The long timeline in Leopoldstadt allows for a comprehensive narrative, spanning from 1899 to 1955 in Vienna, Austria. A cast of forty-one, including fifteen children – this is an ambitious production. Come the interval, by which point the story has reached 1924, it is obvious to pretty much all and sundry that the good times…
There are lots of reasons not to go to war – the tools of negotiation not having been fully exhausted yet, the potential loss of life, the financial expenses incurred, and the psychological impact of battle on military personnel and civilians alike to name a few. The life of Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was not one…
Just by googling Charles Darwin (1809-1882) – other search engines are available – the famous image of the scientist is evident: the sober look of a wise, bearded man with decades of accumulated knowledge. The Wider Earth could have chosen to capitalise on that familiar picture, and while some later arguments and counter-arguments about his…
Too darn hot? Well, almost. It’s certainly a very heart-warming show. Not that long after the Chichester Festival Theatre production of Kiss Me, Kate, which transferred to The Old Vic late in 2012 comes, to misquote the title of one of the musical’s numbers, another opening of another production, this time from Opera North. This…
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote about a little girl. “When she was good / She was very good indeed, / But when she was bad, she was horrid.” Such conduct seems to apply to many people in the life of Billy Casper (Simon Stallard). A large number of other characters are taken on by ‘The…
The unique selling point in this production of The Tempest is an all-female cast (though I note, without further comment on this point, that the director, producer and musical director are all men). It’s not the first time it’s been done – the Donmar Warehouse staged a trilogy of Shakespeare plays with an all-female cast:…
There were outcries from certain quarters when Bat Out of Hell The Musical had a stint at the London Coliseum, home of the English National Opera, where performances of the likes of Carmen and The Barber of Seville would ordinarily grace the stage. But it brought punters in, including many people who would not have…
‘The Gate’ in Gate does not lead to Purgatory. Entering Purgatory assumes a period of ‘purification’ prior to entering Heaven. For these characters, even the ultimate assurance of going “upstairs” or “downstairs” is not given, and in a plot twist, it appears the chances of the ‘candidates’ entering Paradise have been scuppered through no fault…
A sense of anticipation was wholly transparent amongst the audience at Five Guys Named Moe. A significant number recalled the first time it ran in the West End in the early Nineties, and from what they tell me, the major difference here in the purpose-built Marble Arch Theatre is the immersive and interactive elements of…