Carmel ThomasonIn 2009, Hollie Steel was the little girl with the big voice, who won a place in the final on Britain’s Got Talent. Now, aged 19, she is the star of a new children’s Christmas show from Salford-based company, Colour the Clouds, the first festive...
It’s hard to imagine The Gruffalo as a little-known story. Axel Scheffler’s illustrations for Julia Donaldson’s children’s book are instantly recognisable. Even if you haven’t read it, you can’t escape the mythical creature who has since become an...
Declining Solo is a new multi-media show, written and performed by Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie. The show explores questions of identity, belonging and culture by focusing on the emotional impact of geographical separation on the parent-child...
Anyone who ever visited Hartlepool will know the tale of the Hartlepool Monkey. Legend has it, during the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century, a French ship got caught up in a storm off the north-eastern coastal town. The ship’s mascot...
Hedda Gabler is a gift of a part that can be played by a star name or make one of the actor playing her. The last time I saw it staged, Amanda Donohoe was Ibsen’s anti-heroine in Braham Murray’s production at The Royal Exchange. I remember the...
Have you seen the Stick Man? I must be the only person in the theatre who hadn’t, which is why I massively under-estimated this character’s popularity when the show first visited the Lowry a year or so ago. As I was to learn from my nephew – his...
MTA first reviewed this production from Manchester comedy duo, LipService when it premiered at Oldham Coliseum in January. I missed it that time around, so was delighted to catch it at the Lowry, where Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding kick off their autumn...
When Edith Nesbit was four-years-old her father died suddenly, ending the idyllic security of her childhood. In many ways, The Railway Children is the story of her life as she would like it to have worked out. Written at the turn of the 20th...
Where did the time go? That’s the central question of Shirley Valentine. For anyone in the audience who remembers the 1980s, it’s a question we’re all asking – not least on hearing Jodie Prenger is in the lead role. ‘She must be playing it younger,’...
The glimpse of a bare bum on stage is guaranteed to induce a burst of laugher. And herein lies the enduring appeal of Hans Christian Andersen’s morality fairy tale. It’s cheeky, silly and pokes fun at the pomposity sometimes only an innocent child...