REVIEW: Hidden, Mercury Theatre Colchester ✭✭✭
Crisply directed by Scott Hurran, on a highly effective set, Hidden is a sharp 75 minutes and is a play of gentle revelations.
Regional
REVIEW: Lifeboat, West Yorkshire Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭
Perhaps the greatest testament to the spell cast by Lifeboat came from the audience of children sat crossed in two rows either side of the performance space, cross-legged, unmoving, immersed and rapt.
Traverse boosts team with new associate director
Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre has appointed a new associate director to help develop new work and direct productions. Gareth Nicholls, who has directed acclaimed shows at Citizens Theatre and The Tron Theatre in Glasgow, will work alongside artistic director Orla O’Loughlin and fellow associate director Zinnie Harris. His duties will include working on the dramaturgy of in-house commissions, overseeing open submissions, directing a range of ambitious new work, contributing to creative learning projects and assisting in both year-round and Edinburgh festival curation. He will also direct a production for this August’s festival. He said: “The Traverse has been fundamental to the development of theatre in Scotland for decades, encouraging, challenging and emboldening artists to say what they want to say in vibrant and uncompromising new ways. It champions the strongest voices and supports the brightest talent to tell stories that cut straight to the heart of what it means to be … Read more
REVIEW: Play Something, Lakeside Theatre ✭✭✭✭
Play Something is a slick, funny, emotional rollercoaster of a ride with some pretty cool tunes to match – and you can’t ask for much more than that in life.
Paines Plough reveals writers for Hull 2017 project
New short plays by Tom Wells and other writers will be staged by Paines Plough in Hull to tie in with it being the UK’s City of Culture for 2017.
Brighton Fringe Preview – Our Top Picks
From small beginnings, Brighton Fringe has grown over the past five years and now features nearly 1,000 events from comedy, cabaret and music to theatre, dance and visual arts. With a programme running from May 5 to June 4, we pick out some of the theatre highlights. For more, look out for the 160-page free A4 brochure or visit www.brightonfringe.org. The world premiere of Blooming, Patrick Sandford’s take on experiences of happiness, follows his hit show Groomed, which won three Brighton Fringe theatre awards in 2016. Patrick asked 100 people, “How do you know when you are happy?”. The answers – provocative, kaleidoscopic, astonishing – were the starting point for this optimistic-in-spite-of-everything show. Sweet Dukebox, May 19-21, 25-27 Shell Shock tells one soldier’s story of coping with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, adapted from the novel, Shell Shock: The Diary of Tommy Atkins, by Iraq … Read more
FIRST LOOK: F Murray Abraham in The Mentor in Bath
We are pleased to bring you these great production images by Simon Annand of F Murray Abraham in Daniel Kehlmann’s comedy The Mentor which plays at Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio until Saturday 6 May 2017. The play stars Academy Award-winner F Murray Abraham with Daniel Weyman, Naomi Frederick and Jonathan Cullen and is directed by Ustinov Studio’s artistic director Laurence Boswell. With a translation by leading playwright Christopher Hampton, this marks the first time a Kehlmann play has been performed outside of Germany. He previously translated Florian Zeller’s play The Father for the Ustinov Studio, launching its international success. The original production of The Mentor in German opened in Vienna in 2014. In a dilapidated art nouveau villa, somewhere in the German countryside, two massive egos are set on a collision course in this perceptive and compelling comedy about art and artists and the legacy of fame. BOOK TICKETS … Read more
Out of Joint appoints new artistic director
Kate Wasserberg, the award-winning founder and artistic director of The Other Room in Cardiff, is to join Max Stafford-Clark and producer Martin Derbyshire to lead Out of Joint, the theatre company specialising in touring and new writing.
