“How easily the worlds we build together can be sustained, or quietly undone,” says director Anthony Almeida in the programme notes to his new production of Othello. This new co-production between HOME, Northern Stage, the Citizens Theatre, and in...
You may not be familiar with the 80’s genre known as ‘sophisti-pop’, though everyone remembers bands like The Blow Monkeys, Swing Out Sister, ABC, The Style Council, and Prefab Sprout. What united these apparently disparate artists was a winning...
If art is a weapon, then the corollary of such a statement is that it is also a weapon which can be used against the artist. Such was the case with Ai Weiwei who was imprisoned by the Chinese authorities for 81 days 15 years ago. He recreates the...
Manchester based HER Productions has been doing modish Shakespeare adaptations since 2017, and this is their ninth. Co directed by Kayleigh Hawkins and Stuart Crowther, the 2026 tour of Twelfth Night is a bold, day-glo, all female and non binary...
Jason Manford has become the golden ticket of the Opera House in recent years as the venue’s regular pantomime lead. And his latest vehicle ‘Something Rotten’ looks set to be as popular, if not more so, than Manchester’s festive favourite. There is...
Madcap doesn’t quite convey the orchestrated madness which awaits the audience in this show. Conducted at a breathtakingly frenetic pace, you have to be on your toes to keep up with not just the pace of the action but the array...
Council estates can be tough places to live. I know. I grew up on one. The people were burdened by poverty, ground down by hard, underpaid work (or by the lack of work). Opportunity for some better life always seemed to lie out of reach, retreating...
Any kid of the 1980s will have a story to tell about their response to ‘The Karate Kid’. It was the ultimate underdog hero movie capturing the same spirit Stallone brought to adults with Rocky. We remember the music too. Joe Esposito’s uplifting...
‘A country road, a tree’. The setting for Beckett’s play is surely as synonymous with the text as ‘blasted heath’ is with King Lear, and in director Dominic Hill’s assured stage setting looks just as desolate. A spectral tree with the mangled...
A ‘miracle’ to some, a ‘gangster’ to others, the grown-ups around Matilda Wormwood can all agree on one thing: this is a five-year-old far too smart for her own good. Now on its 15th year of touring, Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin’s ‘Matilda: The...
Carmel Thomason
Steve Timms
Dave Porter
Martin Thomasson
Leslie James Kerwin