Reviews

This was my first visit to RAODS and to the Plaza Theatre and what a treat I was given with Nell Gwynn, a story of a young strong woman and her fight with love, the theatre and bringing women onto a level playing field socially and theatrically. All the principal characters set out their stalls well in communicating the language of the play. Kerry Butcher is stunningly good as Nell Gwynn: her characterisation, pace and interaction with the audience are all absolutely first rate and I am sure that when we get to the awards season her name will feature.

One of the best developments in British theatre in the last twenty years has been the restoration of Terence Rattigan’s reputation. Profoundly out of fashion during the era of Osborne, Wesker and Pinter, he has been discovered by a new generation to be as shrewd and as thoughtful an observer of the human condition as any of them, albeit in a very different style – favouring wit over gritty realism to convey his message. French Without Tears is one of his earliest plays, written when he was only 25, and its themes are young men’s attitudes to women, and the

I’ve got superlatives aplenty running around my head as I type. What follows may seem a little gushy, but I had a good time. Performances were great, the staging minimalistic but exciting and the pace was sharp and snappy, so gush I may just do. This play is a stage adaptation of the 1946 film, which starred David Niven as Peter Carter. It is a tale of two worlds: the one we know and the one we may well discover – all in good time. If you don’t know the film, Peter is meant to be in the other world

As NFP are one of the New Forest’s leading amateur drama groups (now in their 88th year!), an entertaining night is always guaranteed when I am fortunate enough to be asked to review one of their shows and Murder by Misadventure did not disappoint. A fabulous mix of intrigue, tension, comedic moments and some wonderfully ‘quotable’ phrases resulted in a great whodunnit which kept everyone guessing till the very end. A quick synopsis will not give anything away. Scriptwriters Harry Kent (David Luker) and Paul Rigg (Alan Whitty) have won numerous awards, but while Harry has saved and invested his

For those of us of a certain age, Erich Segal’s novel remains an unforgettable part of our teenage years thanks to the 1970 film adaptation that made household names of Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal. Forty years later, the stage musical premiered at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre, with book and lyrics by Stephen Clark, additional lyrics and (beautiful) music by Howard Goodall. I saw and enjoyed both, so went along to Boscombe’s Shelley Theatre intrigued to see how Theatre 2000 approached it. The answer is, with simplicity, intimacy and a lightness of touch, all serving the piece well. With no interval,

Ah, the ‘Whodunnit’. A classic genre for fiction and for theatre. You settle down to an evening of theatre, anticipating a couple of hours or so of twists, turns, guessing games, lies and, if you’re lucky, something to chuckle at too. Mix that anticipation up with the fact that it is an Agatha Christie play and you feel that you are justified in your excitement. All that is left to satiate your expectation is the will of the performers and the staging. Phew! In the hands of RMDS, Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web is safe. It is the tale of a