Recounting the short but significant life of Charles Hamilton Sorley, a Scottish poet of World War One, It is Easy to Be Dead is a sombre take on the brutality of war. Told through a collection of letters and poetry, the play follows Sorley from his time at Cambridge to his studies in Germany before […]
Adapting a novel for the stage is certainly no easy feat. Sacrifices and changes must be made to slim down what can be a lengthy and detailed narrative into a coherent, streamlined and more visual medium. The risk lies in the impact this conversion can have on the end-product, specifically whether what works on the […]
Following its sell-out premiere at the Spitalfields Music Summer Festival, Sister is the latest production from Born Mad. It’s an experimental piece, using music and vocals to delve into the many aspects of family life and, particularly, the nature of sisterhood. Its two leads, Daisy Brown and Nia Coleman, present an anthology of different memories, […]
With such a small cast and situated within the intimate Trafalgar Studios, Vanities: The Musical relies strongly on its trio of female leads. Lauren Samuels, Ashleigh Gray and Lizzy Connolly certainly deliver deft and formidable performances as the central characters of Mary, Kathy and Joanne—a closely-knit group of friends who begin as peppy cheerleaders, only […]
It is always difficult to adapt something that is as ingrained in popular culture as the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, particularly when such a film’s very title and premise have entered the modern lexicon. The musical certainly had a large degree of hype behind it, not least owing to the news that the book and lyrics […]
Following a successful run at the Chichester Festival Theatre, a trilogy of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s plays (adapted by David Hare) are now showing at the National Theatre in London. Regarded as the first of his four major plays, The Seagull is an interesting commentary on the struggle to create ‘the new’ against the obstinacy […]
Staged within the pretty grounds and interior of the wonderfully fitting 17th century St Paul’s Church (the Actor’s Church) and situated in the heart of busy Covent Garden, Treasure Island is the second in-house summer production by the Iris Theatre. It is a new take on the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, billed as an immersive, swashbuckling […]
You certainly can’t fault Remedy’s Quantum Break for trying out something a bit different. The whole idea of a hybrid video game/TV show should provide an interesting new take on the broadly defined action/adventure genre. The novel format suggests a new sense of immersion, with computer-rendered mo-cap performances interspersed with the genuine article in a […]