The years following the 1929 Wall Street Crash left many Americans (and the rest of the world) facing economic hardship – a state of affairs that lasted right up until the Second World War. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the parallels between the events from nearly 100 years ago with what is happening today, with people trying to eke out a living during these depressed times. Esteemed playwright and director Conor McPherson uses this backdrop for the show Girl from the North Country, which is currently touring the UK at the moment.
‘It would be hard to find a better healing for difficult times’: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY – Touring ★★★★
This humbly immense, uniquely created show threw me for a loop five summers ago. Girl From the North Country is back on tour, via Oliviers and Broadway awards, with its miraculous marriage of poetic sensibility and hardscrabble humanity. It would be hard to find a better healing for difficult times.
‘Staging adds fascinating levels of meaning’: OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD – Touring
As a progressive company, Ramps on the Moon is leading the way by showing what inclusive theatre looks like. It is encouraging that this fundamental innovation is coming from regional UK theatres: London has a lot to learn from them.
WAITING FOR GODOT – Bristol
Premiered in 1953 in France and 1955 in London Waiting for Godot was immediately dismissed by a majority of the London intelligentsia as a work of pretentious twaddle. After Harold Hobson and Kenneth Tynan flew to its rescue in the Sundays it soon found its place as a major work of 20th century theatrical canon.
THE FATHER – Touring
It is rare that we experience dementia from the perspective of the person who is struggling with it, rather we experience it from the viewpoint of family members and carers. This idea is obviously even more difficult to dramatise in a theatre.
THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL – Bolton
Anne Brontë might not be the most heralded of her sisters but that is to underestimate the different way in which she expressed herself. The striking feminism of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall remains as powerful as ever and in Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation, directed by Elizabeth Newman for the Octagon Theatre in Bolton.
THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL – Bolton
Anne Brontë might not be the most heralded of her sisters but that is to underestimate the different way in which she expressed herself. The striking feminism of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall remains as powerful as ever and in Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation, directed by Elizabeth Newman for the Octagon Theatre in Bolton.
NOISES OFF – Octagon Theatre, Bolton
Noises Off, written by Michael Frayn, takes us behind the scenes to witness the backstage shenanigans of a shambolic theatre company. With less than twenty-four hours to go until their opening night of ‘Nothing On’ everything that can go wrong, is going hopelessly wrong. When the play opens the cast are in the throes of their dress rehearsal…or is it their technical rehearsal…nobody really seems to know. However, one thing is for certain – there are plenty of laughs in this chaotic and hilarious comedy about this dysfunctional theatre company.