Reviews

Agnes Of God. There’s something in the title alone which is very chilling, and alludes to the possibility of a spine-tingling performance. Whilst I was relieved to find that the play itself was not horror based, and therefore hiding my face behind a pillow not necessary, the performance was extremely engaging, thrilling and left all of the audience in suspense throughout. The play itself tells the story of Dr Martha Livingston, a court appointed psychiatrist, who is sent to evaluate Sister Agnes. Sister Agnes is a young nun who has recently born a child, which mysteriously was found strangled. Dr

It’s Date Night for me and the ex-wife (long story, and this isn’t about me). You don’t really want Date Night to end in tears, now, do you? Well, it did. Kind of. But, in a good way. The Larderhouse in Southbourne is a quirky and interesting venue, and, for my mind, the perfect place for this kind of theatre. “A different kind of production”, as director Angie Gray told me; and it is. Different, deeply moving, funny in places, beautiful in places, heart-breaking in places and delivered in a format and manner that suits the piece like no other

You’ve heard of the ‘Multiverse Theory’, right? The theory that there are maybe an infinite number of universes running parallel to our own, each one similar to the last, but with subtle or maybe dramatic differences. Well, imagine yourself transported to an alternate universe where everybody speaks every word as though they are in a Ray Cooney farce from the 1970s and the situations they are in are dealt with in a manner we would perceive as massively unnatural, but, in the ‘Farciverse’ as I will call it, a totally normal and natural way. A place where, say, the death

I was mystified at first by the title of this moving comedy drama but it soon becomes clear that it has nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland or cats and refers instead to a mixed bag of ladies from Cheshire, who form a team to take part in the MoonWalk, London. The MoonWalk is a charity walking marathon which takes place at night in the streets of London over the full 26.2 miles for some, or a half-marathon for others, with the aim of raising money for breast cancer treatment. I was vaguely aware of it to start with

This is my second show at The Shelley within a few weeks. My friend, Helen, who accompanied me, hadn’t been before – but it is charming, rustic, rough and ready, with unplastered walls – a work in progress. If you haven’t been before, then I recommend that you do – at least once – you may find it addictive. I could say much the same about the Black Cherry Theatre Company, though in this case neither of us had been there before either. I didn’t know quite what to expect. I read their resumé, I read the eProgramme*. It seems that they

Where else can you get an evening’s entertainment and a fish and chip supper for a little over a tenner? Just entering the nearly full hall you can see Broadstone Players is a thriving Society. Every year their evening of one act plays showcases new directors and new talent. Three plays, three new directors, 15 characters with barely any doubling up, and three different prompts. Many companies only dream of fielding such a large team. The evening started with Tunnel Vision by Sheila Hodgson and directed by Alyssa Thompson. Set on some platforms of the Northern Line, the genre of