Manchester-born Sam Steiner wrote his debut play in 2015 having graduated from Warwick University and whilst working in a fish and chip shop. It was first staged by the Walrus Theatre Company and has since been seen around the world. It is a play in which "two people meet, fall in love, mature together, grow apart and battle to stay as a unit" (Josie Rourke-director). "Like any great relationship drama there is the breathless jeopardy of will they/won’t they." However, the government … [Read more...]
Charlotte and Theodore at Richmond Theatre
In this serious yet very amusing play, we meet Charlotte (Eve Ponsonby) and Theodore (Kris Marshall). Two dreamers - colleagues, lovers and husband and wife with two young children - determined to make a difference in the world and to keep the spark in their relationship and family alive. Like the protagonists in a Greek tragedy, the couple find their personal relationship threatened by ideological tensions that dominate their era. As university academic philosophers they can identify and name … [Read more...]
Wish You Were Dead at Theatre Royal Brighton
Wish You Were Dead is the sixth of Peter James’ crime novels to be adapted for the stage by Shaun McKenna, each featuring the enigmatic Superintendent Grace and set in and around Brighton: except that this new play is actually set in a run-down French chateau where Grace, who is now married to forensic pathologist Cleo, decides to honeymoon. In fact, Michael Holt’s set design showing the dominating interior of the chateau is perhaps the most impressive thing about this production. It … [Read more...]
The Way Old Friends Do at Park Theatre
The premise of this new play by Ian Hallard is that in the 1980s two school friends tentatively came out to each other: one as gay, the other as a died-in-the-wool ABBA fanatic! Nearly thirty years later they meet up and decide to form an ABBA tribute band - in drag! The play, unfortunately lacking in ABBA songs, charts the progress of the group. The show is greatly aided by Janet Bird’s revolving set which means that each scene flows smoothly into the next and by Mark Gatiss’ direction … [Read more...]
Farm Hall at Jermyn Street Theatre
Farm Hall is the debut play by historian Katherine Moar. Set in the summer of 1945 after the defeat of Germany but whilst the war in the Pacific rages on, six German nuclear scientists find themselves detained in a stately home near Cambridge: Farm Hall. Removed from the chaos of war and convinced of their scientific superiority they while the hours away playing chess, restoring a broken piano and acting out Coward’s Blithe Spirit. Little do they know that almost every inch of Farm … [Read more...]