Tag Archives: theatre review

Private Peaceful, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Andy Daniel.

How would you spend the final few hours of your life if you had been labelled a coward after a hearing that would have lasted less than an hour, placed in a cell by yourself and far from home? Would you kick and scream, raging against a world that was off kilter to your actions and perception or would you spend it in isolation with your thoughts, all moments of transitory life flashing before you and the memories of happy times keeping you company till the dawn awoke in time to see you die?

Private Peaceful, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(441 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Dial M For Murder, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Christopher Timothy, Kelly Hotten, Philip Cairns, Daniel Betts, Robert Perkins.

They say a murder cannot be perfect for somebody will always at least know about it, even if they are the ones who end up dead. However a homicide can be near perfect when presented on stage in the form of Frederick Knott’s outstanding play Dial M For Murder.

Dial M For Murder, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Leave Hitler To Me Lad, Theatre Review. Actors Studio, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound & Vision Rating: * * * *

Cast: Kivan Dene, Leanne Rowley, Rachel O’Hare, James Mountain, Jonah Kensett, Luke Wakeman, Grace Mainon.

It is the early 1950s and the country is still recovering from war. Rock and Roll is making its mark, King George is dead and war torn England is changing. At Great Stony School Essex, young Brian (Jonah Kensett) is waiting for his dad to come and fetch him to take him home, but after watching all of his friends go off to loving new homes, Brian thinks that no one will come, until one day everything changes. Brian says goodbye to his best friends George (Luke Wakeman) and Gladys (Grace Mainon) and heads off to his new life with his sister.

Leave Hitler To Me Lad, Theatre Review. Actors Studio, Liverpool. full post

(330 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Voices 2, Theatre Review. 81 Renshaw Street, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Performers: Paul Taylor, Elaine Stewart, Edwina Lee, Esther Dix, James Bray, Helen Kerr.

Writers: Mark Anthony Rossi, Anthony Ellison, Mary Vigar, Sally Fildes-Moss, Mark Konik, Richard Lyon Conlon.

In September of 2013 Grin Theatre paved the way for a new way of looking at writing and performing in Liverpool with six monologues crafted by writers who weren’t known to the public. These six monologues formed the basis of the first Voices performed at 81 Renshaw Street. If something works as they say, keep going, and Kiefer Williams and Helen Kerr of Grin Theatre have done just that by hosting a very cool night of six different monologues for Voices 2, each individual, each creatively interesting and all carried out by the various performers’ voices with great care and reverence.

Voices 2, Theatre Review. 81 Renshaw Street, Liverpool. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Maisie Young, Sarah Hale, Sarah Gallegos, Miles Braithwaite, James Markham, Phil Teles Amaro, Abigail Fitzgerald, Michael Bryan, Blair Smith.

If you had not purchased a programme and read for yourselves the biographies of the individuals on the stage, then there will be many gasps of astonishment when you discover that not all the incredible cast are training to be actors. Whilst reading that one is a Pharmacology student and then casting your eye further down the page to discover a Psychology student in amongst the names, you might be forgiven in thinking that this perhaps is just another run of the mill student show.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

The Chairs, Theatre Review. St. George’s Hall Concert Room, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Leanne Jones, Paula Stewart, Donna Ray Coleman, Christine Heaney, Laura Hall, Lucy Graham, Dan Pendleton, Jack Spencer, Lee Burnitt, Shaun Roberts, Bradley Thompson, Alex Clark, Tom Nevitt.

 

Tell Tale Theatre have already carved out a growing reputation as a production company that doesn’t adhere to the norm, the cosy or thankfully the easy to do. Their production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a glowing testament to that fact, and where angels fear to tread, where other’s might find the ever growing trickle of sweat just too much to bear, Tell Tale Theatre wrack up the pressure on themselves another notch and produce an amazing piece of choreographed art, full of absurdity, lots of insanity and above all tale of what can happen to us all if left alone in the dark too long.

The Chairs, Theatre Review. St. George’s Hall Concert Room, Liverpool. full post

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

How To Be Immortal, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: John McKeever, Anna-Helena McLean, Clare Perkins.

In the back of our minds, we all hope, perhaps secretly, that we will be remembered for the good we have bought into the world. Even if by the smallest gesture, the one thing that makes our existence meaningful will somehow transform the way the world is looked at. It need not even be a grand gesture, the erection of a large building and dedicated to all for example but in just the smallest way, the tiniest particle of our humanity passed on might give hope to millions.

How To Be Immortal, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

Bella – Queen of the Blackfriars Ring, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Denise Kennedy, Andrew Frizell.

Whitechapel has produced more than a few characters of ill repute and more than a few of notable glory over the last couple of centuries but arguably none were like Bella Burge. A woman who typified the spirit of the East-End, who on her 11th birthday walked through the same misbegotten streets as Jack the Ripper, who was taken in and apprenticed by one of Music Halls leading lights, trod the boards herself, married a championship winning boxer only to see him arrested as part of a bank fraud/betting scam three weeks later in Liverpool and who in the end became the first woman Boxing promoter in the world. Bella Burge is ripe to spoken of just as highly as anybody from the East-End.

Bella – Queen of the Blackfriars Ring, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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

The Judgement Of Hakim, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Nick Birkinshaw.

Supported by Mark Lea, Hannah Plant, Jack Cooper, Warren Tutt, Joe Ball, Thoma Galashan, Jake Barrowcliffe, Michael Coumas, Bethany Sprontson, Jade Thomson, Ewan Pollitt, Jamie Barton, Sam Williams.

If you keep your wits about you, you will not be harmed. If you keep the information that you hold to yourself and don’t give into the piercing stare, the charm and easy smile of the interrogator then you will have avoided The Judgement of Hakim. Find yourself in left wing book shop, too late, he knows and you’re on a list, read right wing literature, he knows and you’re on a list, buy a certain food, on a list, in fact anything you do in life is listed and what you hold as freedom is just purely an illusion but vital to the trade of the interrogator.

The Judgement Of Hakim, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(443 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Tonight’s The Night, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Ben Heathcote, Jenna Lee-James, Jade Ewen, Michael McKell, Tiffany Groves, Andy Rees, Michael Antrobus, Joshua Dever, Amy Diamond, Rosie Fletcher, Rosie Heath, Sinead Long, Craig Mather, Tom Millen, Darryl Paul, Ricky Rojas, Lindsay Tierney, Spin.

Rod Stewart certainly belongs in the pantheon of all-time greats of performers that have bridged both sides of The Atlantic Ocean. His music is as popular as it perhaps ever was and still gets performed live by a man whose life off stage is as interesting to millions as the music he has helped make musically immortal. That immortality will perhaps continue long after the end of the next decade and beyond with Ben Elton’s latest foray into the world of musical theatre in The Rod Stewart Musical, Tonight’s The Night.

Tonight’s The Night, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool. full post

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