Gary Naylor

Lovely intimate adaptation of immensely popular novel is a pleasing diversion in these troubled times

Recently, on the north coast of Ireland, I had lunch in a seaside bar. Outside, the wind howled, sunshine and rain were locked in a battle for supremacy and the sky was too big. I knew that feeling, as I had grown up by the sea with sandhills at the top of the road. It was ‘other’ to the adult version of me, but familiar to the childhood person. I’ve always understood that these edges are liminal spaces in which things change quickly and much (too much) is contingent.

A confession. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine to read the death notices on Wikipedia - I am my mother’s son after all and, without the columns of classifieds in the Liverpool Echo, where else is there to look?

Afro-Caribbean theatre company lend their own flavour to a universal tale of the dangers of political misjudgement and hubris

Theatre beyond London proves varied and interesting

Bleak, yet hopeful, drama/dance hybrid gives food for thought

Song, dance and colours light up the grim USSR

Looking for a New England? Here's Dondonia

A shameful event in Eurpean history is recalled and set within its tragic context

Technically unsurpassed, but is there a chill where its soul should be?

Adrian Lester is an astonishing presence in a new version of an enduring tale

If you liked Evita at the Palladium, you'll like Carmen at the Coliseum

Synergy Theatre Projectt's commission hits hard, but will it hit the right people?

Fragmented and frightening, the commitment of the work carries the production

A true crime story that offers hope as well as tragedy

Caroline Guiela Nguyen and her cast and creatives have made something very special indeed

A Hamlet shorn of gimmicks allows its power to come through

Chris England's warm show is funny and clever and unafraid to pose some difficult questions

If you come to opera via film musicals and, later, stage shows, Tosca is amongst the most accessible. The story of the lovers and the evil apparatchik is told at a furious pace, trauma after trauma piling up as the emotional heft becomes all but unbearable. There’s no standing about for twenty minutes while someone sings stage left, no mythical dwarves hiding gold, no magical toymaker. Nor, as early critics were quick to point out, is there a whole lot of poetry either in Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa adaptation of Victorien Sardou’s sensational play. However, there are compensations…

Putin, Chekhov, Trump, art, principles, punishment, love, hate and that iconic, topless-on-a-horse photo of Mad Vlad. And much, much, more.