Reviews

My first thought about this play by Aimee and Philip Stuart was that it had probably been written fairly recently, possibly as a kind of spin-off from the Mr Selfridge TV series; I was totally wrong, as it was actually published in 1930 and made into a film just two years later. This all-female production, which, as always, combines the skills of graduating students from acting, costume and performance design, as well as make-up for media and performance, is set in the dress and hat department of an upmarket shop in London’s Regent Street in the early 1930s and deals

During the overture, played by an excellent orchestra under musical director Lee Marchant, a captioned slide-show gives the background to the story. It makes the thought-provoking point that before the farmers and the cowmen could move in, the Native Americans had to be chased off the land by a combination of military action and iniquitous treaties, and closes with the campaign to make Oklahoma a state. From there it is a natural segue into a full-cast rendering of ‘Oklahoma!’, the big number for which one normally has to wait until the end of act 2. Sacrificing that spine-tingling opening when

There can be only one way to begin this review of Ferndown Drama’s latest production in their 55-year history, which is to celebrate the fact that their home, the Barrington Theatre, is still their home. Circumstances beyond their control led to an abrupt, early and, I’m sure, traumatic end to their run of Outside Edge and it was especially enjoyable to be welcomed in what was very much a low-key, ‘business as usual’ way to the opening performance of Derek Benfield’s Murder for the Asking. The play is described as a thriller although, as played here at least, ‘teaser’ would

OK, I ’fess up. When I was an English undergraduate at Southampton University, G B Shaw, along with Oscar Wilde, was a fairly easy option on the finals drama paper: well-made plays, clear political agenda, set speeches etc. So a contemporary production of probably the best-known Shavian folk story (My Fair Lady, Pretty Woman), promising special techno effects, should therefore be a sure (no pun intended) winner, no? Problem is, times have changed, enormously. The right accent, as in RP, is almost an obstacle to success. Positive discrimination in pronunciation, as in so much else, now militates against what used

This concert celebrates the fact that the society is 70 years old this year, having first seen the light of day in December 1947 with a production of HMS Pinafore at Bournemouth Town Hall. For a great part of that time the late Edna Tice was its doyenne, and she firmly believed that concerts ‘are our shop window’, meaning that they had to be so good that audiences would be keen to buy tickets for the main annual production later that year. Unfortunately, it might have been better if the blind had been down on this particular shop window, because

Do you ever come out of a theatre asking yourself, ‘Why did the author bother to write that?’ On the rare occasions when I do, my first reaction is that I must have missed something of deep significance in or about the play. In the case of The Only Girl in the World, I’m pretty sure I didn’t: Glyn Maxwell has achieved distinction as a poet, novelist and playwright, but in this case he has come up with a turkey. He is writing about Mary Jane Kelly, the last victim of Jack the Ripper, and even though one hardly expects