Fernando Sakanassi’s production of David Gaitán’s 2009 play, that originally premiered in Mexico in Spanish, is described as a ‘work-in-progress’, but its modern telling of Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel feels tight, pacey and well-considered for its studio space and fringe limited run as part of the Actors’ Centre’s Latin American Season. With an ensemble cast of…
Whilst Dickens has pretty much cornered the spooky-meets-heart-warming Christmas theatre tradition, Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost (written only some 40 years after A Christmas Carol) makes an interesting festive family alternative without any explicit yuletide subject matter. The work is as droll and arch as you’d expect from the legendary 19th century wit plus offers…
Tom Glover’s one-act comedy has plenty of gags, some fine actors and an essentially interesting conceit but it doesn’t really gel as a full-length play. Feeling very much like it belongs in the first phases of ITV pilot writing from a few decades ago, this play is not especially funny nor particularly important although it…
Fun, funky and thoroughly magical, this cultural classic is brought to life with so much spectacle and joy, you’ll feel the thrills of a rollercoaster ride and the uplift of a Christmas special – but none of the saccharine elements that make grown-up’s teeth hurt. Kids empathise with kind and wise Matilda and relish the…
The Show in Which Hopefully Nothing Happens is a child-centric theatrical masterpiece that feels like Pinter meeting pantomime for the Pixar audience. My two six-year-old co-critics were rapt from the moment they entered the Unicorn’s black box Clore Theatre and beamed and belly-laughed for the play’s duration. Veterans of quality children’s theatre, like The Gruffalo’s…
