Reviews

The very title of Mike Leigh’s 2011 play suggests that it isn’t going to be a bundle of laughs, but ImpAct’s reputation for successfully tackling gritty subject matter more than convinced me that this was a production I shouldn’t miss. How did I feel by the end of the evening? Well, I’m awfully glad there was an interval – in the original at the National Theatre it was played straight through – or I might just have nodded off. I do stress that this was absolutely nothing to do with the performances or Patricia Richardson’s direction, all of which, as

I always feel a sense of anticipation when invited along to the inaugural performance of a new group, wondering what the standard will be like and how it will fit into the local theatre scene. In this particular instance, though, I already knew those answers as although Viva Voce is new, its ‘leaders’ and the majority of its performers have been together for quite some considerable time but have now broken away from their original parent society, P&P Productions. What a splendid evening the aptly named Sound Bites proved to be, and a highly original one at that. Plays or

This company burst onto the local theatre scene just over a year ago with a show at Beaufort Community Centre in Southbourne, making a memorable impression. Now they’re back in the somewhat larger surroundings of the Life Centre in Moordown and this latest show, devised and directed by Jo Mansfield with Alastair Hume as musical director, proves to be equally memorable – for all the right reasons, of course. It wasn’t without its problems; the venue being of a somewhat cavernous nature, body mics were a necessity but sadly there was rather too much reverb when the entire company was

Miss this play and you will miss one of the most moving, original, superbly acted plays this critic has seen in fifty years of theatre-going. It is a very local production in the sense that it deals with the relationship between William Shakespeare and the third Earl of Southampton, his undisputed patron but possibly much, much more. Was this simply an artistic patronage, helpful to each man in his assigned societal role, or was it an incredibly passionate homosexual affair that led each close to treason? It is a complicated story. You need to have your wits about you to

As an avid G&S fan, I was delighted to be asked to review Christchurch Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s production of Pirates of Penzance, and as Pirates is one of my favourite G&S operettas, how could I refuse? And what a delight it was to know from the first note of the overture that I was going to be watching something good! The overture was semi-choreographed and this was well done: first entered a group of children playing on the beach, building sandcastles and having fun, then their parents looking for a nice spot to sunbathe. The mum produced a book

Why do some composers turn out a string of successful musicals, while others will go down in history as ‘one-hit wonders’? The one-hit wonder to top them all is Lionel Bart. Blitz! bombed and Twang! failed to hit its target, but before that he had written one of the most popular musicals of the 20th century in Oliver!. This very enjoyable production shows just why it is so popular not only with the paying public (I have never seen the Barrington so full) but with the performers – the fun they are having flows off the stage and across the