Reviews

When I saw the title of this play, my mind went back to the BBC’s excellent, 1985 gritty political thriller of the same name featuring the late Bob Peck and Joe Don Baker, but this drab, formulaic drama by Brian Clemens OBE (creator of The Avengers) is not in the same ball park. The programme suggests a setting shortly after World War 2, but the references to the horse and rig and the servants – ‘A house like this should have six staff,’ says Hardy (Chris Stowe) in the opening scene – suggests an earlier period and Clemens himself set

This crowd-pleaser by Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot played for over 6000 performances in its heyday of the early 1970s: a less pc world in which ‘Carry on’ and Benny Hill styles of titillation were far more acceptable and deemed humourful. Today, its rather weak script, based on delivery of ever-increasing amounts of pornography, culminating in two young ladies, does not quite make sense when the whole play could have been completed in the first ten minutes if the said horrific post cards had been stored in the study, in a cupboard or under the sink and no-one would been

W S Gilbert liked to poke fun at fads or fashions of the day and Ruddigore, which opened at the Savoy in 1887, most definitely cocked a snook at the Victorian passion for melodrama with its villains, twee heroine, madwoman and so on; unfortunately, it was not overly popular with the public and closed after only 288 performances. Nothing has really changed over the years and it remains a fair way down the list of G&S favourites, so all credit to this society for choosing to perform it rather than going for a sure-fire box office success, and for including

Oklahoma! is a big show with a big heart and Phoenix Musical Society, directed by Trish Ruff, have had a lot of fun putting this much-loved production together. Like many local companies, Phoenix has few men, but it is really good to see such a young cast in many of the principal roles. There can be few not familiar with this Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpiece. Indeed, I overheard one audience member say, ‘How do I know all these songs?’ The plot is a simple one: cowboy loves girl, girl loves cowboy, both too stubborn to admit to it, circumstances force

RAODS have made a brave choice here: one of which I, as a theatre goer, lover and participant, whole-heartedly approve. The decision to stage a play whose subject matter, language and overall theme are highly controversial and hard-hitting is not one to be taken lightly. It is a piece that, in my view – and the view of proper theatre critics globally – is nothing short of a masterpiece of dystopian theatrical art. The Pillowman is, as the director Paul Green tells us in his programme notes, ‘a violent roller coaster of a ride that threatens to come off its

They were formed only just over a year ago, but Viva Voce can now add the words ‘award-winning’ to any publicity material, having done rather well in this summer’s Bournemouth Music Competitions Festival and walked away with three distinctions, a first place, a second place and a silver cup; having sat through this concert, I can quite understand why. With this choir, it is not just the extremely high standard of singing that sets them apart, but the neatness and uniformity of their appearance, their obvious enjoyment in what they are doing and their total involvement in both words and