Reviews

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

Blithe Spirit is one of Noel Coward’s best-loved plays. Written more than 75 years ago, it has a relatively timeless quality and with a supernatural theme, it is easy to understand why the play remains incredibly popular, both in amateur and professional productions. If you’ve never seen the show, the premise is that Charles Condomine has invited local eccentric medium Madame Arcati to conduct a séance at his house, with the purpose of uncovering the ‘tricks of the trade’ that he can use to develop in his next novel about a homicidal medium. Things don’t go as expected when the

With corpses littering the stage during the final scene of Hamlet, the mention of two more deaths passes almost unnoticed, but it is this line that Tom Stoppard took as the title for his first major play, which had its London premiere fifty years ago this year. It follows the lives of the two title characters more or less during the action of Hamlet, so at the start of the play they are on a journey; its destination turns out to be Elsinore, where they are charged by Claudius to help his troubled nephew/stepson and their old schoolfriend, Hamlet. They