Shakespeare is not everyone’s cup of tea. The Bard dominates the stage, but equally divides theatre audiences, who are either happy to see lengthy RSC styled productions that deal with murder and betrayal or those that think the great playwright is no longer relevant in 2018. And yet theatre houses and production companies cannot get enough of Shakespeare, with it dominating the landscape in not only the West End but also here in Manchester. So you could be forgiven in thinking that Queen Margaret, a reworking if you like of some of the Bard’s historical plays, that it would be another of his productions where it delights his devotees and dismays his detractors. However, The Royal Exchange might just have managed to wow both sets of fans!
Posts by The Editor
OthelloMacbeth – Review
Who doesn’t love a good remix? So often the staple of musical geniuses, who take the heart and soul of one track and reinvent it with a layer of beats and other tracks that often form a mashup of the original. OthelloMacbeth is possibly the closest thing I’ve seen to a theatre piece that comes to the very definition of a remix, with Jude Christian the DJ behind the decks taking two classic Shakespearean tragedies and mixing together a captivating version for all and sundry to enjoy.
Fame – Review
Nothing more typifies the 1980s than Fame! The Alan Parker musical that was later a hit TV show that chronicled the lives of students attending the High School of Performing Arts. It inspired a generation of people wearing leg warmers and lycra. The film/television series was also quite hard hitting featuring storylines that dealt with homophobia, teenage pregnancies and suicide to name but a few. It also featured the iconic theme tune from Irene Cara that was a chart topper on both sides of the Atlantic. So an 80s geeky kid like myself was never gonna pass up the opportunity to watch the stage version at the Manchester Palace Theatre.
The Fishermen – Review
Good theatre, even theatre that reaches those heady heights of greatness, is all down to the art of storytelling. It is unlike many other mediums in that you as the captive audience are completely at the mercy of the performers. The story, the delivery and the theatrics used to tell a tale are all armoury in the arsenal of the storyteller. Get it wrong and you’ve lost the audience. Get it right and you will have people regaling your tale to the world.
Minute Taker – Review
After a while you can become tired of watching the same old, same old. You get to a certain age having watched a plethora of performances and you are just in the comfort zone. You know what makes things tick, and what does not. Sometimes, though, you stumble upon something that just lifts you from deep within the rabbit’s fur and stimulates your senses. Minute Taker’s set at this year’s Refract:18 festival did exactly that.