Steve TimmsThe Smiths remain one of Manchester’s most beloved bands. The musical alliance between Morrissey and Marr gifted the world a catalogue of melodic pop songs with lyrics which spoke to those on the margins of life: the lonely, depressed and...
Martin ThomassonIt has been a particular gripe of mine that middle class writers often present the poor as a subhuman genus, pouring neat vodka on their morning cornflakes. Determinedly bucking this trend, we now have ‘Sweat’, an American import by...
Olivia HowlettA Taste of Honey is a poignant piece of theatre that deep dives into the complexities of people and their dysfunctional relationships, societal prejudices, and the harsh realities of life. Set against the backdrop of working-class Salford in the...
In 1991, the artist, Cornelia Parker enlisted the help of the British army to blow up a garden shed. She and her team then collected the scorched and twisted fragments of the shed and its contents (purposefully curated to echo the horticultural and...
Cathy CrabbWith the Emma Rice adaptation of Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter this Christmas, the Royal Exchange has become an oaken art deco music box, playing songs of love’s young dream, heartbreak, hope and the sass and sadness of a brief and beautiful...
Dave PorterTime flies past like arrows, Shaw said. With Shakespeare, it’s words which fly past us like arrows. Some hit their target, a lot don’t, yet the sheer thrill to the senses such words arouse is difficult to ignore. And when they do land in your...
Carmel ThomasonShalisha James-Davis, who plays Nurse Paige Allcott in BBC 1 drama, Casualty, is making her Royal Exchange stage debut in a fiery retelling of Shakespeare’s tragic love story. She talks to Quays Life about what it’s like to recreate one of the...
Tanika Gupta’s adaptation of Great Expectations is daringly bold, transposing the action from Dickens’ usual festering slums to Bengal at the turn of the century undergoing partition courtesy of Lord Curzon and the British Empire. Along the way...
Martin Thomasson reviews the world premiere of Kimber Lee’s award-winning play at The Royal Exchange For much of its two hour running time (no interval), Kimber Lee’s Bruntwood Prize winning, “Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play” is an anger...
Alongside musicals and thrillers, farce remains one of the great mainstays of commercial British theatre. Why? The 1950’s Whitehall farces largely set the mould, wherein misunderstanding always trumped character and believability. And it’s a formula...