Category Reviews

Where We Are – Review

The Manchester theatre scene is resplendent with great theatres, great actors and great plays that often transcends boundaries. However, we forget that the Manchester theatre scene also celebrates what it is to be from Manchester. Having had the pleasure to attend the Where We Are Double Bill performance recently, it brought home the hard work put in by Monkeywood Theatre and Take Back Theatre in creating productions that intrinsically speak to a Mancunian audience and the support from Home Manchester in allowing such productions to be part of their programme.

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Bread & Roses – Review

It never ceases to amaze me how events of the past can still have the capacity to strike a chord with us today. The subject matter of Oldham Coliseum’s current production of Bread & Roses should hardly resonate with the good folk in this part of the world. After all it concerns events surrounding the mill-workers strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA in 1912. Yet, despite the happenings occurring over a 100 years ago, the lessons from those times are as relevant today as they were back then.

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Happy Days – Review

Some things are destined to be top draw. Take Happy Days, Samuel Beckett’s famous play that is being produced by the Royal Exchange, directed by Sarah Frankcom and starring Maxine Peake. You have all the ingredients for a recipe for success. A powerhouse theatre house, an award winning artistic director, one of the region’s premier thespians and a play by a playwright that is often celebrated.

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Three Sisters – Review

“Have you ever read anything by Chekhov?”

It was the damning denouement given by the kind of theatregoers you’d expect to be in the audience watching a play by Chekhov at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. We’d just finished watching a tour de force from RashDash, who had co-produced along with the Royal Exchange a new version of Chekhov’s celebrated play, Three Sisters, and quite frankly it was one of the most memorable evening’s theatre that I’ve had the pleasure to watch in recent memory.

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