Reviews from Peter Yates

Angry. Violent. Relentless. That’s what’s on the daily menu as teachers try to run an educational refuge for teenage girls who have been shunned by their schools for being - well, angry, violent and relentless. The girls are in educational care, rather than full care, as they still return home each day but these miscreants have little interest in learning, find it … [Read more...]

I have never finished reading Joe Orton’s Diaries. I went through several copies but could never hang on to them. The reason for that, I believe, is that the publicity flash on the cover said, in giant letters, “STEAL THIS BOOK”. Various students, cast members, technicians and off-spring duly obliged so I’ve never been able to finish it. Probably the person who … [Read more...]

The arrival of the wondrous musical SIX for a return visit to the Arts Theatre via the Edinburgh Fringe has ensured that our right royal scallywag Henry VIII and his plethora of wives are currently centre stage in the theatre-going public’s consciousness. But back in 2004, writers Rebecca Russell and Jenny Wafer got there first with The Regina Monologues - not a … [Read more...]

There’s tea; and there’s high tea. Similarly, I would suggest, there’s pantomime; and there’s high pantomime. Wise Children would seem to fall into the latter category as it differentiates from ordinary common or garden pantomime by certain distinguishing features: it’s not performed exclusively at Christmas; it inhabits a prestigious London theatre; it has a troupe … [Read more...]

The clamour, over recent years, for more roles, substantial roles, for women in plays and musicals has led to the current trend of re-writing/re-modelling established shows for female leads rather than males. In the vanguard of this movement, last year at the National, we saw Simon Godwin’s superlative Twelfth Night, that mother of all cross-dressing extravaganzas, … [Read more...]

Don’t read this. Seriously, don’t read this. And definitely, don’t go and see this show. If you do then don’t come crying to me about how you’ve been transported into a diabolical maelstrom of musical mayhem because that’s where this crowd of padded-cell head-bangers is going to take you. Mad...? Definitely. Bad…? Oh, yes! Agents of Lucifer...? Unquestionably - I even … [Read more...]

“Labour doesn’t want votes” is the critical sit-up-and-take-notice line from I’m Not Running, the latest play from the pen of David Hare, the unchallenged Time Lord of political drama in the UK (with all due respect to Johnny-come-lately James Graham, of course). It tells us that in Hare’s intensive exposé of socialist thinking over the last three decades, where … [Read more...]

Boy Band with a difference: four New York Millennials scrape, thwack, bang and pluck their stringed instruments employing classical highlights intertwined with pop standards to create musical mash-ups - or musical mishmashes, depending on your perspective. Two violins, a viola, a cello and an occasional guitar are the tools of their melodious trade and their … [Read more...]

Welcome to pink 'n chintzy Pinter. Dark, morbid, foreboding, and threatening…? Not so much, in Jamie Lloyd’s production of The Lover, the first of a two-part Pinter show, paired with The Collection. No, the decor in The Lover ranges from a blush tint through shimmering roseate to various shades of salmon (excellent lighting design by Elliot Griggs), with stylised … [Read more...]

“Epic” is a much overused, and mis-used, word (as in “It was epic!”). So if you want to hold up a good example of an epic play, Antony and Cleopatra fits the bill nicely - heroic deeds, legendary figures, grand scale, exotic locations. It therefore needs an epic treatment, an understanding of what epic is and how epic works: Simon Godwin’s production at the … [Read more...]