top of page
Recent News
Archive
Review: The Shawshank Redemption at the Liverpool Playhouse ****
Those of us of a certain vintage will remember going to see The Shawshank Redemption on the big screen back in 1994. Frank Darabont’s cinematic retelling of Stephen King’s novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption was a real gut-punch of a watch, and it was its misfortune that when it came to Oscar time – where it was nominated for seven awards – it found itself up against the twin juggernauts of Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction. Three decades on, much of that gut-punch is
Mischa Barton on her femme fatale role at the Liverpool Playhouse
The OC’s Mischa Barton is making her UK stage debut in a new production of Hollywood thriller Double Indemnity which comes to Liverpool this month – and it seems she’s looking forward to her first visit to the banks of the Mersey. “I’ve always heard such incredible things about Liverpool - the music history, the warmth of the people and the energy of the city,” says the British-American actor who has carved a busy and successful career on the small and big screen. “So, I’m re
Review: Waiting for Godot at the Liverpool Everyman *****
It may be a play where, as the tagline goes, “nothing happens…then nothing happens again”, but Samuel Beckett’s tragicomic masterpiece on the human condition is rich in incident and Shakespearean in scope. And it also fair twangs with vividness and life in this tremendous new co-production between Liverpool, Glasgow Citizen and Bolton Octagon, which features a pair of peerless performances from Everyman alumni Matthew Kelly and George Costigan. Jean Chan’s frayed set (even th
Up Next Festival returns to the Unity Theatre this month
The Up Next Festival is set to return to the Unity Theatre this month for a fifth year. The 2026 festival takes place from March 25-28 and will feature 20 new and diverse performances – many of them work-in-progress, readings, workshops and a guided walk, created by Merseyside artists. The Hope Place theatre started the festival in 2021 as a response the Covid pandemic and the seismic effect it had on live performance, providing a vital platform for new work with the aim of s
Review: The Memory of Water at the Liverpool Everyman ****
It’s been 30 years since Shelagh Stephenson’s darkly comic play premiered at the Hampstead Theatre, going on to transfer to the West End and Broadway and winning an Olivier to boot. And while the creamy tones of Nat King Cole might punctuate scene changes in this sparky revival at the Liverpool Everyman, it’s the sound of the Spice Girls which drags us back aurally to 1996, the year of genetically modified crops, royal divorces, Dunblane, Dolly the sheep and Trainspotting. In
Review: The Woman in Black at the Liverpool Playhouse ****1/2
Sometimes you simply have to pause and marvel at our desire to be scared witless – surely humankind being a strange outlier among the rest of the animal kingdom. True, the experience is accompanied by the knowledge the films, TV shows, plays, stories or ghost hunts which provoke that thrilling adrenaline spike are a safe kind of scare. We remain physically, if not psychologically, unscathed – who hasn't had the urge to check over their shoulders or under their beds at some ti
Review: The Ghost of Graves End at the Unity Theatre ****1/2
Two months after his one-woman tragi-comedy Stella roared on to the Unity stage, busy Liverpool playwright Robert Farquhar is back with another whirlwind of a show. And if you are a fan of Farquhar, and particularly his work with - the now sadly defunct – Big Wow, a sucker for a chilling theatrical experience or a lover of off-the-wall comedy, you won’t want to miss it. Ostensibly an affectionate homage to, and send-up of, ghost stories like Susan Hill’s ever popular The Wom
Follow the Dream at Shakespeare North this February
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is at Shakespeare North Playhouse this week, direct from the Globe in London. Shakespeare’s much-loved sprite-ly comedy is being staged at the Prescot venue’s Cockpit Theatre until tomorrow at the start of a national tour. The show, which explores the darker side of the Bard's seemingly mischievous tale, is a co-production between Shakespeare’s Globe and Headlong (with Bristol Old Vic and Leeds Playhouse). To escape a society ruled by tyrannical law,
Five shows to see at the Floral Pavilion in 2026
Theatre audiences and fans of live performance are in for a treat all over Merseyside during 2026 – including at the Floral Pavilion. The New Brighton venue has lined up a programme of music, comedy, cabaret, children’s shows and drama for audiences to enjoy, including a return for acclaimed new Country musical Under the Mersey Moon and the unmissable Something About George which pays homage to the late, great George Harrison. Meanwhile there are plenty of other touring treat
Britannia Waves the Rules returns to Hope Street
A powerful and poignant play which takes an unflinching look at the challenges faced by working-class young men in Britain today is set to return to the Hope Street Theatre this month. Playwright Gareth Farr’s Britannia Waves the Rules received acclaim when it was staged at the venue last autumn. Now Wirral’s Off the Ground Theatre, which presented the original production, is bringing it back for three nights only, from January 14-16. Carl Jackson is a young man from Blackpoo
bottom of page