A visit to The Mill at Sonning is always something to be warmly anticipated because one knows that one is going to enjoy it. Not only the show, more of that later, but the welcoming atmosphere, ambience and… the meal beforehand! New caterers have recently been appointed, and, however good the food was before, it…
A visit to the Mill at Sonning begins with an excellent two-course meal, included in the price of your theatre ticket. Just to whet your appetite, I chose an absolutely delicious Chicken Thai Green Curry, jasmine and lemon rice, followed by Dark Chocolate Tart plus raspberry coulis and cream, but there were other choices with,…
Now here is something most unusual – and also rather good: a rare revival of a late eighteenth-century ‘melodrama’ by a female playwright, Elizabeth Inchbald. Elizabeth, born in the depths of agricultural Suffolk in 1753, decided to become an actress, in spite of having a stammer, and moved to London when she was seventeen. It…
Based on Irving Berlin’s 1954 movie musical, White Christmas is a feel-good, sentimental show that makes for ideal Yule Tide entertainment, especially after one of The Mill at Sonning’s delicious two-course Christmas meals (much more than turkey!), included in the ticket price. The flimsy, corny, plot concerns song and dance act Bob and Phil (originally…
I usually find that ‘ghost’ stories do not work on stage and have sat through Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw” and this very week “Dracula”, finding them soporific experiences! But Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel’s adaptation of Rebecca Netley’s 2021 novel The Whistling is a different matter! For a start, there is Diego Pitarch’s…
Alan Ayckbourn’s ninetieth play will receive its first production at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough in a few weeks. I am old enough to have seen nearly all of them, but my favourite is perhaps Bedroom Farce which Sally Hughes’ Mill at Sonning is reviving in a stylish production by Robin Herford, who worked with…
The true story of Calendar Girls launched a global phenomenon. A group of women, members of the Knapely (Yorkshire) branch of the Women’s Institute, posed naked for a calendar intended to raise £500 for a new sofa for the cancer wing of Skipton Hospital. Within a few months £500,000 had been raised! A successful film…
This is the sort of review in which I shall quickly use up all the superlatives I know! First seen in 2021 at Sonning, Top Hat was so successful that it has justifiably just been revived. What a show! Every aspect of it is superb Firstly, of course, the 1935 Astaire/Rogers movie on which it…