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Review: Stocking Fillers at the Royal Court Studio ***1/2
Upstairs, a swearier than usual Mr Scrooge is being taught the error of his ways by three mysterious ‘ghosts’. Downstairs in the Royal Court Studio on the other hand, there are veteran fir tree fairies, megalomaniac elves, secret Santas, disastrous office parties and, above all, a reminder that this is the season of goodwill to all. The annual Royal Court Stocking Fillers is a chance for some who attend the theatre’s writing groups during the year to showcase their work in su
Review: Sleeping Beauty at the Floral Pavilion ***1/2
Deck the halls with boughs of holly – and a thicket of thorns so fiendish it will take a handsome prince to hack through. ‘Tis the season to be jolly. And there’s plenty to be jolly about in the Floral Pavilion’s seasonal offering Sleeping Beauty, which delivers the classic story with a good sprinkling of the songs of the year including Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club and – seemingly unavoidable if you go to any panto anywhere this Christmas – K-Pop earworm Golden. There's als
Review: Cinderella at the Epstein Theatre ****
It is, according to Andy Williams, the most wonderful time of the year. And Cinderella is the most famous fairytale of them all. So put the two together and you already have a winning combination. Inject plenty of high energy and hi-jinks into the proceedings and resistance is futile, even for the biggest Christmas curmudgeon or the grinchiest Grinch. That’s certainly the maxim of Regal Entertainments, purveyors of festive tomfoolery for over quarter of a century and the team
Review: Young Frankenstein at the Liverpool Playhouse ****
It’s five years now since the Liverpool Playhouse last staged an overt ‘Christmas’ production – Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for a socially distanced season mid-pandemic. Since then, while they’ve continued to rock ‘n’ roll up the road in Hope Street, the Playhouse has experimented with its festive offerings, from Fantastically Great Women and fantastically feisty female monarchs (SIX the Musical) to the spookily supernatural (The Woman in Black) and the outrageously camp in th
Review: Matilda the Musical at the Liverpool Empire *****
It recently entered its 15 th year on the London stage, putting it in the top 10 of longest-running West End shows. But when the RSC commissioned the stage musical version of Roald Dahl’s children's book Matilda back in December 2008, it was a leap of faith for a company best known for presenting the works of Shakespeare to generations of theatregoers. Not only that, but they enlisted musicals first timer Dennis Kelly to adapt the book, and kohl-eyed, wild-haired Aussie come
Review: Stella at the Unity Theatre ****
Robert Farquhar’s sharply scripted, comi-tragic one-woman play Stella charmed audiences when it was given an initial outing at the Unity Theatre’s Up Next Festival earlier this year. It sold out then and it’s practically sold out again on its pre-Christmas return to the Hope Place stage with the kinetic Kalli Tant reprising her role as the lead (in fact all the play’s) character(s). Pleasingly for a story about a young woman on a tumultuous journey of self-discovery, the audi
Review: Rachmaninov with Sir Stephen Hough at Philharmonic Hall ****1/2
It’s turning into a season of homecomings in Hope Street. Earlier this month, Sir Simon Rattle brought his acclaimed Bavarian orchestral outfit to the Philharmonic Hall to kickstart a pre-Christmas European tour in fine fashion. And in the spring, Huyton piano genius Paul Lewis returns to play Beethoven on the hall’s Steinway. Sandwiched in between, Sir Stephen Hough, whose formative years were spent in the Art Deco auditorium – surrounded by its ‘daring’ gold relief of naked
Review: Jack and the Beanstalk at the Liverpool Everyman ****
This year’s Everyman Rock ‘n’ Roll panto comes with a content warning – for silliness, songs, glitter and water guns. And if the physical glitter is mostly confined to Liam Tobin’s extravagant false eyelashes, there’s certainly plenty of silliness, a thumping soundtrack of songs and a traditional seasonal soaking on offer. After a rocky couple of Christmas seasons around the time of Covid, with changes in personnel and storytelling emphasis (it all got a bit too serious and p
Review: The Scouse Christmas Carol at Liverpool Royal Court ****1/2
‘Will Charlie Dicko spin so fast in his grave that a sinkhole opens up?’ the Royal Court ponders in the marketing for its entertainingly larky take on the Victorian scribe’s much-loved, much-told Christmas ghost story. I’m not so sure. Because the ghost of Dickens past like a lark himself. Take the ‘lighthearted and frolicksome’ farce, Mr Nightingale’s Diary, which he penned with Punch editor Mark Lemon and performed on stage at the Philharmonic Hall in 1852 with his chums (i
Review: Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at Philharmonic Hall *****
Monday is not a usual music-making night at the Phil, but when one of Liverpool’s most famous sons (Sir Simon Rattle) drops in with one of the world’s foremost orchestras (the Bavarian Radio Symphony), it would be rude not to break with convention. And there was certainly a real sense of occasion in the auditorium for this bonus highlight of the 2025/26 season. Rattle, who turned 70 earlier this year, and his latest crack German outfit, are on a whistlestop European autumn to
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