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The Deep Blue Sea – West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

Writer: Terence Rattigan Director: Sarah Esdaile Reviewer: Stephanie Walls The Public Reviews Rating: ★★★★☆ Several years ago I was sitting in a British Theatre Seminar when my lecturer sighed heavily and exclaimed ‘It’s such a shame no one will put on Rattigan plays anymore…you’ll be lucky to ever see one…’ But she needn’t have feared! 2011, 100 years since [...]

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WHAT’S HOT – 14th February 2011

What can modern technology add to the theatrical experience? I don’t mean electric lighting and walkie-talkies for back stage staff – I mean the on-stage trickery. A spate of theatre companies and houses are currently experimenting with cutting-edge gadgetry and pushing away at the boundary between theatre and film. The Barbican, for example, have just [...]

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Mission to Mars, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

Writer: Clare Duffy, Jon Spooner, Chris Thorpe Director: Jon Spooner Reviewer: Sara Jackson The Public Reviews Rating: ★★☆☆☆ It’s always strange to attend a press night of a children’s theatre show, I don’t think it ever helps the performance to have an audience full of adults all sat with there arms folded waiting to be entertained. But if there [...]

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Phoenix Dance Theatre: Reflected – West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

Artistic Director: Sharron Watson Reviewer: Sara Jackson The Public Reviews Rating: ★★★★☆ Phoenix Dance theatre’s Reflection is the first of the company’s productions under new Artistic Director Sharron Watson who was appointed in May last year. It is made up of 4 dance works featuring 7 dancers and 1 live musician. The first piece Switch, Choreographed by Richard Wherlock, [...]

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Opera North: Carmen– Grand Theatre, Leeds

Music: Georges Bizet Text: Henri Meilhac & Ludovic Halevy Director: Daniel Kramer Reviewer: Nicola Harrison The Public Reviews Rating: ★★★½☆ ‘Love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame…He has never known law.If you don’t love me, I love you.If I love you, watch yourself.’ Carmen is a French opera, based on the novel by Prosper Merimee, [...]

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Aladdin – West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

Writer: Mike Kenny Music: Ivan Stott Director: Gail McIntyre Reviewer: Nicola Harrison The Public Reviews Rating: ★★★★☆ ‘…the things that emerge instinctively are usually the things that are most clear in an audience’s imagination.’ The starting point for any creative script is the seed from which it is produced. It is here that we are introduced to Leeds Market, [...]

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Sex & Docks & Rock ‘n’ Roll – The Seven Arts Theatre, Leeds

Music & lyrics: Boff Whalley Director: Rod Dixon Reviewer: Nicola Harrison The Public Reviews Rating: ★★★★½ ‘Just ignore the party leaders, With all their dirty fingers in the pie.’ This musical comedy, brought to us by the Red Ladder touring theatre company is on tour from 22nd November to 22nd December 2010. Red Ladder has been producing entertaining and [...]

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A Christmas Carol – West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

Book: Charles Dickens Adaptor: Bryony Lavery Music & lyrics: Jason Carr Director: Nikolai Foster Reviewer: Nicola Harrison The Public Reviews Rating: ★★★★☆ ‘…a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner.’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ was first published by Chapman & Hall in December 1843. It was written in early Victorian Britain at a time when past Christmas traditions were [...]

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