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Review: Take Me Home County Road at Liverpool's Royal Court ****
Liverpool’s Royal Court has a history of nurturing the talents of its extended theatrical ‘family’ – encouraging staff, and also members of its regular cast, to develop their own ideas and projects. Linzdi Germain and Angela Simms’ knockabout hospital comedy The Royal springs immediately to mind. Actor Adam McCoy made his own Roe Street debut appearing downstairs in the Studio in Masquerade, penned by Laura Lees who was working in the box office at the time. Now in turn, McCo
Review: No One Will Tell Me How to Start a Revolution at the Unity Theatre ****
Liverpool playwright Luke Barnes’ No One Will Tell me How to Start a Revolution is a furious and often intensely funny exploration of working-class identity, social (im)mobility, class prejudice and quashed potential. It started life almost a decade ago in the leafy and decidedly middle-class north London enclave of Hampstead. And while the theatre there has a longstanding reputation as a bastion of new writing, this latest incarnation (one night only - but with the hope of a
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: Taking the Piste at Liverpool's Royal Court ***1/2
On paper, the story of the Kirkby Ski Slope seems wildly improbable – so wild indeed that even those folk at the Royal Court, where no plotline is too outlandish, reportedly thought playwright Kieran Lynn had jumped the shark. But this is no fictional tale of council corruption and ineptitude, it actually happened. Perhaps it’s only really surprising that it’s taken half-a-century for someone to turn it into a piece of entertainment. Taking the Piste (not to be confused with
Review: Nell Gwynn at Shakespeare North Playhouse ****
Teenage orange hawker, feisty and droll star of the stage and finally the much-loved, long-term romantic partner of a king. Restoration playwrights would no doubt have chewed off their left arms to create a character even half as bold and memorable as Nell Gwynn, the woman who - for a brief time - became their real-life muse. And some 350 years on, Gwynn proves an equally luminous presence in Jessica Swale’s warm, witty and effervescent celebration of a very human heroine, br
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
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