Issue 25 / 26 - 2003
Farewell
When I started Theatre Record in January 1981 I reckoned it would be computer-proof for five, maybe ten years. In fact the arrival of the net only means that there are more and more people finding out about our unique service every day.
The vast global technical change since 1981 has had a tremendous effect on the theatre itself. The lighting, sound and engineering resources available to even the smallest fringe company now were undreamed of then. It can be argued that the British lead in stage technology of the period gave rise to twenty halcyon Mackintosh/ Webber years of London dominance in musical theatre.
Another development of the time has been the rise of performance, seen at its best in many guises, from Cartoon de Salvo to Shared Experience, and at its worst in the writings of those who have invented the pretentious academic genre of Performance Studies.
Our critics are immune to Performance Studies jargon, thank heaven, even if the corollary is that many of them are also immune to performance. Maybe it needs the new generation of critics of whom I spoke in this issue's Prompt Corner to explore this newish world properly. It's a pleasure to note that as well as Brian Logan and Sam Marlowe, the rising Rachel Halliburton, Madeleine North and the well-established Mark Fisher, not to mention Aleks Sierz, have all taken part in the Young Critics' Seminars organised by the International Association of Theatre Critics, of which I now have the honour to be President. Stepping down from the running of the Record will give me more time to pursue the aims of IATC, but I hope to continue nagging away on this back page (what do you think? Can You Hear Me at the Back? Or just Back Bites?), and to work on making a really usable database out of the twenty-three years' production and biographical material I have gathered in the Record's archive. The real work is up to Ian Shuttleworth now, and of course the indefatigable Ruth. I should also pay tribute to Verena, who has worked so hard for the Record on an almost voluntary basis over the last two years and will be writing her last Opposite Prompt in the first issue of 2004, while I take reviewing leave.
I have often said in these pages that artistic
directors ought to step down after ten, maximum fifteen years,
so I've outstayed my own prescribed time by half. It's different
for critics - back in 1981, the Record's first issue
had reviews from Michael Billington, Michael Coveney, Nicholas
de Jongh, Sheridan Morley, Benedict Nightingale and even
a youthful Charles Spencer. We would have carried John Peter,
too, but weren't allowed. I wouldn't want any of them to
stop writing while they're still as exciting to read as they
ever were - perhaps John Peter, who has officially retired
but continues to write as much as before, has the answer. I
plan to try it, anyway, in a modest way. Thanks for listening.
Ian Herbert
Prompt Corner
So, at the end of 2003, we have plays running in the West End by Samuel Beckett, Steven Berkoff, Moira Buffini, Christopher Hampton, David Hare, Marie Jones, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, Stephen Poliakoff, Tom Stoppard and Oscar Wilde. Frayn and McDonagh are at the National, the former due to go West and the latter a distinct possibility to join him. Eugene O'Neill is there too, and a hit. Patrick Marber is at the Donmar, the precocious Joanna Laurens at the Almeida. Cause for rejoicing, surely? No: as you read this, the critics will be getting ready to pronounce their annual requiem for London theatre and in particular the commercial theatre. You won't hear a requiem for Shakespeare, who has nothing on at present, or for the RSC, who are only just creeping back to London thanks to the despised commercial producers. Not a word of complaint about the soaraway National, in spite of the fact the O'Neill is the only classic, British or foreign, to be seen there until Easter. Funny, that.
The requiems (is there a plural?) have started already, on the early demise of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and fairly silly reading they make. Some elderly folk have suggested it's too soon to revive a 1985 play (Jumpers, anyone? Betrayal?). Cannier ones point out that the Playhouse isn't the easiest theatre to fill, unless you're playing something really commercial like, er, Three Sisters or A Doll's House.
One reason Liaisons failed is because almost all the critics apart from the gentlemanly John Gross were scathing about Tim Fywell's intelligent but undercast production. I must admit to having trouble myself, as most did, with Jared Harris and Polly Walker (a bit like watching Paul Daniels chat up Cherie Blair), but this remains a very civilised, extraordinarily sexy play, one very difficult to get completely wrong. Given a little less venom, it might have been expected to stay for a while and please the large number of theatregoers not familiar with the Rickman/Duncan original - let alone the thinner replacement casts that followed them, beyond the barbs of first night critics.
Let's call it an honourable failure, a description that can be applied to rather too many of the productions covered in this issue. All the hf's I'd like to discuss have merit enough to make them worth seeing, some more than others, but in this hit or flop world they may not stay long enough for a wider public to make up its own mind. And there are seldom second chances.
Take Five Gold Rings - please! Not an easy one this, though the critics who saw no resonances in the title of a play about five views of marriage, set at Christmas, obviously weren't trying very hard. Where those of us who saw Joanna Laurens' debut marvelled at the richness of her language and the power of her dramatic invention in The Three Birds, here she appears pretentious and page-bound (most of the cleverest wordplay reveals itself only on reading), offering a thin, conventional and not very well-stitched story. Yet it was magnificently staged (on another brilliant, light-enhanced Es Devlin set) and acted with total conviction by a crack cast, reason enough to see it even if it really is a total con. After all, as Dominic Maxwell wisely says, 'It's a thin line between high art and arty cobblers.' For a passionate defence, read John Peter. For the harsh truth, read almost anyone else, especially Charles Spencer.
Charles, on the other hand, is very keen on Revelations, as is Michael Coveney - rather more surprisingly, since he's hated almost everything at the new Hampstead. This time, they are the minority, and even I am amazed they can be quite so positive about it. I'm also amazed that everyone else is so vitriolically negative, because Revelations is bursting with original ideas about modern morality, and often expresses them with a Shavian wit and cussedness that makes it very enjoyable. Sure, it's well-nigh impossible to believe that the situation Stephen Lowe has set up could be played out in the way he suggests; but if you can suspend your disbelief you'll find much to entertain, much to challenge, and a final tableau of such redeeming purity that most of the childish smut offered en route in this very honourable failure fades to insignificance. Anthony Clark's dull, paceless production can't conceal the play's obvious flaws - it should have been heavily rewritten - but it's incredible that people should be calling for his head on the strength of a faltering first season. The admirable and self-effacing James Williams, his manager, has already been sacrificed on some makeshift Arts Council altar. Let's hope that's enough to propitiate the same ghastly people who sat on their hands while Adrian Noble wrecked and bankrupted the RSC.
Anyone who was thrilled by the Dende Collective's Piranha Lounge earlier this year would mark their One Four Seven down as another honourable failure, though for Jaspré Bark this one is 'Astonishing international theatre of the highest calibre'. In this pantomime season, the only possible response to that is 'Oh, no it's not', because the production is muddled and muddy, performed by a cast of very mixed abilities, with its narrative line becoming a little more clear far too late in the amateurish proceedings. All the same, Mark O'Thomas and his director, André Pink have definite talent and a clear style of their own - do catch the return of Piranha Lounge at the Lyric Studio in March. Second time around is also an hf for Justin Butcher with A Weapons Inspector Calls, which lacks the relaxed zaniness of its predecessor The Madness of George Dubya, replacing committed satire with shrill parody. One might have expected Mr Butcher to be able to recruit a stronger cast on the strength of his first hit; here, the women are fine but the guys are mostly very weak. Still, Sophia Veil gives it a rave.
Casting is the downfall of the Arcola's Kismet, and it's not just the supporting actors, who seem to have been dragged in off the street, as is often the case in this imaginative but cash-strapped theatre. The experienced Simon Masterton-Smith is totally unsuited to his leading role, and the other leads seem to have been chosen more for their singing than for any trace of acting ability. I rejoice that this fine old musical has been rediscovered, which gives Tiffany Watt-Smith's truncated, monochrome, one-piano version hf status, but I hope some bigger management will see its real worth and give it the splashy production it deserves. For once, I'm with Rhoda Koenig, who may be beastly but knows her musicals, rather than the enthusiastic Fiona Mountford.
It's an act of generosity to put Me, Myself and I in the hf category, since an Orange Tree cast with talent and proven track records can do nothing with Mr Ayckbourn's dated, naïve, rather patronising soufflé. It's hard to imagine this being written by the man who gave us Woman in Mind. Rather more deserving is Call Me Merman, a typical Kings Head show for musicals-lovers (apart, of course from Ms Koenig), which has to be seen at its best in Dan Crawford's uncomfortable back room - woe betide David Kernan if he thinks this could transfer. Those who can survive the latest attempt at screwed-down seating will be blessed by an evening with the wonderful Angela Richards - if her voice holds out to the end of the run. She's no Merman, but we should thank the Lord for that. She and Susannah Fellowes do very well in their own right with some great standards, bolstered by the room's shabby intimacy.
Even more successful, given the conditions in which it was produced, is the Sasha Regan/Ben de Wynter staging of The Wild Party at their even shabbier but no less welcoming Union Theatre in Southwark. I was hugely struck by the revival of The Children's Hour here earlier in the year, and once again an almost unknown cast show enormous talent in taking on Michael John LaChiusa's difficult, immensely rewarding score. They probably couldn't handle a bigger space either, but by golly they are thrilling in this railway arch. It's a tremendously stylish production, too, capturing its period very well indeed, and should be seen by more critics than the one rather lukewarm witness we've been able to include in this issue.
With The Wild Party I think we can be said to have moved out of hf-land into seriously special productions. The National is responsible for the two total winners of this issue - not the glitzy, dare I suggest superficial Hytner National but the unsung, innovative Nunn National, which laid the ground for, well, Jerry Springer. Both Dinner and Play Without Words appeared in the Transformations season, and both can now be recognised as great theatre, in the sense of great entertainment that will last.
I didn't see Play Without Words the first time around, so was all the more knocked out by its clever invention. Matthew Bourne comes close to producing a whole new medium of theatrical expression with his multiple role-playing dancers, each character gaining different perspectives in their dual or triple self's interaction with one, two or three versions of the other characters. Lez Brotherston's seedy evocations of Chelsea and Soho are spot on, as is the brilliant jazz score of Terry Davies. Our dance critic colleagues are not all convinced by Bourne as a choreographer, but for me his superb talent for story-telling has restored life to what seemed an almost moribund art form - his enchantingly mischievous Nutcracker! is still going strong, and appears among this issue's Christmas shows. Incidentally, you have a rare chance in this issue to compare the attitudes of critics from other disciplines - it's a pity Matt Wolf is the only one of our lot given the chance to bring a necessary theatrical perspective to the Royal Opera's Sweeney Todd, but at least he's one of the best folk for the job.
I leave Dinner till last because it's a total treat. Moira Buffini's scabrous social satire was terrific in the Lyttelton Loft, and is even better Up West, with a much tighter ending which I'm told was in the original script. There must have been some interesting discussions about this between the author and her sister, the director. We critics can be hard to please: where Revelations gets stick for trying to be a serious comedy, Dinner has been accused of not being serious enough. It's serious enough to make you think quite hard about some of the more ghastly results of two decades of consumerism, but above all it's civilised and funny, and beautifully performed by Harriet Walter and her guests. Forty-something products of the consumer age like Paul Taylor, Charles Spencer and Robert Gore-Langton all loved it. One dissenting voice comes from the younger generation's Brian Logan. This, plus the fact that young Sam Marlowe dissents from the general approval of The Happiest Days of Your Life in Manchester, prompts questions about whether the generation gap between the three layers of critics now appearing in the Record reflects similar gaps among the theatre audience.
The arrival of forty-something Ian Shuttleworth as the
editor-publisher of Theatre Record for next year is
an attempt, I suppose, to acknowledge that gap. I shall still
be hanging around at the back of the paper (I'm there saying
goodbye in this issue, for a start), but the next issue is
the other Ian's. I wish him luck.
Ian Herbert
At the Back
Verena's Christmas Round-Up
Same procedure as every year', says Miss Sophie to butler James (Freddie Frinton) in Dinner for One, a fifteen-minute sketch recorded in black and white by Hamburg's NDR in 1963 and shown every New Year's Eve since on various German-speaking TV channels. I grew up with it and still cry with laughter. The sketch was recently rediscovered by Radio 4 and The Times; I wonder when you'll finally see it here.
Here, too, it's the same procedure as every December: Christmas shows and pantomimes. I saw a fair number of family/children's productions and pantomimes; however, the West End could have done with a proper, fun-filled, grand panto, especially as there were not enough family shows around in central London, and Peter Pan at the Savoy turned out to be an utter disappointment.
But let me start at the beginning. At the Young Vic, Trevor Nunn turned David Almond's half-realist, half-mystical book Skellig into a compassionate, inspiring show about the healing powers of love. The story of a boy's painful process of growing up and understanding the intimate relationship of life and death was excellently presented, with credible acting, a persuasive narrative style, good timing, creative use of stage and beautiful lighting. The use of music and songs, though, was less convincing (and often excessively, distractingly kitsch - except the comic Zimmer-frame dance) and the flying acts of the three protagonists seemed just not right in this space. However, David Threlfall played Skellig, a grumpy, dirty, ill creature with extraordinary, unfoldable skeletal wings, with such intensity that one had to believe in the existence of this mysterious bird/angel, both healed and healing through love.
At BAC, Tom Morris and Carl Heap reinvented Greek myth out of a morris-dance fête - Tom's last BAC jig before joining the NT. Jason and the Argonauts was a joyful, highly imaginative (ladders and tables make a ship!) evening for everybody from nine upwards, brilliantly played and almost circus-like in its physicality. It was great fun to see a typical English village 'do' turn into the heavenly realm of the tennis-playing Zeus and Hera and into Jason's adventurous, action-packed quest for the Golden Fleece. My only criticism is that in the second act some dramaturgical tailoring would have cut out the longueurs.
Once upon a time at the Lyric Hammersmith, there might have existed a good idea of spicing up the Cinderella story with some modern hints, stand-up comedy and new twists; unfortunately, this company-devised version was a case of too many cooks producing a strange, bland mishmash. Sad.
Outside London, Shaun Prendergast's version of Dumas' The Three Musketeers at Basingstoke's Haymarket contained a goodly number of excellently executed duels and enough drive to keep the story flowing on Elroy Ashmore's cleverly multi-levelled wooden stage. Alasdair Ramsey showed a keen directorial sense of knockabout, but kept the figures too often on the flat side, though the cast showed off their versatility by playing instruments and doing those exciting fights!
Laurence Boswell's mesmerizing RSC Beauty and the Beast at Stratford boasted a continuously witty script with a luminous French touch. Jeremy Herbert's stage design was ingenious and sometimes quite Cocteauvian: a field of mud, for instance, created out of a brown canvas stretched across the stage descending from back to front, under which stage hands let it bulge, accompanied by blob-sounds - the kids and I loved it! The well-cast characters celebrated eccentricity and humour (with a commedia dell'arte touch) as well as adding heart and flesh to the fairy-tale black-and-white moral scheme. the 'flesh' including two comic robots who fall in love at the end à la Ayckbourn's Comic Potential. A kind of black Matrix chorus acted as commentators, stage-hands and ballet dancers, forming a horse or impersonating a storm (clever choreography from Stuart Hopps), and Mick Sands' music built just the right emotional background. If you can get tickets, this spectacle is worth the ride to Stratford.
Back in London, Theatre Alibi moved into the Comedy with Michael Morpurgo's Why the Whales Came. Greg Banks' adaptation (he also co-directed with Nikki Sved) took the audience to the Scilly Isles during the First World War, where daring and adventurous friends, a boy and a girl, not only learned about death and life, but also the damage that thoughtless gossip and defamation can do. It's a powerful book turned into a well-timed play; the acting/narrating and use of stage (decked with bleached planks of wood and clutter from a beach) were fine; Thomas Johnson's music - played live by cellist Harry Napier - was moving . and yet I have to confess that the evening didn't really capture me. It all seemed too sanitised.
Dick Barton: the Excess of Evil at the Croydon Warehouse (which I hope survives the threat of destruction) was a fun-nonsense-satire-packed Brit romp, in which jokes spread like fireworks at the cost of the plot's continuity. The six strong actors-singers-musicians were all most impressive. Good fun for my first Dick Barton, although I wish I'd seen Phil Willmott's highly-praised original instalment.
Willmott's first panto, Snow White at Richmond, offered good timing and fun, although I wished for more panto routines and a female principal boy. Generally, however, I agree with Roger Foss's review. Nice evening, indeed.
Grimms 2003 by Horla at Greenwich Playhouse was a concoction of dark-humoured, scary, deadly tales, largely (and skilfully) adapted by Alistair Green, with some use of puppets (I loved Graham!), a storytelling style of presentation and live music. I missed a kind of coherence, however, so I'm not entirely convinced that the right blend of material was selected.
As for Peter Pan at the Savoy. sorry, there's nothing positive I can add to Michael Coveney's spot-on comments.
David Wood's adaptation of Roald Dahl's gruesome couple The Twits toured into Bloomsbury. Kathi Leahy directed with zest on Tom Conroy's cleverly unfolding house of a set. The actors in the title roles created admirably horrible creatures, while sweet birds and lovable monkeys demonstrated circus skills. And the spectators' shoes are used for audience participation!
Back in the countryside, Aladdin at Horsham's splendidly refurbished Capitol presented an elaborate panto set and a requisitely enthusiastic ensemble. Sadly, the evening was tied too closely to a mediocre script that obviously didn't allow ad-libs and eager hissing-and-booing.
Kate Edgar and Colin Wakefield's Sleeping Beauty. the Whole Story!, produced by Hiss and Boo at Winchester's Theatre Royal, turned out to be a pleasant surprise: a family musical with hints of pantomime and pinches of Sweeney Todd, a good script (which could have done with a few cuts) and a functional score. A well-balanced show.
But at the Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford, Dick Whittington turned
out to be the cream and dream of panto offerings. I hardly stopped
laughing all evening. Gerry Tebbutt has a thorough understanding of
panto elements (kitchen scene, ghost routine, audience participation
etc) and what a real panto should look and sound like, and the audience
were made very much part of the entertainment by an excellent ensemble
including Bonnie Langford as dashing principal boy Dick, Royce Mills
as true and honest dame Sarah the Cook, Nichola McAuliffe as the funniest
tipsy-silly Fairy Bow Bells I've ever seen, Sylvester McCoy as a lovable
hiss-boo rock 'n' roll King Rat, and Paul Hendy as charming Idle Jack
keeping the audience stoked up with his outstanding entertainment skills.
Oh, yes, it is - smashing! What's left to say? . Happy New Year!
Verena Winter
Contents / Reviews
London |
||||
BUILD ME A BRIDGE revue by Charles Miller and Kevin Hammond |
Bridewell |
22 Dec | 4 Jan | 1682 |
CALL ME MERMAN musical tribute written by John Kane |
Kings Head |
30 Dec | 1 Feb | 1708 |
C'EST BARBICAN Duckie in BITE 03 |
The Pit |
12 Dec | 4 Jan | 1744 |
THE CHINESE STATE CIRCUS |
QEH |
26 Dec | 2 Jan | 1666 |
A CHRISTMAS CAROL adapted by Susie McKenna from Charles Dickens, music by Steven Edis |
Bullion Room, Hackney |
10 Dec | 10 Jan | 1740 |
CINDERELLA devised by the company |
Lyric Hammersmith |
2 Dec | 10 Jan | 1741 |
CIRCUS OF DREAMS devised by Art of Regeneration with Playbox |
Albany |
17 Dec | 10 Jan | 1734 |
DICK BARTON Episode V - The Excess of Evil by Duncan Wisbey, Stefan Bednarczyk, Ted Craig |
Warehouse, Croydon |
13 Dec | 15 Feb | 1732 |
DINNER revisionl of play by Moira Buffini (NT) |
Wyndham's |
9 Dec | 1661 | |
FIVE GOLD RINGS play by Joanna Laurens |
Almeida |
18 Dec | 17 Jan | 1703 |
GRIMMS 2003 adapted by Alistair Green (Horla) |
Greenwich Playhouse |
27 Nov | 21 Dec | 1712 |
IN THE BUNKER WITH THE LADIES devised by Nona Sheppard |
Drill Hall 2 |
28 Nov | 10 Jan | 1718 |
IN THE PARLOUR WITH THE LADIES written by Nona Sheppard |
Drill Hall 2 |
12 Dec | 10 Jan | 1718 |
THE INVISIBLE MONKEY Christmas entertainment by David Crook |
New End |
5 Dec | 3 Jan | 1740 |
JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS play by Carl Heap and Tom Morris |
BAC |
4 Dec | 17 Jan | 1720 |
KAT AND THE KINGS revival of musical by David Kramer and Taliep Petersen |
Tricycle |
10 Dec | 8 Feb | 1680 |
KEN CAMPBELL'S MEANING OF LIFE solo |
Drill Hall 1 |
6 Dec | 28 Dec | 1679 |
KISMET revival of musical by Wright and Forrest, from Knoblock and Borodin |
Arcola |
4 Dec | 4 Jan | 1669 |
LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES revival of Christopher Hampton Laclos adaptation |
Playhouse |
12 Dec | 10 Jan | 1673 |
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE STING Niall Ashdown solo |
BAC |
12 Dec | 11 Jan | 1678 |
ME, MYSELF AND I revival of musical by Alan Ayckbourn and Paul Todd |
Orange Tree |
19 Dec | 7 Feb | 1685 |
METEORITE play by Barbara Norden |
Hampstead |
5 Dec | 3 Jan | 1729 |
MOTHER GOOSE AND THE ...WOLF pantomime by Jonathan Petherbridge (London Bubble) |
Greenwich |
9 Dec | 17 Jan | 1724 |
MY DAD'S A BIRDMAN David Almond play |
Young Vic Studio |
4 Dec | 24 Dec | 1718 |
NO EXIT revival of J P Sartre play in Frank Hauser version |
Etcetera |
9 Dec | 21 Dec | 1670 |
NUTCRACKER! ballet by Matthew Bourne, music by Tchaikovsky (New Adventures) |
Sadler's Wells |
4 Dec | 24 Jan | 1722 |
ONE FOUR SEVEN written by Mark O'Thomas (The Dende Collective) |
Oval House |
4 Dec | 20 Dec | 1666 |
PAM ANN'S CHRISTMAS CRACKER devised and performed by Caroline Reid |
Soho |
4 Dec | 10 Jan | 1726 |
PETER PAN J M Barrie revival |
Savoy |
17 Dec | 7 Mar | 1736 |
THE PICKLED KING devised play (Network of Stuff) |
Riverside |
10 Dec | 30 Dec | 1707 |
PLAY WITHOUT WORDS revival of piece devised by Matthew Bourne, music by Terry Davies (New Adventures) |
Lyttelton |
16 Dec | 6 Mar | 1692 |
RED RIDING HOOD pantomime by Patrick Prior, music by Robert Hyman |
T R Stratford E15 |
11 Dec | 24 Jan | 1727 |
RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET revival of musical by Bob Carlton |
Upstairs/Gatehouse |
20 Dec | 1 Feb | 1686 |
REVELATIONS play by Stephen Lowe |
Hampstead |
15 Dec | 31 Jan | 1687 |
RUMPELSTILTSKIN play by Mike Kenny, music Matthew Bugg (Unicorn) |
Cochrane |
28 Nov | 11 Jan | 1729 |
THE SECRET GARDEN Karen Prell puppet adaptation of F H Burnett |
Little Angel |
6 Dec | 1 Feb | 1724 |
THE SELFISH GIANT adapted by Annie Wood from the story by Oscar Wilde |
Polka |
2 Dec | 21 Feb | 1725 |
SKELLIG David Almond version of his book |
Young Vic |
3 Dec | 31 Jan | 1713 |
SLEEP NO MORE devised by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, from Shakespeare's Macbeth (Punchdrunk) |
Beaufoy Building SE1 |
8 Dec | 20 Dec | 1672 |
THE SNOWMAN return of Bill Alexander adaptation from Raymond Briggs with Howard Blake music |
Peacock |
11 Dec | 11 Jan | 1735 |
STUART LITTLE Joseph Robinette adaptation of E B White book |
Polka |
13 Nov | 24 Jan | 1725 |
SWEENEY TODD revival of the musical thriller by Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler from CG Bond play |
ROH, Covent Garden |
15 Dec | 14 Jan | 1696 |
3 SHORT PLAYS: The Spider Trick (Phil Porter) Laundry (Jamie Carmichael) Set Breakfast (Kester Thompson) |
Etcetera |
9 Dec | 14 Dec | 1670 |
THE TWITS revival of play adapted by David Wood from Roald Dahl |
Bloomsbury |
12 Dec | 17 Jan | 1728 |
A WEAPONS INSPECTOR CALLS play by Justin Butcher |
Theatro Technis |
11 Dec | 10 Jan | 1671 |
WHY THE WHALES CAME Greg Banks adaptation from Michael Morpurgo (Theatre Alibi) |
Comedy |
11 Dec | 7 Jan | 1730 |
THE WILD PARTY Musical by Michael John LaChiusa, George C Wolfe from Joseph Moncure March poem |
Union SE1 |
3 Dec | 20 Dec | 1665 |
YOUNG EMMA adapted by Laura Wade from W H Davies |
Finborough |
4 Dec | 20 Dec | 1691 |
Regions |
||||
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL revival of the play by William Shakespeare (Royal Shakespeare Co.) |
Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon |
11 Dec | 7 Feb | 1752 |
AS IF YOUR DEATH WAS THE LONGEST SNEEZE EVER by Hooman Sharifi, presented by Impure TC |
Tramway, Glasgow |
4 Dec | 6 Dec | 1776 |
BLUES IN THE NIGHT revival of the piece conceived by Sheldon Epps |
Courtyard, West Yorkshire |
22 Dec | 24 Jan | 1750 |
BREEZEBLOCK PARK revival of the play by Willy Russell |
Liverpool Playhouse |
10 Dec | 10 Jan | 1750 |
CUTTIN' A RUG revival of the second play in the Slab Boys trilogy by John Byrne |
Traverse, Edinburgh |
16 Dec | 24 Jan | 1775 |
THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE revival of the play by John Dighton |
Royal Exchange, Manchester |
8 Dec | 17 Jan | 1748 |
Other Christmas Shows
Casts and/or reviews for ALADDIN (Brighton, Croydon, Kirkcaldy), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Stratford-upon-Avon), CINDERELLA (Glasgow, Motherwell, Musselburgh), CINDERELLA, THE MUSICAL (Bristol), DICK WHITTINGTON (Guildford), THE EMPEROR AND THE NIGHTINGALE (Newbury), THE GHOSTS OF SCROOGE (Manchester), JACK AND THE BEANSTALK (Edinburgh, Inverness, Oxford), THE JUNGLE BOOK (Bristol), THE LITTLE MERMAID (Barnet), MOTHER GOOSE (Ayr, Dunfermline, Perth), MOTHER GOOSE'S SILVER JUBILEE (York), STEVE NALLON'S CHRISTMAS CAROL (Birmingham), PETER PAN (Dundee, Woking), THE NEW ADVENTURES OF PETER PAN (Aberdeen), PINOCCHIO (Glasgow, St Andrews), THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN (Edinburgh), ROBIN OF WYCHWOOD (Chipping Norton), SLEEPING BEAUTY (Glasgow, Kilmarnock), SLEEPING BEAUTY. THE WHOLE STORY (Winchester), THE SNOW BABY (Stirling), THE SNOW QUEEN (Stirling), SNOW WHITE (Glasgow), SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (Richmond), LITTLE SNOW WHITE (Cumbernauld), THE THREE MUSKETEERS (Basingstoke), THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS (West Yorks), THE WIZARD OF OZ (Birmingham)