I mistakenly thought that at some point I’d be subjected to newts when I went to see the much appreciated War With The Newts from the mercurial minds of Knaïve Theatre. After all there’s newts in the title and most marketing paraphernalia had these weird humanoid newts on them. There were no newts – but that didn’t matter for Knaïve Theatre’s gem of a production had me totally and utterly transfixed.
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!
This is fast becoming a summer where we look back and remember the hot weather and the smokey smell from the Moor fire, when England mesmerized a nation in the World Cup and how Maxine Peake became the face of Royal Exchange. Fresh from rave reviews in her turn as Winnie in Happy Days she has returned this time in the guise of writer to tell us the true story of four women and one last act of protest in Queens of the Coal Age.
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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.
“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.