Dave PorterTanika 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...
John Grant singing the songs of Patsy Cline with Richard Hawley and his band was always going to be a great opening act for Manchester’s newest venue, Aviva Studios. Heralded as part of Manchester International Festival, the musical pairing is not...
The football metaphor was just too good to pass over, I suppose. And so it goes with Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial. As we enter the plush auditorium of The Lowry the crowing chants of a Saturday afternoon crowd can be heard pulsing from...
Structurally, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has more than its fair share of problems. As Gore Vidal perceptively noted, the first act should not work: it is long and drawn out and relies heavily on exposition. And at more than three hours long, the play...
War in Europe, the far right in the streets with their dog whistles, and a sharp rise in anti-Semitism: it’s not hard to see parallels between the inter-war period and today’s political landscape, where Putin invades a neighbouring country on the...
When writer and director Isobel McArthur was commissioned to produce an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, it came with a word of warning: make sure it connects with a Glasgow audience. The advice must have worked not only for a...
The ghost of Christmas past(iche) anyone? Writer, Nick Lane and director, Ellie Hurt have taken Dickens’ classic tale and turned it into a seasonal caper full of high jinks and capers. Their stated aim when staging the show at Shakespeare North...
A staple of school set texts no doubt, Blood Brothers is testimony to this fact with what felt like hordes of schoolchildren descending upon The Lowry for this most primeval of shows. The tightly-structured plot and allusions to Greek tragedy make...
Approaching Shakespeare North Playhouse with my companion for the evening, a woman in jeans and a trench coat looking like a misfit Liam Gallagher bounds past us pursued by a security guard shouting at her to stop. We turn the corner to see the...
Gore 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...