REVIEW: The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, West Yorkshire Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe at West Yorkshire Playhouse

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe West Yorkshire Playhouse Five Stars Coming to Bridge Theatre London Christmas 2019 Part of the magic of Christmas is about the telling of stories, from Scrooge and ‘It’s a wonderful life’ to ‘the Snowman’ and ‘Call the Midwife’ Christmas special- stories told in the warm by the fire whilst outside the dark winter night rages. And in a world where those stories, at least for children, seemed to be fired out in ever increasingly short, frenetic bursts of CGI wizardry and the imagination is allowed to curl up and be spoon fed, Sally Cookson’s production of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ at the West Yorkshire Playhouse provides a refreshing, engaging change- and not just to this jaded critic but judging by their rapturous attention to all the young (and old) audience packing out the Playhouse’s Quarry Theatre. Cookson’s magical production – … Read more

REVIEW: The Tin Drum, West Yorkshire Playhouse ✭✭✭✭

The Tin Drum review

The Tin Drum West Yorkshire Playhouse 4 Stars Tour Info On one level the story can seem simple, almost childish, with Nursery Rhyme overtones of drums and toy shops – yet ‘The Tin Drum’ is fiendishly diverse and complex tale that defies any brief summary.  A child genius, Oskar, is born to a background of social and political turmoil; he discovers a God like power of control through his tin drum the beast of which ricochets and reverberates through the story like some sinister eighties disco beat. By the time he has reached manhood he has lost his parents (all three of them), fallen in love with his father’s mistress and seen his homeland ripped apart through ethnic cleansing by a Nazi style regime. Along the way he’s realised he can shatter glass and ear drums by screaming and has made the decision to stop the ageing process by throwing … Read more

REVIEW: (The Fall Of) The Master Builder, West Yorkshire Playhouse ✭✭✭✭

The Fall Of The Master Builder at West Yorkshire Playhouse

(the fall of) The Master Builder West Yorkshire Playhouse Four stars Book Tickets ‘The Master builder’, Henrik Ibsen’s play from 1893 is a masterly study of an ageing artist dealing with the loss of his powers as a result of various events in the past. Zinnie Harris’s reimagining of the story- a response to the original rather than a straight reworking of Ibsen’s text – presents Solness, the Master builder of the title, as a contemporary Northern architect again facing the unravelling of his status and power but for reasons far more focussed than those of the original. In these days of Murdoch and Trump where the power of business challenges and even supersedes the power of the state explorations in the first act of such themes as ruthlessness being an essential component of success and the tragic inevitability of youth triumphing over experience are both relevant and contemporary- however … Read more