Spoiler Alert: Puffs, Or: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic is a parody of Harry Potter. If you have avoided learning the major plot details of Harry Potter, congratulations, you are like a unicorn who made it to December 25 without hearing any Christmas music! Be aware that this […]
With the festive season fully in swing, it is unsurprising to find a number of plays in London which are adaptations of children’s novels, particularly of those set during the Second World War. There is something about the war-time spirit that appeals at Christmas. Perhaps it’s the feelings of togetherness and shared effort that characterize […]
It starts off rather oddly. At first glance, the audience is not quite sure what to expect. There is a mattress, deflated balloons, a chair and a phonograph. When the performance begins, circus clown music starts to play and, one by one, the characters come on stage. The first few minutes are very confusing. It […]
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s latest drama does not need its constant extremes—its actors are accomplished enough that they could make any scenario something exceptional. Myanna Burling and Laura Donnelly deliver realistic performances not only through the play’s dialogue, but also in spite of it. The Wasp is class conflict at its heart: the audience sees wealthy […]
Long before Alan Turing laid the groundwork for modern day computing, the Harvard Computers were processing astronomical data and making scientific advances and discoveries that would drastically impact the field of astronomy and allow mankind to better understand the cosmos. The Harvard Computers began their work in the 1880s and operated for a mere pittance […]
Anger can appear in various forms, but is it always justified? After all, most would see anger as a destructive force. Occasionally, it is so strong that it amounts to a wild outburst: this is what Penelope Skinner’s Linda is. It subjects us to the life of Linda Wilde, a middle-aged, award-winning marketing director for […]
It is rare a director is so sympathetic to their chosen text; therefore, remember Liz Stevenson’s name. Too often a classic work is smothered by conservatism and theatrical brocade—this production of Barbarians is the opposite, where every direction furthers the purposes of the source. Stevenson’s interpretation is a great symbiosis of text and performance. […]
Growing up in the ‘70s, I, like most kids, had my addictive television programs – Lost in Space and Star Trek among them – which made it very easy to relate to Maggie Day, the perky narrator of The Further Adventures of … as she illustrates the time she spent watching her favorite childhood program: […]