Theatre reviews for you, by you. If you would like to review for us,
please contact us including a short review of what you have seen recently.

Writer/Director: Steve Steinman Reviewer: Ian Cain The Public Reviews Rating: Take the greatest rock anthems of all time, mix with the star quality of punk legend Toyah Willcox and add a story about vampires lurking in the New York of the near future and you have all the elements of Steve Steinman’s ‘Vampires Rock’. The year is 2030, the place is New York’s seedier side, and the naive Pandora (played by Emily Clark) has decided to skip school in favour of attending an audition to be the Live and Let Die club’s new resident rock chick. Upon entering the hedonistic club, she encounters the janitor (played by John Evans) who, in turn, introduces her to Baron Von Rockula (played by Steve Steinman). Unbeknownst to Pandora, the Baron is an immortal vampire who has grown tired of his 2,000 year old wife, the Devil Queen (played by Toyah Willcox), and is on the lookout for a brand new bride. The pretty Pandora looks like the perfect candidate. ‘Vampires Rock’ is a riotous, raunchy romp through rock’s greatest hits, including classics by Queen, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Billy Idol, Meatloaf, Bonnie Tyler and AC/DC. The songs are delivered with energy and commitment and even the acoustics of the five piece band could not drown out the soaring vocals of Willcox, Steinman and Clark. Steinman had no trouble establishing a rapport with the capacity crowd and was completely at ease when exchanging some playful banter with some good-humoured hecklers in the stalls. It is obvious that the show has a massive fan base, similar to the following that ‘The Rocky Horror Show enjoys, and just as evident that many of the crowd had seen it before. Willcox looks and sounds better than ever and exudes attitude and sexiness in spades as the PVC-clad Devil Queen, who is [...]

Writer: Alan Ayckbourn Director: Nikolai Foster Reviewer: Ruth Lovett The Public Reviews Rating: Absent Friends takes place one ordinary afternoon in 1974 when a group of friends get together for tea to catch up with an old friend who has returned to the area having left three years previously and having recently lost his fiancée who drowned. The play takes place in real time and from the beginning of Act One it is clear there are tensions between the group as Diana (Kerry Peers) shows a strong dislike for the newest member of the group, Evelyn (Poppy Tierney) who is married to John (Dominic Gateley). Diana is an average, cheery middle-aged woman who takes great pride in her abilities as a mother, housewife and homemaker who has decided to invite Colin (David Crellin) round to console him. Despite having memories of good times had in the past, it quickly becomes apparent that the rest of the guests, John, Evelyn and Paul (Steven Pinder); Diana’s husband were not that keen on Colin and are reluctant guests at the gathering. Only Marge (Samantha Giles) supports Diana although Marge is meek and a bit of a doormat who dotes on her husband, Gordon, who we never see but is mentioned frequently and is a source of amusement for the rest of guests. Much of Act One focuses on the group preparing for Colin’s arrival and discussions about what to say to man whose fiancée has drowned. John reveals he is uncomfortable discussing death and proceeds to provide much amusement for the audience with a serious of nervous ticks and boundless energy, much to exasperation of his friends. As the play unfolds, it becomes apparent that Diana and Paul’s marriage is an unhappy one with both partners resenting each other. John may have a young and attractive [...]

Writer: Aillis Ni Ryan Director: Paula Simms Reviewer:Katherine Kirwin The Public Reviews Rating: Cell is an intense and disturbing look into a day of a bright but disturbed young Irishman who is living as a recluse in his bedroom in his parent’s house, with an imaginary alter-ego questioning each of his decisions. He has not left his bedroom for two years and the only company he has is the voice of his alter-ego. We see his mother delivering his meals to outside his door, and her desperate attempts to connect with her son and keep him connected to the real world through her daily updates. There were no programme notes available with this play so I am unable to name each of the actors in Cell, however, it is worth saying that Cell is a tour-de-force of strong dramatic performances from every actor involved. I have never been so engrossed in watching someone consume a hard-boiled egg, or doing star jumps, but I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the performance of Hickey as he attempts to fill his reclusive day. The minutia of his daily life is absorbing and was performed as if it was as important as Shakespeare, which made it feel that important to the audience. The physical performance of Hickey was stunning, his jawline and the tension in his neck looked like it expressed every emotion he had ever felt in his life. The performance of his mother(actress unknown) was the strongest of the show in my opinion. her quiet desperation and how she told the sadness of her life through her eyes whilst trying to maintain a cheery voice outside Hickey’s door was one the best performances I have seen this year. However, it must be said that there was not much content to Cell, [...]

Writer/Director: Billy Cowan Music: Jamie Summers Reviewer: Katherine Kirwin The Public Reviews Rating: Truant Company are a company which focus upon creating new theatrical work which examines the world from the perspective of queer identity and sub-culture. Care Takers was performed at The Lowry, The Oldham Coliseum and The Unity in Liverpool as part of homotopia and was selected to be part of the Re:Play festival, as an example of the best theatre seen in smaller venues across Manchester & Salford in 2009. In Care Takers we are presented with a naturalistic setting of a deputy head’s office in a school and the two actresses portrayed a series of escalating encounters between a new teacher (strong performance by Annamarie Bayley)and her deputy head (Penny McDonald). The NQT believes a pupil in her class is being bullied because he is gay however the deputy head, desperate for promotion, wants to take a laissez-faire attitude toward the situation and let the children sort it out. However, from the outset the script suggests that there is an agenda behind her refusal to get involved or incorporate homophobia into their PSHE lessons. This was a strongly written piece of theatre which, as a teacher’s daughter I can confirm, was bang-on with it’s language and “teacher-isms” making it amusing and well-researched. The politics of the teacher who has risen into management versus the newly qualified teacher who cares and is involved with the children at a grass-roots level was interesting and engaging although didn’t really bring anything new to the table. The performances were very pacy and the cutting over each-other’s speech was amusing and effective at first, but began to wear thin towards the end. The issue of the teaching of homophobia as a mainstream PSHE issue alongside racism and sex education in schools was raised well [...]

Writer: John Godber Director: Antony Law Reviewer: Agnes Frimston The Public Reviews Rating: John Godber’s comedy was voted one of the greatest plays of the 20th century in a National Theatre poll, so I felt rather ashamed yesterday rocking up to the theatre and having never even heard of it. The rest of the audience didn’t appear to be as ignorant as me though, and the number of 14 year-old boys packed into the basement theatre meant Bouncers has presumably returned to a syllabus somewhere. The four actors, David Bauckham, Antony Law, Simon Higgins and Luke Stevenson, create a lively, vulgar, and at times violent Friday night at Mr. Cinder’s Club, with no sets or props except for four rather naff handbags. It is a model of empty-space theatricality and completely reliant on the individual actors and their ability to keep the audience enraptured. These four chaps conjure a world of hairdressers, northern pubs, urinals and back-street shenanigans, and switch between 3 different foursomes; the girls, the boys, and the bouncers themselves. The performers were all brilliant. Antony Law also directed the production, and one can tell this is very much his baby: he is the most interactive and engaged with the audience. The cast were energetic and enthusiastic, and kept the audience involved all the way through. My one quibble was that I did feel as if I was being shouted at continually, and I wasn’t even in the front row. This is a tiny theatre, and some of the performances were a little too big at times, as if rehearsed for a much larger space. Whilst the performances were impressive, I can’t agree that the script is one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. None of the characters ever developed beyond caricatures, especially the women, and although in places [...]

Writer: Tim Firth Director: Psyche Stott Reviewer: Howard Holdsworth The Public Reviews Rating: The story of Calendar Girls is familiar to most of the nation over the age of 21, but this production managed to bring vitality and freshness to all aspects of the play, whilst pulling the emotions of the audience across the wide open spaces of the auditorium of the Festival Theatre. The WI world of the Dales is easily transported to the furthest corners of Britain as behind the façade of “Jam and Jerusalem” Tim Firth shows that a heart of pure gold beats strongly and selflessly. I suspect William Blake would have been bemused to see how 21st Century Britain now uses “Jerusalem” as he wrote it as a savage attack on the spread of industrialisation. As a counterpoint Firth makes us witness the peeling back of the layers to see the cancer within the society as represented by the almost unnoticed demise of John (movingly portrayed by Colin Tarrant). And yet this is a play punctuated with great guffaws of laughter as we snuggle into those elements in human nature that make us burst forth. The assembled ladies of the society each in turn give cause for one and all to laugh. The cause of this mirth is brought to us through the highly skilled pen of Tim Firth for as always it is in the everyday that the best laughs are to be found. Against a simple backdrop of the inside of a village hall, complete with badminton lines, we witness the mutual mocking of the central characters as they begin to reveal information about both their pasts and their presents, in anticipation of the greater revelations yet to come. Cora (Letitia Dean) has a sauciness which interests, whilst Chris (Lynda Bellingham) seems to be the rebel [...]

Writer: Doug Lucie Director: Stephen Glover Reviewer: Honour Bayes The Public Reviews Rating: A fearlessly sharp look at the battle of both the sexes and morality within a bourgeoisie middle-class semi-detached environment, Doug Lucie’s caustically funny Progress is nothing if not cutting. With withering precision Lucie sets up and knocks down each of his boorish characters until they are all pretty much as horrible as each other. Only Ronee, who in a moment of defiance finds her salvation in the arms of a woman and the potty mouthed and foul brained ‘hack’ Mark avoid this degrading process. Perhaps this is because both are completely true to themselves; hypocrisy seems to be the worst of all sins. Will and Ronee are two self righteous do-gooder types who live with ‘resident damp patch’ Mark. Will’s manipulative sexual experiments to keep their marriage alive have seriously backfired and so he rather limply busies himself with a male self help group whilst Ronee has a passionate fling with a lesbian and plays Good Samaritan by inviting a beaten wife into their clearly unhappy marital home. Mark crashes about being generally obnoxious and slowly the parallels between himself and Will are drawn; all men, it would seem, are the same deep down. Stephen Glover’s production often seems stiff and does little to add any humanity to the bold and blatant character types that Lucie draws so contemptuously; indeed at times this play feels slightly like a rotting wound it’s lines are so viciously drawn. Its saving grace comes in Lucie’s undoubtedly witty satirical jibes that make a mockery of the woolly liberal values; Lucie has no time for these people who ‘stood up’ to Thatcherite conservatism whilst riddled with their own hypocritical prejudices. The cast also rise to the challenge at points with Victoria Strachan’s impassioned ending as [...]

Artistic Director: Phillip Gardey Adaption by: Tony Wilkie-Millar & Tian Run Min Original Music by: Mr Wu Jia Ji & Ms. Zhang Hongtao Reviewer: Poppy Helm The Public Reviews Rating: Rarely have I been so excited before a performance – a trip to the circus obviously brings out the child in me; a little ironic considering the surprisingly elderly audience in attendance at The Lowry – for the most part, the grandkids seem to have been left at home. In many ways, this is quite a grown up show; the cast are undeniably talented, bringing together martial arts, acrobatics and dance in an understated but thoroughly impressive fashion. This is not only entertainment, but a celebration of world class expertise, featuring both the famous Shaolin Warriors and a lead actress, Cao Jing, with three martial arts titles to her name. The narrative, based on a popular Chinese story, is somewhat extraneous, it’s purpose serving to link the acts together in a show that is spectacular enough to stand on its own. This journey is led by the twitchy Monkey King and every-hungry Pig, the latter inexplicably dressed as a New York taxi driver that left me wondering whether I was missing an ‘in’ joke somewhere. The opening scene sets the bar high with Chinese Dragons that move in perfect synchronicity as they wiggle and bounce to oriental music. Every movement is carefully choreographed, from the cast’s hands to the blinking eyes of the Dragons. The odd stray hat or dropped Diablo are inevitable in such an ambitious show but the acts appears sufficiently effortless that you can simply relax in the pleasure of watching rather than cringe in anticipation of the next blunder. Although I was initially skeptical about how well a circus act would work under a proscenium arch, the cast succeed [...]