It may not be the company hitting their absolute heights, but it knows what its audience wants having been versed over the past few years and plays all the hits. Like your favourite festival and a week by the pool, I’d expect it to become a summer institution.
‘A bewitching, bewildering work from one of Britain’s foremost physical theatre companies’: INSTITUTE – Bristol Old Vic ★★★
Many of us will be all too aware of the 9-to-5 drudge that office life can encompass. Yet in Gecko’s Institute, the office becomes a place of both dream and nightmare.
‘Thoughtful, detailed, durable: That’s what fires up this critic
I have often been asked if I listen to music differently when reviewing or not reviewing. It’s an interesting question. There is, you could say, a heightened level of awareness when ‘in working mode’.
NEWS: #LynsNextStep revealed… Lyn Gardner joins pioneering theatre app Stagedoor
We’ve been counting down to the announcement of #LynsNextStep and, at an industry-only event tonight at The Vaults, MyTheatreMates’ co-founder Terri Paddock is delighted to be chairing a Q&A with Lyn Gardner about her new appointment – follow us on Twitter for live-tweeting from this – but in the meantime, we’re delighted to reveal the news here!
The Mates are big fans of Lyn Gardner. Any ideas what #LynsNextStep might be?
Last week I received a mysterious invite. “Please join us on 24 October 2018 for drinks to celebrate the launch of a radical new platform for theatre criticism,” it read. That’s intriguing, but not nearly so exciting as the next bit: “…and to find out about Lyn Gardner’s next step.”
‘A celebration of all those who classify themselves as female’: MAKE MORE NOISE – Bristol ★★★★
Marking 100 years since women were first granted the vote, it’s a celebration of the women who dared to be different, and a call to arms to finally eradicate gender inequality for good.
‘Director Michael Blakemore lets Puccini work his magic’: TOSCA – Touring ★★★★
Michael Blakemore’s production of Tosca plays out with a straight bat, period appropriate, detailed sets and clear delineation of character. He lets Puccini work his magic, each act building in tension and wrapping up on cliff-hangers that make you long for the next act like your latest Netflix binge.
‘A work that in an era of #MeToo has become ever more complex’: THE TAMING OF THE SHREW – Bristol ★★★
all in all, it’s a very solid take on a work that in an era of #MeToo has become ever more complex. Working with an accomplished director as Bill Alexander is obviously paying off.
‘Soapy construct is elevated with physicality of breathtaking beauty’: THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE – Bristol ★★★
It’s rare for a new production to be demonstrably better than its source text but this one by Frantic Assembly’s Things I Know To Be True by Geordie Brookman and Scott Graham shows it can happen.
‘An explosion is waiting to happen’: PUNK ROCK – Bristol ★★★★
The sixth form common room in Simon Stephens pulsating Punk Rock is an incendiary point ready to spark. The seven sixth formers the play introduces us too are standing on an edge of a precipice, no longer children but still trapped in limbo where their exam results will decide how they enter adulthood.
Kris Hallet’s Year In Review
This was a year where the work touring into Bristol and the work I saw in Latitude, London, the cinema and New York dazzled.
THE LITTLE MERMAID – BATH ★★★★
Writer Bea Roberts has subtly altered the tale within the overall framework, and as a result, you watch it not knowing exactly where it is going to end up. A happy ending is likely guaranteed.
SNOW GLOBE – Bristol Old Vic ★★★★
For Kid Carpet’s latest show for the younger generation at BOV is packed full of questions like this. Children’s theatre may be seen as the poor relation to the more grown up stuff by some of the more sniffy members of the fraternity, but they should try standing up and perform in front of a baying pack of children.
LITTLE MATCH GIRL & OTHER HAPPIER TALES – Touring ★★★★
As Black Friday and New Year bashes grow exponentially, child poverty in the UK is on the rise. The Little Match Girl may have her origins in the Victorian era and snow flecked tales of Hans Christian Andersen but that child can still be found today in most towns and cities across the country today.
BEAUTY & THE BEAST – Bristol ★★★★
If Christmas shows are measured by the smile it puts on our faces and the gales of laughter elicited from the younger ones, then this is a stone-iron smash.
How to Disappear Completely & Never Be Found – Bristol ★★★★
Funny how some plays can disappear completely and take a while to be found. When Fin Kennedy won the John Whiting award for this work, not one theatre had responded to its open submission.
THE TIN DRUM – Touring ★★★★
Never let it be said that Cornish theatre company Kneehigh lack in ambition. Gunter Grass’ The Tin Drum has accrued significant cultural acclaim since its publication in 1959, gaining its author the Nobel Prize in Literature and later being turned into a film.
HOW TO WIN AGAINST HISTORY – Touring & London
Only the British could have produced as flamboyant and controversial a character as Henry Cyril Paget, the Fifth Marquis of Anglesey who lost his family fortune to a blitz of frocks and jewels and a desire to make theatre for the people.
EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION – Touring
If we were playing A Desert Island of theatre than Wardrobe Ensemble’s Education, Education, Education would be what I would ask for. It ticks all the boxes I most love.
PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS – Touring ★★★★★
Emma is a role to stand shoulder to shoulder with Rooster from Jerusalem. It wouldn’t surprise me in years to come if female actors mention the role in conversations about dream roles in the same way their male counterparts do Hamlet. It is, in short, a gift.
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