Wednesday 10th September 2025 at Leeds Playhouse Reviewer: Branagh O’Shaughnessy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Karis Kelly’s Consumed promises hungry ghosts and skeletons, and I have to say it delivers, just not in the way you would expect. Four generations of women are reunited for Elieen's 90th birthday, set in a homely and somewhat cluttered kitchen in Bangor (set:... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 13th May 2025 at Leeds Grand Theatre ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff is a pretty dark look at the lacerating impact of unemployment in 1980s Liverpool. Based on the 1982 BBC drama (which I haven’t seen - I know, shocking really), this staging by James Graham follows the criss-crossing lives of out... Continue Reading →
Thursday 24th April 2025 at York Theatre Royal ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Badapple Theatre’s warm-hearted drama looks at the lives of women in war-time. When war hits and the men-folk of Thankful head off to do their duty, three women are left counting the days, scouring the news and navigating tensions in their own lives. The lofty Victoria... Continue Reading →
Sunday, 16th March 2025 at Theatre 41, Monkgate ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fluff is a pretty clever piece of storytelling in which one actor takes on various roles to gradually unravel the truth about our confused lead. It’s no spoiler to say that the show centres on dementia and Fluff’s relationship to it, but the story told delves... Continue Reading →
Thursday, 13th March 2025 at Leeds Playhouse ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Staging George Orwell’s iconic Animal Farm is a daring move. It’s such a brilliant piece and its messages about power and exploitation are pretty perfect for staging right now (need I say more?). But almost every character is an animal - how do you stage such a... Continue Reading →
Thursday, 27th February 2025 at Union Theatre, Southwark ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reviewer: Charlotte Dawes Almost 60 years on from the harrowing mining disaster, Mr Jones explores the unfathomable loss of the forever-altered Welsh village of Aberfan. On the morning of 21 October 1966, the last Friday before half term, a landslide of coal waste crashed into the... Continue Reading →
Thursday, 14th November 2024 at York Theatre Royal (Studio) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ You’ve heard of Dick Turpin, but have you heard of the infamous John Swiift? No? John Godber’s The Highwayman imagines a chancer and a thief in the style of the greats that we do know, and gives us an eventful few hours to watch his... Continue Reading →
Tuesday, 15th October 2024 at Leeds Playhouse ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The multi award-winning 1927 are back with a brand new show, and it’s another corker. Apparently based on a true story, Please Right Back follows a father - Mr E - who writes to his kids and tells them fantastical stories about where he is and why... Continue Reading →
Friday, 21st June 2024 at Soho Theatre ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reviewer: Emma Dorfman A postdramatic gig theatre fever dream - in which the audience is invited to witness a fraught navigation through a paradoxical mix of identities - The Dao of Unrepresentative British Chinese Experience is, what I would consider to be, High Art. Heady and intellectual, the production... Continue Reading →
Monday, 13th May 2024 at the Grand Opera House York. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Jury duty is a fascinating business. Throw complete strangers in a room and ask them to roll the dice on the fate of another stranger sitting in a cell somewhere. No professional training, just critical thinking and debate. Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men taps... Continue Reading →
