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Theatre Reviews

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Manchester theatre reviews
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Manchester theatre reviews

Art at The Lowry

By Yasmina Reza

Reviewed by John Waterhouse March 2018

 

Art has apparently grossed an astonishing £200M since its debut in 1996, propelling French playwright Yasmina Reza into the premier league of international playwrights and being translated into a host of languages.

 

There is a parallel to ‘Waiting for Godot’ (itself having been first performed in French) in that at first glance, all we see are two or three men talking and arguing and seemingly getting nowhere but as with Becket’s masterpiece, there is considerable depth to Art which leaves the audience pondering its meanings long after watching the show. This is also a play which breaks modern conventions with frequent soliloquies and occasional long speeches.

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Manchester theatre reviews

Education Education Education at Lowry

Education Education Education at The Lowry

Reviewed by Jane Turner March 2018

 

Tony Blair is remembered for many things and blamed for everything from Iraq to the destruction of Old Labour. Educationalists remember him for his apparent focus on education embodied in his proclamation that Labour’s top priority ‘was, is and always will be education, education, education’, and this mantra is at the heart of this fast paced and entertaining comedy.

 

Feverishly performed by the Wardrobe Ensemble in the top-notch setting of the Lowry’s Quay Theatre, this is set in the anarchic Wordsworth comprehensive school on the day after the 1997 Labour landslide. The election result proclaimed that things would ‘only get better’, and the play asks questions about what we are taught and who is to blame for the current state of the education system. It is a reminder of how the Blair government, despite over a decade of major investment, failed to deliver on its promise of an education utopia.

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Manchester theatre reviews

Dancing Bear

Miss Saigon at Palace Theatre

Producer – Sir Cameron Mackintosh

Composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricist Alain Boublil

Reviewed by Katie Leicester March 2018


Miss Saigon is my absolute favourite musical so writing this review is probably the hardest but the most exciting opportunity so far as a critic. I first saw the production at The Theatre Royal on Drury Lane in 1989, intrigued and enchanted by Cameron Mackintosh’s works I naively watched Miss Saigon with the cast of Lea Salonga as Kim, Simon Bowman as Chris and Jonathan Price as the Engineer not realising then that this musical would capture my heart for ever more.

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Manchester theatre reviews

Fat Friends

Fat Friends

at Opera House, Manchester

Reviewed by Matthew Dougall March 2018

 

This is writer / director Kay Mellor's foray into Musical Theatre after her hit comedy TV series of the same name. The show opens with lycra and spandex clad overweight bodies bumping and gyrating at a Zumba class at the local church. The year is the present, not a flashback to the 80s, and so this is an instant fail, and sadly the show never recovers.

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East is East at Octagon Theatre, Bolton

Directed by Ben Occhipinti

Reviewed by Johanna Hassouna-Smith, March 2018

 

Ayub Khan Din's play, East is East, is a comedy about an Anglo-Pakistani family living in Salford in the 1970s. Produced in the mid-1990s, the play was one of the first mainstream theatre productions to deal with Asian culture. The 1999 film adaptation garnered critical acclaim and became one of the most successful British films of all time.

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The Dinner Party

by Neil Simon

at Altrincham Little Theatre

Reviewed by John Waterhouse March 2018

 

The Dinner Party is a genuinely intriguing play partly because the premise is a very imaginative twist on an old stalwart. A standard Agatha Christie device (a la ‘The Mousetrap’ and ‘Ten Little Indians’) finds a random group of essentially middle class individuals all invited to a party by an unseen host and old dirty secrets are gradually unfolded. Interestingly, the playwright Neil Simon farced this idea in his screenplay for the film ‘Murder by Death’.

 

With The Dinner Party there is no murder mystery; no under-cover murderer or detective masquerades as a guest and no crime has been committed. This does not mean however that the secrets to be unfolded are not of an excruciating nature and that some surprising interpersonal relationships are revealed, making this a complex play which leaves the audience thinking.

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Manchester theatre reviews

Whisky Galore at Oldham Coliseum

Written by Philip Goulding, adapted from the Compton Mackenzie novel

Reviewed by John Waterhouse March 2018

 

At first glance, a curious if not bizaarre combination - a very-dated 1949 Ealing Comedy featuring largely male characters, based loosely on a real World War event, but played by an exclusively female cast.

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The Importance of Being Ernest

The Importance of Being Ernest

Directed by Alastair Whatley at Opera House

Reviewed by Johanna Hassouna-Smith, March 2018

 

The Importance of Being Ernest is a comedy by Oscar Wilde and takes a satirical look at the lives of two men who lead double lives in order to escape their responsibilities. The men, Jack Worthing and Algernon seek better lives for themselves and the story raises the questions; how important is it to you to be who you are? And would you change yourself to lead a more adventurous or less complicated life?

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Cinderella - Lowry Theatre

Cinderella at Lowry Theatre

Reviewed by Katie Leicester March 2018

 

Being a person who loves all the glitz and glamour of the theatre I have to confess that I have very little experience of ballet, so would be foolish in this review to try and focus on the moves and lifts of a ballet dancer, but simply describe what I saw as a novice to this elegant world.

 

Of course I had the stereotypical idea in my head what the dancers would look like and would be wearing for a ballet. I had read that Matthew Bourne was an extremely versatile and talented choreographer with 30 years experience behind him, with a vast amount of awards and nominations for his work. So I can say I was a little intrigued to see what all the fuss was about, but had absolutely no idea what I was about to see. It was quite obvious his production of Cinderella was popular as I couldn’t see a single empty seat in the auditorium and tickets for the 5 day run were almost sold out.

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Manchester theatre reviews

The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music

at Palace Theatre, Manchester

Reviewed by Matthew Dougall March 2018

 

When presenting such an iconic and classic musical such as this which is famous throughout the world as one of the most watched and enduring film musicals ever - even the Austrians now know and love the show - it is terribly difficult for any casting director / producer to find the right balance between audience expectation and creativity / expression. Did Bill Kenwright therefore manage this? I believe he did, yes.

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