19/05/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of the Pulitzer Prize winning play ENGLISH, by Sanaz Toossi (LINKED). This is at the RSC’s The Other Place studio theatre until the end of May, then it moves to The Kiln in London for the month of June. It’s set in Iran, in an English class. It’s a must for ELT teachers but it’s also a very good play on cultural identity. My review goes into a lot of ELT detail too.
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17/05/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of THE AVERAGE WHITE BAND (linked), on 16th May at Bournemouth Pavilion with full set list and pictures. They were, as they always have been, astonishingly good. It’s the Funk Finale Farewell tour. You need to catch it.
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16/05/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of CAITLIN ROSE at the Railway Inn, Winchester added (follow link). The start of her UK tour, supported by and backed by a British band, Hollow Hands. Not one of my most fulsome reviews sadly. She was way better than her backing.
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12/05/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at the Watermill Theatre.(Follow link) This one takes place on a 1940s Hollywood film set. The music is great- all of the cast also play instruments. This is a very entertaining and funny version in a beautiful location. Running to 18 May.
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09/05/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL at Chichester Festival Theatre (follow link). Mike Poulton (who adapted Wolf Hall for the stage) has switched to Philippa Gregory’s tale of Mary Boleyn … though really of Mary, Anne and George Boleyn. Costume drama doesn’t get better than this … lighting, set, costume, music all enhance the five star acting performances.
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08/05/2024 by Peter Viney
Review added of THE HOUSE PARTY by Laura Lomas, (CLICK ON LINK TO SEE THE REVIEW) at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre. A great cast, well-established director, yet the production is overwhelmed by extraneous additions. It’s an update on August Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’.
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05/05/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL by Alan Ayckbourn at Salisbury Playhouse has been added. Follow the link. It’s an unusual Ayckbourn play. An amateur light-operatic company are working on a production of A Beggar’s Opera. The cast and characters reflect on the original play’s cast of highwaymen, thieves, pimps and prostitutes with the modern day amateur operatic cast of lawyers, property developers, wife swappers and frustrated housewives. It’s an exuberant production, running at Salisbury until the 18th May. Support producing theatres! Go and see it.
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27/04/2024 by Peter Viney
Link to my review of LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST, currently at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. This is directed by Emily Burns and has Luke Thompson as Berowne. It’s the first RSC production under the new artistic directors, Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey and it’s a formidable start. The play is set in a Pacific island resort, with the four men as tech billionaires rather than ‘lords of Navarre’. It all works. It’s a long and highly illustrated review. Here is the Princess of France and her attendants.
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26/04/2024 by Peter Viney
Follow the link to the review of THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA currently at the Royal Shakespeare Company. This is Emma Rice’s adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s coming-of-age novel. It is fast paced, has a superb cast, is very funny and exudes the exuberance and stagecraft we associate with Emma Rice. It bodes well for the new regime at the RSC. Read the review.
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25/04/2024 by Peter Viney
CALIFORNIA CONNECTIONS (see link to review) is a York Dance Project production, highlighting the work of three women pioneers: Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Bela Lewitzky. Add a closing piece from the choreographer / producer Yolanda Yorke-Edgell. It was a privilege to see this work at Winchester Theatre Royal, though this is HIGHLY subsidized dance theatre. See the review.
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