UK REGIONAL THEATER REVIEWS

Gary Naylor sees a bold and ambitious, and demanding, production of Brecht's classic anti-war play set in the unique and spectacular grounds of the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich....

Gary Naylor sees a musical that captures the charm of its inspiration, A Midsummer Night's Dream, but is slightly let down by inconsistent singing....

Gary Naylor sees an old-fashioned crowdpleaser of a musical, stuffed with the clever, catchy songs of all-time Broadway great Irving Berlin. There is indeed no business like show business....

Gary Naylor sees a musical brimming with ambition and confidence flawed only by a slight weakness in its storytelling, the complexities of the great 19th century novel a little lost in the adaptation....

Gary Nayor sees a production of Shakespeare's most loved comedy brimming with the traditional charm and wit one has come to expect from the Globe Theatre, about to tour the Far East....

Grounded had its UK premiere at the Gate Theatre Notting Hill last year to critical acclaim, following achieving the 2012 Smith Prize from the National New Play Network in America and a 2013 Fringe First award. George Brant's play is a fast paced monologue delivered by a female F16 fighter pilot who...

Gary Naylor sees a unique production of Romeo and Juliet set in the nave of the extraordinary Temple Church, resting place of the legendary Knights Templar....

Gary Naylor sees the winner of OperaUpClose's new writing competition, an opera that may be confined to a small performing space, but one unafraid to ask some difficult questions and unafraid to be defined by challenging, but ultimately rewarding, music and sensational singing....

Gary Naylor sees a new play set in the Kafkaesque world of the UK's Border Agency as a young idealist butts up against an old hand when a charismatic political activist shakes up the system....

Gary Naylor sees a play about a person's transition from female to male and how that impacts on her best friend - and himself. Though the context is historical, the lessons are as relevant today as ever....

A new comedy by Tom Basden, set after a plane crash in a post-cold war dystopia....

Anarchic fun for all in this stage version of the popular children's book series....

The new, Sheffield-themed, take on the Mystery Plays makes the most of its huge cast of locals....

Black Coffee is the first play that Agatha Christie wrote for the stage back in 1929, when the show is set. Sir Claud Amory summons the famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, and his trusted friend Captain Hastings to his London house to investigate who has stolen a formula from his safe. Upon ar...

This production of Entertaining Mr Sloane is the latest submission from London Classic Theatre. Joe Orton wrote the play in 1963 and the show had its first performance the following year at the New Arts Theatre in London, followed by an opening in New York in 1965. His writing has both comedic and p...

Annie Get Your Gun premiered on Broadway nearly 70 years ago and many productions have graced stages across the world ever since then, plus a major MGM film in 1950 starring Betty Hutton. There has been a wide array of leading ladies who have played Annie Oakley including Ethel Merman, Dolores Gray,...

Sheffield Theatres, current UK Regional Theatre of the Year (The Stage Awards), pushes its own desire to lead with the best home grown talent as it presents British icon Richard Wilson in Krapp's Last Tape, a play that explores the past through a series of memories and tape recordings....

I was fortunate enough to see 20th Century Boy on its debut outing at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry back in September 2012 and it was probably the best show I had seen that year. The production is the perfect balance between a jukebox musical and a biography detailing Marc Bolan's rise to fame unti...

Gary Naylor sees a revival of Stephen Sondheim's strange 1970s musical about 1850s Japan, production that borrows from a variety of theatrical styles without ever fully establishing its own....

Gary Naylor sees a perfectly realised adaptation of August Strindbeg's Miss Julie, packed with dramatic tension, big ideas and superb acting. If there's a more satisfying 80 minutes anywhere on the London stage today, I'd be surprised....

Gary Naylor sees a kitchen sink drama for our times that captures the sense of claustrophobia of Britain's (especially London's) debt culture and the swirling social ills that flow in and around inner city's sink estates....

Gary Naylor sees a piece of dance-theatre that covers the familiar ground of the Depression-era US dancing marathons that cruelly manipulated both competitors and audiences with ruthless cruelty....

Gary Naylor has a lot of fun with Fashion Victim, a satire on popular culture with songs, dance, some terrible plotting and some good jokes, but is left wondering if it shouldn't be a lot more....

Gary Naylor sees a long, but rewarding adaptation of Joseph Heller's notoriously unadaptable anti-war novel, Catch 22. Fifty-three years on, its message is still as relevant today as ever....

Gary Naylor sees an evocation of a Seventies superstar in a jukebox musical that delivers all the crowdpleasing moments one could hope for, if ultimately feeling a little light on dramatic tension....