Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Mark Womack, Rene Zagger, Scot Williams, Samantha Womack.
Hope should never be denied to anyone, take it away and you deny that person the only thing they may have keeping them sane. Hope also can be secretive and a hard but forgiving mistress and to base a production around this idea takes the slight touch of genius and adds it to a script by Scot Williams which is utterly absorbing, playful but also captures the very essence of writing
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Georgina Panteli, Lucy Swain, Madeline Smart, Polly Couslon, Mark Raynor, Benedict Spence, Mary Jayne Cooper, Charlie Wilson, Alex Webber-Date, George Dorran, Graham Cain, Jacob Lowman, Pallav Ratra.
There is something about Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex that speaks down through the ages in such a way that its brutality, jealousy, pride and ignorance are more akin to 21st century human nature than people probably care to admit. It is a play that can divide opinion and cause many a troubled thought to enter the audiences’ minds due to the graphic nature that can be readily employed by the company performing it.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Francis Williamson, Marry Hyam, Kathy Upfold, Steven Hill, Michelle Potts.
There are some things that should not be messed around with, mixing the grape and the grain, the electricity meter, the dark and mystifying occult and four women whose lives are more entangled than they have ever believed. So all human life and a little bit more is all on show for John Evans’ play Is There Anybody There? and the answers are there for all to see like a man’s ashes on a otherwise clean carpet.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Paul Duckworth, Graham Geoffrey Hicks, Shaun Mason.
Sink or Swim, a play conceived from falling in love with a postcard and with the care and attention that productions deserve, has grown up to be one of the funniest, enjoyable and thought provoking plays likely to be seen this year.
The Studio upstairs at The Playhouse Theatre added the claustrophobic weight needed to give the three actors, the sublime Paul Duckworth, the charming Graham Geoffrey Hicks and the impressive Shaun Mason, the lack of room on stage to make Sink Or Swim a production that sees into men’s souls and how they deal with the most extreme part of survival.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Neil Caple, Simon Coates, Leander Deeny, Daniel Goode, Alison Pargeter, George Potts, Zara Tempest-Walters, Colin Tierney, Harvey Virdi.
For the third time, Moliere, Roger McGough and Gemma Bodinetz combined to make an evening at the Playhouse Theatre so anticipated and enjoyable. Heavily surrounded by a cast that adds that final burst of brilliance that makes The Misanthrope a play a distinguished and tremendous addition to the canon of Moliere plays to now have been performed on the stage in the city.
Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *
Cast: Lucy Mulvihill, Katie Louise Jones, Zoe Evans, Phil Teles Amaro, Stuart Crowther, Peter Fendall
The faint sounds of New York Jazz filter through the Unity Theatre and from there the audience is taken on a rollercoaster of emotions in which the modern day musical, I Love You Because, is the perfect way to spend time with those you love, even if they don’t know it’s you they are looking for.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Oliver Thornton, Ben Foster, Roxanne Pallett, Rhydian, Philip Franks, Kristian Lavercombe, Abigail Jaye, Ceris Hyne, Joel Montague, Maria Coyne, Chrsitos Dante, David Gale, Rachel Grundy.
For 40 years Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show has thrilled audiences all over the globe. It’s songs of debauchery, sensational and brilliant depravity such Timewarp, Sweet Transvestite, I Can Make You a Man and The Sword of Damocles get audiences laughing, dancing and enjoying every time they get performed, for all that it is no wonder that crowds flock to watch it in their abundance.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
To portray a man on stage whose reputation preceded him takes exceptional talent, to portray the wild man of British film in such demanding style deserves the largest plaudits possible and for that Rob Crouch should be taken aside and congratulated by anyone who ever worked with the Hell- raiser Oliver Reed in bringing this man’s essence back to life in the superb Oliver Reed: Wild Thing.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * ½
Cast: Sam Liu, Lauren Fitzpatrick, Karl Falconer, Jason Carragher, Alexander Bollands, Lowell Carragher, Russell Carragher, Matilda Swinney, Alexandra Walker, Siobhan Crinson, Sam Wright, Aimee Marnell, Elena Stephenson, Agata Jarosz, Con O’Neill, Justine Williams, Laura Ryan, Sarah Dwyer.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Annabel Annan-Jonathan, Jacob Beswick, Joseph Adelakun, Grace Willis.
Is anybody truly whole? That is the question bought to the Unity Theatre by the combined efforts of 20 Stories High, Director Julia Samuels and a host of others in what can only be described as distressingly real, wonderfully charged and written and acted with so much passion and brilliance that not only is Whole one of the finest things you are likely to see this year but it will also leave you grasping at thoughts of those you may have wronged at school.