Martin ThomassonIt does my Christmas spirit no good at all to be writing a less than warm review about a Maxine Peake project. The star of Dinner Ladies, Silk, and the rightly acclaimed post-Hillsborough docudrama, Anne (plus a glittering array of theatrical...
Dave PorterGore Vidal’s nickname for Tennessee Williams was Bird, because of the way his characters were always in flight from something, usually reality. This is nowhere more in evidence than in The Glass menagerie, his first work which is being staged at the...
Steve TimmsSteve Timms finds Nora: A Doll’s House to be a bold, impassioned piece of work and the most thrilling Exchange production he’s seen in a long time. Patriarchy is a word most people are familiar with, though may struggle to describe. So let’s...
Moses KabungaAugmented is an intimate one woman play, written and performed by Sophie Woolley, about her experience of hearing loss during her 20s. Trailer It opens in a near future; Sophie sports a blonde bob and is dressed head-to-toe in silver. As she begins...
Don De Lillo’s mid-80’s novel ‘White Noise’ featured a married couple who were as happy as two people can be. Yet both had a distressing secret neither felt brave enough to share with the other; they were terrified of death. Super Duper...
SoulPay is a Manchester-based collective of creatives from Nigerian and Ghanaian British descent, who seek to provide, through theatre and the arts, an alternative view of what it’s like growing up African in the UK. The evening’s performance is set...
Carmel ThomasonIt’s a cold, dark night on the moors in director, Bryony Shanahan’s new production of Wuthering Heights at The Royal Exchange. Adapting Emily Brontë’s sweeping 19th century novel for the stage is always ambitious, not only because of the scale of...
“Mothers tell their kids this is a special day … on this day you’ll become a woman. All you have to do is – be brave.” Cuttin’ It by Charlene James is that very rare event that takes a multitude of subjects and condenses them into meaningful and...
For a show listed among the greatest American Musicals, Gypsy certainly doesn’t get staged nearly as often as it deserves. After an absence in the West End for 43 years it was famously revived in 2015 with Imelda Staunton as Mama Rose, a role that’s...
Recalling his first meeting with Sarah Frankcom, almost 20 years ago, playwright Simon Stephens reveals he felt the then literary manager for the Royal Exchange was setting him a challenge, daring him almost, to fall in love with the exposing, in...