UK REGIONAL THEATER REVIEWS

Gary Naylor enjoys a slice of life from cold Chicago and is grateful for the sentimentality being reined in just sufficiently to get him through the play....

Gary Naylor finds that this bulked up, buffed up HMS Pinafore, currently voyaging around the country, is even more fun than when it launched from the Union Theatre last Autumn....

Gary Naylor sees a neglected, problematic musical full of wonderful songs given new life, if not quite full life, at The Union Theatre....

Tim Norton revisits the gift that keeps on giving, Sherlock Holmes, to imagine his last case - he finds it's typically tricky, but sometimes funny too....

The last time I saw Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was during the 2006 UK Productions tour which starred Dave Willetts and Shona Lindsay; a production that is close to my heart as it is one of the shows that made me want to pursue a career in theatre....

Gary Naylor sees one of his favourite plays from last year now delivered bigger, brighter and just as bungled, as the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society starts its UK tour. A&E departments - you have been warned!...

Propeller's A Midsummer Night's Dream (currently touring along with The Comedy of Errors) is a riotous spectacle of a production. The dreamworld is emphasised throughout with the fairies (all in white, wearing a combination of corsets and codpieces) providing visual and musical beats throughout - ...

Through the haze of fatigue, parents can only just recall the early days of child-rearing. You expect, and get, the end of a previous life and the start of another, one full of nappies, sleepless nights and a continual planning ahead to make sure that at least one parent will be with the baby at all...

Is someone born bad, or does society make them that way - Who's to blame? That's the big question underpinning CARTHAGE, which had its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre last night....

I will probably be thrown into the darkest depths of Musical Theatre Purgatory for saying this, but…West Side Story has never been a favourite of mine. However, bear with me. I vaguely remember watching the film in my early years of secondary school, and wasn't particularly enamoured by it, so it...

Having seen Priscilla Queen of the Desert in the West End a few years ago, I was very interested to see how the production had been adapted to tour. A technical tour de force; there have been mishaps aplenty along the way due to the bus automation issues and flying (or not-flying) divas in visiting ...

Third Angel's latest production is a thoughtful presentation on what it means to have an 'ordinary' life, slightly marred by a clumsy ending....

Following the success of its annual panto, David Bell's Off-broadway farce THE GAY NAKED PLAY (also known as THE PLAY ABOUT THE NAKED GUY) continues the first season in Above The Stag's new Vauxhall home....

Just before she hit it big (Dancin' Queen big) with Mamma Mia! (the Rocky Horror Show de nos jours), Catherine Johnson wrote Shang-a-Lang (revived at the King's Head Theatre until 15 February). So is it the 'Ring-Ring' that foreshadows 'Waterloo'? Well, maybe....

There are - and you're going to have to believe me on this one - people who don't like musical theatre. They cite the preposterous plots, the sentimental manipulation, the overwhelming spectacle - and the ineluctable fact that people insist on bursting into song....

Phil Porter's one-act, two-handed play Blink earned a number of warm reviews in its 2012 runs in Soho and Edinburgh, and is now on tour throughout the UK in March. The play tells the unconventional story of Jonah (Thomas Pickles) and Sophie (Lizzy Watts) whose lives have a number of significant para...

Though not among Shakespeare's more gory tragedies (competition is pretty fierce after all), Othello is surely his most brutal, a slow motion car crash, in which love and trust go up against cynicism and venality - and lose....

It is (natch) quixotic to stage a version of the mighty chronicle of the unhinged Spanish knight in a North London basement, but what's life (especially theatre) for if not such dreams?...

If the January blues are getting you down, I can suggest no better cure than to do-si-do on down to the Bristol Hippodrome this week for a thigh-slapping evening of musical mayhem with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. A show packed full of raucous dance numbers, rugged sets (and men!) and downright ...

Gary Naylor sees a salute to lost innocence, one hundred years on....

So it turns out that the remedy to the hideous tradition of pantomime is Jane Austen. While Austen's characteristically subtle repartee was replaced with camp, raucous humour, there was a sense of ironic wit throughout - and some universally understood 'in' jokes for any lit geek to revel in....

One of Shakespeare's lesser performed plays, Coriolanus has exploded into one of the most hyped-up events the Donmar Warehouse has seen this year. Director Josie Rourke's production is visceral and modern from the off, cleverly making what could be an abstract political plotline something to get ang...

The Christmas musical is fast becoming one of the highlights of Sheffield Theatres' programme. Last year's My Fair Lady was a sell-out crowd-pleaser that earned a range of plaudits. So how does Sheffield Crucible's production of Oliver! compare?...

Gary Naylor sees another madcap laugh-a-minute disaster....

Fun, festive frolics abound in the Bristol Hippodrome's production of Cinderella! A sparkly curtain sets the tone for the upbeat evening ahead, which is full of colour, sparkle and flair (and some blindingly pink tights!)....