‘We’re going to need a bigger boat’. For people of a certain age – reader, include your reviewer in that category – these immortal lines evoke both terror and nostalgic fascination. Looking back to the heady days of 1970’s hot summers it’s...
It’s a mad, mad world – and sometimes feels increasingly so as we head towards the festive season – but none more so than in Wonderland, the magical underworld kingdom created by Lewis Caroll more than 150 years ago. Caroll’s classic tale has been...
When it first premiered in the 1990s, Stones in his Pockets caused a stir. A winner of two Olivier awards for best new comedy and best new actor, the play by Marie Jones has played consistently in the West End as well as endearing audiences abroad...
This play could not come at a more apposite moment. Next week not only marks Anti-Slavery Day but the subject of this production – abduction and enslavement in Sudan – comes at a time when the sub-Saharan country has been plunged into yet another...
Hugh Cornwell – legendary singer from The Stranglers – has one thing in common with his hero, Ray Harryhausen: they both knew at the age of six what they wanted to do with their lives. Hugh explains: “His dad took him to see the original King Kong...
Fancy seeing a production of Romeo and Juliet that’s not three hours long, which casts a vibrant new light on Shakespeare’s tale of tragic love, and one that’s blessed with moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity? Then head to Shakespeare North’s latest...
Full disclosure: I haven’t read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. An international bestseller with a panoramic vision taking in the 20th century history of Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion to the rise of the Taliban, the book charts the...
Everyone loves a court room drama – at the moment on TV you can watch televised trials in Scottish courts and listen in on juries in a mocked murder trial. Tie this in with our current obsession with true crime and you can see why resurrecting 12...
Reunions rarely work, whether school reunions, band reunions or – this case – resurrection of a much-loved comedy classic. For many people the iconic series Drop the Dead Donkey was synonymous with associated with alternative programming Channel 4...
Time 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...
Dave Porter