There are plenty of memorable tunes to match the high production values of Northern Stage’s The Last Ship. However, despite having its heart firmly affixed to its sleeve, the production never quite achieves the emotional resonance it so clearly seeks.
‘A thing of beauty’: THE LAST SHIP – Touring ★★★★
For the most part, Sting’s The Last Ship is a thing of beauty. The Geordie songwriter/pop megastar has penned a well-crafted salute to the shipbuilders of his native Newcastle Upon Tyne and their industry that has long vanished.
Debbie Gilpin on Olivier Awards: Disappointment for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie & Hamlet
So, that just happened! Despite some small disappointments in the nominations (nothing too much, just some things felt unnecessarily overlooked), I was rather looking forward to this year’s Oliviers.
‘A charming watch’: THE SHADOW FACTORY – Southampton ★★★
The Shadow Factory showcases the stupendous technological capability of this new theatre. It gives us a taster of what can be shown here and this in itself excites. A fitting inaugural production from a theatre for the people of Southampton.
OSLO – National Theatre & West End
Award-heavy American play about the Oslo Accords is informative, moving and highly entertaining.
NEWS: Howard Brenton’s Shadow Factory premiere inaugurates Southampton’s new theatre
The world premiere of Howard Brenton’s play The Shadow Factory will be the inaugural production at Southampton’s new state-of-the-art theatre, NST City, in February.
LIFE OF GALILEO – Young Vic
Whatever you may think about Bertolt Brecht’s more doctrinaire views, here’s a play in Joe Wright’s visually spectacular, star-gazing production that says exactly what needs to be said for a society reeling from and dominated by self-interest and finance.
CITY OF GLASS – Lyric Happersmith
An existentialist who writes in the film noir/crime thriller genre, a compulsive writer for whom language and its derivations are a vital, never ceasing line of enquiry as a construct that goes towards making up the human condition, are just, as I take it, some of his other ongoing concerns.
CITY OF GLASS – Lyric Hammersmith
City of Glass, the first part of Auster’s New York Trilogy, was first published in 1985. It’s an enjoyably tricksy, postmodern novel in which Daniel Quinn, a detective-story writer, becomes a freelance investigator after answering a mysterious telephone call.
Press Pass: All the overnight reviews for An American in Paris
Here’s what London is crying out for: an escape to Paris. And not the Paris of Marine Le Pen or any other modern foes and woes, but the sumptuous Hollywood Golden Age version now bursting into technicolour life onstage at the West End’s Dominion Theatre via New York and, yes, appropriately, Paris.
NEWS: Cast announced for stage premiere of Paul Auster’s City of Glass, TICKETS ONSALE
Vivienne Acheampong, Mark Edel-Hunt, Chris New and Jack Tarlton will star in the first stage adaptation of a Paul Auster novel in the UK, City of Glass, a brand new production by 59 Productions and Duncan Macmillan. TICKETS ARE NOW ONSALE with MyTheatreMates!
WONDER.LAND – National Theatre
Damon Albarn’s Alice in Wonderland musical has fun graphics, but a banal and didactic storyline — and poor tunes
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WONDER.LAND – Manchester & London
Wonder.land is a brand new musical, directed by Rufus Norris, that is being performed as part of the Manchester International Festival. Taking its inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Alice in Wonderland, the new musical tells the story of Aly, a young teen who battles with bullies at school and struggles to find happiness at home with her mother and baby brother ‘cabbage pants’ Charlie. Aly is unable to look to her father for support either, as although he loves her dearly, he is addicted to online gambling.