of hilarious harmonies to die for and with a fondness for providing the funny-bone with an evening out that few can match.

Mis Les, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. (2015) full post

(416 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Rumplestiltskin, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Aiden Lee Brooks, Cameron McKendrick, Dora Colquhoun, Shaun Roberts.

There are creatures out there whose only aim is that of self-gratification, assuredness so overwhelming that it is blackened, cheap and nasty and an arrogance that sits and festers at the heart of a life like a sweating, bulbous spider on fly filled web, heavily pregnant and with a seething desire to take anything that isn’t theirs. These creatures may still be recognised but the more as a species we have galloped towards a consumerism that is more consuming than helpful, the less chance we have remembering old tales passed down, tales of not accepting help from a creature of the neglected forest.

Rumplestiltskin, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

The Boy Who Kicked Pigs, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound & Vision Rating: * * * * *

Cast: David Cumming, Natasha Hodgson, Oliver Jones, Zoe Roberts.

Kill The Beast Theatre Company have only been on the scene for a mere three years, but are already proving their worth as one of the best inventive new theatre companies around. Their latest show is packed full of grotesque, over the top characters based on Tom Baker’s children’s book The Boy Who Kicked Pigs. Written in 1999, Baker’s truly grotesque story still has a strong following today and is as popular as ever.

The Boy Who Kicked Pigs, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(380 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Västerbotten, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is a small village in Sweden in which street lights never came too and for the vast majority who resided there it was a shame that they could not see where they were walking in the dark nights that grip the Swedish hills and give rise to folklore, but for Marianne Folkedotter, it was an understanding, even as a child, that it was a chance to see the universe unfold before her.

Västerbotten, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(361 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)

My Perfect Mind, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Edward Petherbridge, Paul Hunter.

Standing on the shoulders of giants is never easy, but the view that you see, the distance and insight made possible because of their shining example is worth more than mere currency, it is the opportunity granted to learn and take note. Such is the effect that the return to Unity Theatre of Told By An Idiot’s My Perfect Mind has on the audience that it time to come it will surely be looked upon as a classic piece of theatre of the early 21st Century.

My Perfect Mind, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(515 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Clybourne Park, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound & Vision Rating: * * * * *

Cast: Liam Tobin, Judith McSpadden, Paida Mutonono, Richard James Clarke, Chris Jack, Simon Hedger, Samantha Meisner.

Said&done have come back to the Unity Theatre with Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park, a play set in America in the 1950s and then later on in 2009. The play was originally written by Norris as a response to Lorraine Hansberry’s, A Raisin in the Sun, and looks at race relations in America over the last fifty years. Set in a fictitious Chicago neighbourhood, Russ and Bev are all ready to pack up and move on having sold their house to a coloured family, but very quickly learn how things really are in a society still not ready to move on with the times.

Clybourne Park, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(355 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)