UK Regional Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 49

BWW Reviews: EYE OF A NEEDLE, Southwark Playhouse, August 29 2014
by Gary Naylor - August 30, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: DRAG KING RICHARD III, Riverside Studios, July 31 2014
by Gary Naylor - August 01, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: HOLES, Arcola Tent, July 22 2014
by Becky Brewis - July 23, 2014

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

BWW Reviews: HORRIBLE HISTORIES: BARMY BRITAIN, Lyceum, Sheffield, July 17 2014
by Ruth Deller - July 21, 2014

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

BWW Reviews: THE SHEFFIELD MYSTERIES, Crucible, Sheffield 15 July 2014
by Ruth Deller - July 17, 2014

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

BWW Reviews: BLACK COFFEE, New Alexandra Theatre Birmingham, July 7 2014
by Jenny Antill - July 08, 2014

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...

BWW Reviews: ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, July 3 2014
by Jenny Antill - July 04, 2014

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...

BWW Reviews: ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, New Alexandra Theatre Birmingham, July 2 2014
by Jenny Antill - July 03, 2014

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,...

BWW Reviews: KRAPP'S LAST TAPE, Studio Theatre, Sheffield, July 1, 2014
by Carrie Dunn - July 02, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: 20TH CENTURY BOY, Wolverhampton Grand, June 30 2014
by Jenny Antill - July 01, 2014

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...

BWW Reviews: PACIFIC OVERTURES, Union Theatre, July 4 2014
by Gary Naylor - July 05, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: ABOUT MISS JULIE, King's Head Theatre, July 3 2014
by Gary Naylor - July 04, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: MY GIRL 2, The Old Red Lion Theatre, June 29 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 30, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: ARTHUR PITA: THE WORLD'S GREATEST SHOW, Greenwich Dance Academy, June 28 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 28, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: FASHION VICTIM - THE MUSICAL, The Cinema Museum, June 26 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 27, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: CATCH 22, Richmond Theatre, June 24 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 25, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: 20TH CENTURY BOY, New Wimbledon Theatre, June 23 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 24, 2014

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....

BWW Reviews: HETTY FEATHER, Crucible, Sheffield, 17 June 2014
by Ruth Deller - June 19, 2014

The stage adaptation of Jacqueline WIilson's novel is a lovingly put-together blend of comedy, tragedy and circus performance....

BWW Reviews: WOMAN IN MIND, Birmingham Rep, June 17 2014
by Jenny Antill - June 18, 2014

Woman In Mind is thought of as one of Alan Ayckbourn's best works. It is the English playwright's 32nd play and his earliest using a first-person narrative. The plot centres around Susan who, having hit herself in the head with a garden rake, is found at the start of the play concussed on her garde...

BWW Reviews: MATA HARI, St James Theatre Studio, June 17 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 18, 2014

Gary Naylor sees a beautiful but sad cabaret based on the life of Mata Hari the woman shot by the French Army for spying whose short life contained more dramas than a hundred others....

BWW Reviews: LAST OF THE DUTY FREE, Lyceum, Sheffield, 16 June 2014
by Ruth Deller - June 17, 2014

The 1980s sitcom revival tour hits Sheffield...

BWW Reviews: ENDURING SONG, Southwark Playhouse, June 13 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 14, 2014

Gary Naylor sees a play overly determined by its length and its extreme loudness, a victim of the ambition of a young company that will come back stronger and wiser for the experience....

BWW Reviews: TRISTRAM SHANDY: CONCEPTION, COCK AND BULL, St James Theatre, June 9 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 10, 2014

Gary Naylor sees a delightful resurrection of one of English comedy's founding fathers - the coarse, warm, funny Tristram Shandy, the creation of Irish clergyman Laurence Sterne....

BWW Reviews: THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA, King's Head Theatre, June 8 2014
by Gary Naylor - June 09, 2014

Gary Naylor sees a terrifyingly uncompromising play about women held away from their hopes, their dreams, their desires, distinguished by some brilliant acting and fine use of the venue's tiny, oppressive, space....

BWW Reviews: THE LOVE PROJECT Crucible Studio, Sheffield 2 June 2014
by Ruth Deller - June 07, 2014

Every Day theatre company's The Love Project, which has recently completed its tour across the UK, is an hour-long one-act production that explores different attitudes to love. It's a verbatim piece which uses dialogue and body language from interviews with a range of real-life testimonies....