Reviews

Lyndhurst Drama & Musical Society    Vernon Theatre, Lyndhurst Darren Funnell 17 October 2025 Lyndhurst Drama and Musical Society’s version of The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow is a cheeky adaptation of Hitchcock’s 1935 thriller which turns high-stakes espionage into well-polished anarchy. Richard Hannay, a suave but spectacularly unlucky English gent, blessed with a “very attractive pencil moustache and nothing much else to do”, becomes entangled in a plot involving a mysterious woman, a murder, and something called, with great significance, ‘The 39 Steps’.  It’s less “wrong man on the run” and more “wrong/right prop in the wrong/right place at the

Ferndown Drama    Barrington Theatre, Ferndown Andrea Pellegrini 17 October 2025   This was my first time at the Barrington to watch a Ferndown Drama production and what a treat it was! The Ladykillers play is based on the 1955 Ealing Studios comedy, starring Alex Guiness and Peter Sellers. It tells the story of 5 criminals, led by Professor Marcus, who plan to use dear sweet old Mrs Wilberforce’s house as a base for their plan to rob a van near a railway station, whilst masquerading as a string quartet. The play is set in two rooms, a bedroom and a

Studio Theatre    Studio Theatre, Salisbury Philip & Julie McStraw 14 October 2025 The latest production by the award-winning Studio Theatre is Ukrainian playwright Nikolai Gogal’s timeless satire The Government Inspector. However, note the all-important sub-title ( A Little Local Difficulty) because this adaptation is quite a transformation from the original play, which on publication in 1836 led to a great outcry from Russian conservatives and traditionalists who discredited it as being subversive and anti-establishment. Apparently, Tsar Nicholas overruled the censors and endorsed the play, which he considered to be “a cheerful mockery of bad provincial officials”. Superficially, that is precisely what

Bishopstoke Players   Durley Memorial Hall, Durley David A Putley 9 October 2025 Following a commercial success at The Mast in Southampton, it is good to see that Howard Brenton’s play is now available for the amateur circuit, especially as it can be performed in the area the action takes place in, with keen references particularly to Woolston and Hursley. The play is set in the dark days of war-torn Britain in 1940 when the Southampton Submarine Spitfire factory in Woolston was destroyed by a heavy bombing attack by the Luftwaffe, but thankfully the machine tools survived. Southampton is full of

Phoenix Musical Theatre  Barrington Centre, Ferndown John Sivewright 9 October 2025   There’s a pantomime in October? Oh yes, there is! Christmas has come early in Ferndown with Phoenix Musical Theatre’s production of Dick Whittington. The witty, homegrown script, from the pen of Alice Weller (who also played Dick), full of dad jokes aplenty, followed a traditional plotline while bringing us a Lady Fitzwarren and Queen Rat, giving some of the ladies in the group a chance to shine. Alice as Dick and Marie Cormack as Alice Fitzwarren were a splendid leading couple, with strong chemistry and beautiful singing. Marion Colmer

Thrown Together Theatre and The Dalian Players   Woolston Methodist Church, Itchen Mark Ponsford 4 October 2025   One of my favourite quotes, courtesy of Charles Dickens, is “These accidental parties are always the pleasantest”, and it was thanks to an accidental quirk of fate that I was afforded the opportunity to review this (comparatively) new musical, now reworked following its initial airing in 2019 at the much-missed Nuffield Theatre. The creation and promotion of New Musicals is always a cause for rejoicing (Aardvarks Can’t Jump Productions’ series of New MT writing and performances at the Southampton Stage Door is consistently