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Review: Near Miss at the Unity Theatre ****
The Unity is currently celebrating its rich cultural and political heritage. But while looking back, it’s worth noting it’s the ongoing commitment to supporting and nurturing new writing which remains central to its programme in the here and now. This includes Near Miss, the second in the ‘Watching Windows’ trilogy of semi-autobiographical works by Liverpool teacher, actor, director and latterly playwright Helena Rand. The first, Rotten Apple, a story of love, ambition and a
Review: Moulin Rouge! the Musical at the Liverpool Empire ****
Time flies and it’s somehow now a quarter of a century since Ewan McGregor’s Christian met Nicole Kidman’s Satine at the Moulin Rouge. It seems though that truth, beauty, freedom and love don’t have a shelf life, certainly if the reported ticket sales for Moulin Rouge! The Musical, the Empire’s glitzy summer blockbuster offering, are anything to go by. The stage musical, which started its life over the pond eight years ago where it gathered armfuls of awards, takes Baz Luhrma
Review: Tangfastic at the Hope Street Theatre ***
The Hope Street Theatre has proved a real asset to the city’s live performance scene since it opened, offering a versatile space for smaller companies and rising talent to showcase work (and work in progress) which previously found a home at places like the Lantern or Liverpool Actor’s Studio. Work like Tangfastic, an audaciously unpredictable and provocatively lairy black comedy penned by 2024 LIPA graduates Rio Star and Juliette Collins. The duo previously appeared together
Review: The Bodyguard at the Liverpool Empire ***1/2
When The Bodyguard was released in cinemas in 1992 it propelled Whitney Houston from successful music artist to global superstar. And while film critics were generally unimpressed (the movie picked up no fewer than six Razzie nominations), audiences loved it, and the soundtrack swept the board at nearly every music awards, clocking up an estimated 45 million sales to date. That music remains the beating heart (and backbone) of this stage version, on its latest visit to Liverp
Review: Haydn's Creation at the Tung Auditorium ****1/2
The Liverpool Mozart Orchestra set the bar high when it launched its 75th anniversary year last November with its president Sir Simon Rattle on the podium. Happily, it had another ace up its sleeve with which to bring the special season to a fitting close, and in jubilant fashion. The orchestra has performed Haydn throughout its three-quarters-of-a-century of music making, principally the prolific Austrian’s symphonies, but also occasionally other pieces, like his oboe concer
Review: Music of the Americas at Philharmonic Hall ****1/2
America celebrates a big birthday this July 4th. And just to show we here in the ‘old country’ don’t bear a grudge at being shown the door 250 years ago, the Phil went all-American in this exuberant Thursday night concert. Lest we forget, for many of those years Liverpool was the gateway to the ‘new world’, and those transatlantic links remain strong. But this was also a wider international affair, with the equally exuberant German pianist Frank Dupree making his first (but h
Review: Single White Female at the Liverpool Playhouse ****
Single White Female was one of several psychological thrillers that put the fear of God into cinemagoers in the late 80s and early 90s, alongside films like Fatal Attraction and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. And this new stage version of surely the second bloodiest flat share after Shallow Grave has a hint of both the infamous bunny boiler tale AND vengeful nanny vehicle about it. Rebecca Reid’s modern-day adaptation is described as ‘based on’ the original John Lutz novel/J
Review: Conteh at Liverpool's Royal Court ****
When Aron Julius first had the idea of embodying Liverpool boxing legend John Conteh on stage, he felt sure there must already be a play out there he could bring to life for a live audience. There wasn’t it seems. So rather than abandon the idea, Julius decided to write his own. Initially conceived as a one-man vehicle, with the boxer directly relating the much-chronicled highs and lows of his life and career, Julius – at that time appearing in the Royal Court’s acclaimed pro
Review: Double Indemnity at the Liverpool Playhouse ***
The 1927 murder trial of housewife Ruth Snyder and her lover Henry Judd Gray was a sensation - and among the phalanx of press in the New York courtroom were two writers who would go on to use it as inspiration for fictional tales. Journalist Sophie Treadwell revisited the murderous crime in her 1928 play Machinal. And then in 1936, fellow hack James M Cain produced his novel Double Indemnity, the cautionary tale of an insurance agent and a discontented wife who together plot
Review: Liverpool String Academy at the Tung Auditorium ****
It was the Liverpool String Academy’s inaugural concert at the city’s Tung Auditorium – but if there were any nerves among its youthful members, they certainly weren’t visible in what proved to be an accomplished and hugely impressive performance. Run by Early Music as Education (EMAE), a charity which basically does what it says on the tin by providing specialist music education for young people – irrespective of background or training – across Merseyside, Liverpool String A
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