Reviews

Encore Theatre Productions  Forest Arts Centre, New MiltonJohn Sivewright18 September 2026 I have a confession to make: I was a huge X-Factor fan back in its mid-late 00’s heyday.  I was therefore chomping at the bit to see Catch a Falling Star, a new, homegrown musical from Encore Theatre Productions that combined an emotional, pathos-filled plot with some excellent parodying of the reality show genre.  The show sees separated at birth twins, Nicole and Emma, fly through the auditions of ‘Rising Starz’, and follows their journey through the crazy world of TV talent competition, while also seeing the girls dealing

P&P Productions  Barrington Theatre, FerndownCaroline Burr16 September 2026 P&P Players have chosen four short plays from the various volumes of Deckchairs written by Jean McConnell, which are all set near the sea. This is a popular choice for amateur groups as each has a cast of two women, is easy to stage and can be combined in any order to suit the talents of the group and their audience. I had very much enjoyed this group’s recent production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, so was looking forward to the evening’s entertainment.  Deckchairs poses a challenge in that The

Broadstone Players  War Memorial Hall, BroadstoneKD Johnson04 September 2026 Broadstone Players have run this event most years for 30 years.  They take some relatively easy one-act plays and give them to first-time directors and performers to present on stage at the Broadstone War Memorial Hall – with some assistance from the company’s experienced players.  In this year’s show there are, we are told, 3 new directors and 6 new actors – I don’t recognise any of the names from previous shows so the challenge is to spot which are the old hands and which are the newbies. The audience are seated

Poulner Players   Ringwood Waldorf SchoolPhilip & Julie McStraw19 August 2026 School of Rock the Musical is based on the blockbuster 2003 film starring Jack Black, and has been reinvented for the stage, with equally incredible success, by Andrew Lloyd Webber working with Glenn Slater and Julian Fellows. One thing for certain is that the film is being shown, and the musical is being performed, somewhere in world and at any given moment in time. Now the Poulner Players have brought this high-energy feel-good story to Ringwood Waldorf School, a fitting setting, for us to enjoy this week. The prime character is

All Saints’ Dramatic Society  Kinson Community Centre, BournemouthSuzanne Viney14 August 2026 When The Guardian described Two as an exploration of “the surface gaiety and underlying melancholia of English pub life”, they hit the nail squarely on the head! To describe it as a “dark comedy” oversimplifies the layers of emotion presented by these multifaceted characters. This play, despite being set in a Northern pub at the end of the 1980s, transcends time and place: it is a play about being human and interacting with other humans. Originally intended as a play for two actors playing multiple roles (hence the title), the

CentreStage Productions Youth Theatre  The Arch, EastleighJon Cockeram05 August 2026 The evening was bright, down the road I did march To go see a show, that was on at the Arch Seussical Jr, a show I’d not seen So listen up closely, hark and be keen Enough of the rhyming for the moment (my editor will have a fit if I carry on like that), on with the review! Dr Seuss is a well-known kid’s author, having created such oddities as the Grinch, the Lorax and, perhaps, most famously, the Cat in the Hat, all whilst telling us why he won’t