Schmidt, Rossini English Touring Opera Opera House, Buxton, and touring 23 March 2019, 2hr 55min, inc 20min interval England’s woman leader is in power, but only just. Surrounded by plotters and schemers, with a female rival from Scotland attracting growing support, she sees her only way as being unbending – any sign of weakness will be an excuse to topple her. But that very rigidity is exploited by supposed friends, whose only real ambition is to take power for themselves. Deceiving and deceived, they profess loyalty while fomenting its opposite. Sounds familiar? This is the England of Elizabeth I – Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra, as Rossini and his librettist saw her. In this version of history, the Earl of Leicester is the good guy, refusing Elizabeth’s amorous advances because he’s already secretly married (and thus incurring her passionate wrath, as his wife is Mathilde, daughter of Mary Queen of Scots). The Duke of Norfolk is a lying toad, trying to manoeuvre Leicester to his death, then, once found out, seeking to encourage popular rebellion against Elizabeth – which Leicester nobly rejects. So you have four main roles, one of which – Elizabeth – is easily the biggest. You also have – and this is such a surprise that the English surtitles reassure us we have come on the right night about three minutes in – the overture we know as that of The Barber of Seville. How so? Well, Rossini thought it was so good he named it thrice, and this is the second show he stuck it on, Barber being the third. This one has a certain right to it, though, as a snatch of its final crescendo is worked into the Act One finale, which is another surprise. It’s a good night in the theatre. Director James Conway presents it in period, with simple sets that evoke its time and place and provide a minimum of structure for scenes that include a throne room and a dungeon – but they’re enough. Rory Beaton’s lighting ekes out any imperfections. Designer Frankie Bradshaw clothes the chorus in black but recognisably Elizabethan garb. (I could see why they hung around in geometrical formats much of the time – court life in those days was a public business, after all. But in the dungeon scene…?) Mary Plazas is the star. She’s a Buxton favourite already, having brilliantly sung major roles in the festival here in recent years, and again she gives both technical coloratura excellence and lovely tone over a wide tessitura, and also an intelligent and moving characterisation of her role. Lucy Hall has an important secunda donna part as Mathilde, and she is outstandingly good to hear and well into character, too – the confrontation scene that opens Act Two was remarkably powerful. Luciano Botelho (Leicester) made a fine fist of his heroic role, and John-Colyn Gyeantey, after a rather rough start, warmed into being the nasty Norfolk in time for his best scene, a second confrontation duet. The ETO chorus again sang magnificently, and John Andrews conducted the score with a sure and imaginative touch. There's a rawness and energy in this early Rossini – voices pitted against screaming piccolo and braying trombone in a way that Verdi was later criticised for – that is genuinely exciting. #ETOSpr19 #Rossini

Mary Cooper & MW Sun On The Wire productions at The Dukes, Lancaster 22 March 2019 to 23 March 2019; 80min, no interval There’s actual food for thought in this contemplative play about the experience of British Chinese communities. It takes the old adage, about the way to the heart being through the stomach, by serving up a mini Chinese banquet either side of the performance. In that respect it resembles The Chef Show or even Chip Shop Chips which also appeared here and did a similar service to Indian restaurants and Britain’s staple diet. From Shore to Shore expands the remit to cover a century of Chinese history through the stories of several characters caught up in everything from the Sino-Japanese war, through Mao’s Cultural Revolution, to the everyday concerns of contemporary members of the UK’s Chinese society. It smartly illustrates how little we know or understand about the communities within our midst, but in a quietly effective way. It also underlines the particular significance of Chinese food either as reward, ritual or for plain survival, let alone as a business proposition. Ozzie Yue, as Chung Wing, is a central narrator whose story begins as a refugee war orphan, while the other six cast members portray 17 characters between them. Stories that may initially appear as knotted as a bowl of noodles are gradually drawn out to become genuinely moving testimony. Writers Mary Cooper and MW Sun spent three years researching and recording stories from communities in Yorkshire and Manchester and the writing bears the signature of verbatim theatre. Nicola Chang’s live music adds an authentic soundscape, while Pui Lee’s design and Douglas Kuhrt’s lighting are economic but effective, as befits a travelling show that appears everywhere from Chinese restaurants to settings such as here, in the Dukes Creative Learning Centre. Follow all that with a tasty line-up of chilli chicken, lamb, king prawns, tofu and vegetables shared around the dining table setting with fellow theatregoers (and the added opportunity to widen discussion of the production) and you have a near-perfect recipe for a night out. The play continues a national tour until next month. #fromshoretoshore

Piave & Maffei after Shakespeare, Verdi English Touring Opera Opera House, Buxton, touring to York, Sheffield, Durham and others 22 Mar 2019; 2hr 25min, inc 20min interval The English text of Verdi’s Macbeth would be a gift to any exam-swotter looking for a Passnotes-style summary of the plot. It leaves out all subsidiary stuff, focuses on Macbeth and (even more) Lady Macbeth, tells you what each is thinking - even when Shakespeare doesn’t - and throws in a chorus or two to express the background concepts of a benighted Scotland under Macbeth’s rule and the patriotic spirit of those who finally defeated him. And some of the best quotes are still there, sounding at least something like the original. We have translator Andrew Porter to thank for that. Occasionally he lapses into cod-Jacobean language (addressing the dagger in Macbeth’s vision as ‘thou’, for instance), but generally you have the feeling of what a 19th-century Italian operatic writing team made of this, as they would of any other source. English Touring Opera is quite brave in using English for foreign-language opera these days, when translated surtitles can supply the meaning of any libretto, whatever its original tongue. They even display the English text as it is sung, which affords us the pleasant game of spotting when the singers make tiny departures from the official version. But I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the modern-dress staging chosen by director James Dacre and designer Frankie Bradshaw. No doubt lounge suits, and trousers with military-ish seam stripes, are relatively cheap to hire from theatrical costumiers, but it all gets a bit incongruous when Macbeth clearly calls for ‘my buckler, sword and dagger’, only to be given a pistol and nothing else. The single set itself is a kind of concrete bunker, but we never find out why any part of the action is going on there. As it happens, it’s built very much like a Jacobean theatre, with an ‘inner chamber’ behind the main stage area and a gallery above for special moments – which may have been intentional, or may not. The witches are important in Verdi’s version – they’re a female chorus and should be just as spookily evil as Shakespeare made them. Here they first appear as nuns in nursing aprons, rifling the wounded for their possessions – not the kind of conduct you associate with nuns, and the animal entrails they apparently find are not what you would expect either. Was it just the word ‘sisters’ that provoked that? And the military fatigues sported by the chorus at other times would be fair enough, if they didn’t keep waving their AK-47s around as if auditioning for Dad’s Army. Having said all that, the musical qualities of this ETO production are very high: the chorus sounds terrific in Buxton’s Opera House, the words are almost always crystal clear and the two main characters are well cast. Conductor Gerry Cornelius gets the maximum from a smallish orchestra and realises many of Verdi’s textures beautifully. Grant Doyle, as Macbeth, has a very big voice and uses it powerfully. Does his characterisation develop in the course of the story, as it should? Perhaps not much, but Madeleine Pierard as Lady Macbeth is not just the dominant personality from the start, but the dominant voice in every way. Verdi wrote some great, histrionic material for her role, and she goes to town on it. #ETOSpr19 #macbeth #ladymacbeth #verdi #outdamnedspot

James Quinn, Peter Kerry, Dave Simpson, Diane Whitley, Lindsay Williams and Trevor Suthers JB Shorts 53two, Albion Street, Manchester, M1 5LN 19 March 2019 - 30 March 2019; 1hr 45min inc interval. Long renowned for producing some of the very best nights out you can possibly have in a theatre, JB Shorts is celebrating 10 years of success with a ‘best of’ - six 15-minute plays from the archive by experienced, mostly TV, writers, chosen from an astonishing total of around 120. Alongside the emerging talent that has always been such a strength of JB, the current 21-strong cast features familiar faces including Richard Hawley (Coronation Street), Arthur Bostrom (‘Allo ‘Allo), Darren Jeffries (Hollyoaks), James Quinn (Early Doors) and Sean Ward (Our Girl/Coronation Street). I don’t know how the six here were selected and there’s no doubt they are a highly-varied bunch, but the great strength of JB Shorts has always been that if you’re not that excited by what’s before you at any given moment, it’ll be only a few minutes before something else takes the stage. On reflection I liked virtually everything. At The End Of The Day, by and featuring founder member James Quinn, unmercifully takes the mike out of football interviewing and punditry, building the laughs as various interviewees vigorously launch into graphic sexual metaphors. Banal Encounter by Peter Kerry (one of 17 for JB) has echoes of Brief Encounter but chillingly reveals the location to be Nazi Germany. Blind Date, by another JB stalwart Dave Simpson, is an amusingly observed hook-up for the digital era that underlines the fact that human behaviour in these circumstances is pretty much what it always it was. A warm-hearted, sad little coda had the audience around me going 'aaaah' in sympathy. Snapshots, by Diane Whitley is a cleverly-constructed mini family saga across three generations, with several twists and more depth than you might think possible in such a short timespan. The Outing, by Lindsay Williams, is another encounter with highly disturbing undercurrents, as a friendship (?) develops between a seagull-decorated widower and a fellow female traveller. The hit of the evening however is Can We Stop There?, by Trevor Suthers, an inspired satire on the rehearsal of a play within a play within a play and so on. It’s a sort of Russian dolls structure and is very funny indeed, a great way to send audiences out into the night - or to the bar. JB is currently in larger premises than the original Joshua Brooks pub that gave the enterprise its title and is still selling out, often to people who don’t see live theatre as a first choice. It’s a proud Manchester institution. I learn, however, that the always-hovering Manchester cranes are to move in on the present venue and so far JB hasn’t a new home. Let’s hope they find one for JB Shorts 11. #jbshorts #53Two

David Bintley Birmingham Royal Ballet Lowry Lyric, Salford 20 March 2019 - 23 March 2019; 2hr 5min, inc 20-minute interval Back for a fourth visit, Bintley’s take on the old fairytale (seen here in 2004, 2012, and 2014) is still a crowd-pleaser and well worth including in his bowing-out season as director of Birmingham Royal Ballet. It’s not the Disney version. No Gaston, no angry villagers, no terpsichorean teapots or frolicking furniture (though there are some magic, self-moving sets and gadgets). Bintley decided to make it about man’s abuse of the natural world – so the Beast has a pre-story in which he gets made beastly for hunting foxes, and his castle is full of similarly-enchanted people turned into animals, while Belle is led to enter this strange world by a flock of birds and her own liking for flowers plucked from their stems (a good thing, apparently – but then that part of the story is traditional and pre-dates environmental awareness). The first act was tightened up in 2014 but still has a lot of narrative to pack in, because of the double back-story built into this interpretation of the tale – and there’s more towards the end of the piece, too, because we’re supposed to see a ‘redemption’, not just of the Beast by being transformed back into a prince, but of his whole world too, as harmony between man and nature is restored. The love story is there, but strangely passionless - at least as it appeared to me last night. Belle has a good time dancing with the Repulsive One at his ball, which begins the second act, but loses her bottle and runs off back to daddy when he makes his proposal. She seems to have a rival in the ‘Wild Girl’, who figures in the story from the start and, when the transformation does come, seems distinctly underwhelmed by Mr Beast’s new look. He doesn’t appear to show much sign of being willing to suffer for her sake either (something the Disney story does catch, giving the thing a degree of psychological depth in their version). Bintley livens up his rather heavy interpretive gloss by giving us a picture of Belle and her sisters’ home life much akin to Cinderella’s, with a comic suitor, be-snouted, called Monsieur Cochon, who pops up in both acts – the second time as pure comic relief. The natural world comes to life in two big corps de ballet numbers, the first a positive murmuration as the birds of the air lead Belle to the castle, and the second the Beast’s Big Ball, where the animals hold sway and get quite frisky in the middle section of the Tchaikovsky-ian waltz provided by composer Glenn Buhr. So it’s all visually fascinating (and almost universally dark and dim in Philip Prowse’s design and Mark Jonathan’s lighting), and the music is pleasantly pastiche-like of many popular 20th-century scores. The dancing was, of course, high quality, with Yvette Knight a pure English rose as Belle, and Brandon Lawrence a fierce and powerful Beast, with other roles danced with great distinction. #BRBBeast #ballet #dance

Andrew Quick & Pete Brooks imitating the dog, with Marche Teatro (Italy), Arts Council, Lancaster Arts and Theatre By The Lake, Dukes Theatre, Lancaster 19 March 2019 - 23 March, 2019; 2hr 10min inc interval If there's one thing theatre makers imitating the dog dislike (apart from capital letters), it's theatrical convention. They delight, and occasionally perplex, in turning their stage productions inside out to reveal brilliantly-constructed works that combine digital cinema projection with live performance. In their approach to Joseph Conrad's seminal novella they go a step further and reveal some details of their approach to adapting it from page to stage. The cast of five re-enacts the thought processes that lie behind the creation of the production, in between acting out a modern take on the story. Instead of one man’s journey into the dark heart of Africa in the 19th century, the story becomes a Congolese woman’s foray through a more contemporary, war-torn Europe. What emerges is part stage-play, documentary, feature film (including extracts from Apocalypse Now and its own Vietnam setting) and even artwork, in a dense multimedia performance that can best be described as a response to the story and some of the debate that swirls around its themes of colonialism, exploitation, capitalism and nationalism. You can admire the technique, marvel at the creativity and puzzle over the narrative, but probably struggle to concentrate on the drama. That was certainly not helped, on opening night at least, by an inadequate sound system that hollowed out the actors’ voices. The inevitable lip-sync delay between what is heard and what is seen on the digital screens aggravates that problem. Visually though it's a feast for the senses, with images cast on a huge backdrop or triptych of screens above the stage. Cast members double as camera operators, narrators or characters from the story. Snatches of newsreel, sub-titled information, split-screen techniques and dialogue from Apocalypse director Francis Ford Coppola, or his movie, sometimes crowd each other out, to the point of system overload. It’s never less than intriguing, without necessarily being illuminating. Heart of Darkness runs here until Saturday but also tours to other regional venues. #HeartOfDarknessTour #TheDukesTheatre

Barry Reed Middle Ground Theatre Company Oldham Coliseum 12 March 2019 - 17 March 2019, 2hr 35min inc interval Also Grand Theatre, Blackpool, 9-13 April 2019 The book was readable and this play is generally thoughtfully done, but the real gem of the Verdict canon is Sidney Lumet's masterful Paul Newman/James Mason/Charlotte Rampling movie version from the Eighties. And what made that different from the other two? The Barry Reed-penned novel - adapted for this stage premiere for the admirable Middle Ground company by Margaret May Hobbs - was breathed on, heavily, courtesy of a script by none other than David Mamet. The story's emphasis was as much about washed-up lawyer Frank Galvin's last chance for redemption than it was about the medical malpractice case of a kind that has since become a staple fare of courtroom drama. You might think swopping a 90-minute movie for a two-hour play would give plenty of scope for the story, but in fact the play becomes stage-bound without the multi-location shorthand of the movie world in which to spin its battle of wits and wills. So Galvin (former TV soaps star Ian Kelsey) is portrayed as an alcoholic by the pouring of several glasses of booze, none of which seem to have much effect on his work or social life. And he doesn't get the chance to show us how Frank's resolve to win his case and beat his powerful adversaries turns on his visit to see the young woman plunged into a vegetative state by the hospital run by Bishop Brophy (Richard Walsh). Here we only hear him report that he intends to fight the case, not take the settlement. The Bishop and his doctors (Michael Lunney and Okon Jones} say they did everything they could - but Frank discovers they might not be telling the truth. WiIl he be allowed to prove it in court? Can big-shot opposition lawyer Concannon's (Christopher Ettridge) dirty tricks win the case before he and his mentor, Moe (Denis Lill), even get to argue it? The play is constructed is a fairly conventional way, setting out the ground in the first act and running the case, with its revelations and setbacks, after the interval. Michael Lunney's direction is entertaining enough, but generally it all seems a lot less exciting than it should. And I know the story is steeped in Boston Irish temperament and spirit, but whoever chose the incidental music - mostly melancholic Irish folk ballads - really needs to learn how to choose music to set a mood, since the one set here is far from the story's high-stakes excitement... #TheVerdict #MiddleGround #courtroomdrama

Mike Leigh Ambassador Theatre Group and Smith & Brant Theatricals in association with Tulchin Bartner and Julie Clare Productions Grand Theatre, Blackpool; 11 March 2019 - 16 March 2019, 2 hr 10min with interval Opera House Manchester, 8 April 2019 - 13 April 2019 It has to be said: you get more Beverly for your buck with Jodie Prenger as the monstrous main character in this excellent revival of Mike Leigh’s iconic comedy. Her starry, stage-filling presence adds a new vitality to the role, from the first glimpse of her shimmying solo to Donna Summer’s Love To Love You Baby, all the way through the story of her ill-fated attempt to entertain her neighbours. For a play where it remains essential ‘the only way is Essex’ dialect coach Charmian Hoare also ensures the Blackpool-born star comes complete with an authentic accent. Director Sarah Esdaile remains true to this and all the other essential elements of a play that is, after all, a time capsule from 1970s Britain. A time when the world smelled of Youth Dew, a house on the outskirts of London cost £21,000, and James Galway was a ‘promising young flautist’. It all provides the setting for a modern-day comedy of manners, or lack of them, as the grating small talk of suburbia slowly scrapes away at a thin veneer of civility. Marriage, affluence and class are put through the blender when Bev and husband Laurence invite new neighbours Angela and Tony round for drinks, along with Sue whose wild child daughter – the always-unseen Abigail – is holding her own far less formal party across the road. It all makes for excruciating comedy of the type that is now a staple element of contemporary television. Rose Keegan’s Sue, in particular, comes more fully-fleshed in the appearance of a post-dated hippy type whose life seems to be one of sad submission. She and Tony (Calum Callaghan) corner the market in their monosyllabic contributions to the conversations, and some of the best of the resulting laughs, while Laurence (Daniel Casey) and Angela (Vicky Binns) carry rather more of the physical humour. But for all her manifest faults you can’t help yourself but Love to Love You, Beverly... The party’s in swing in Blackpool until Saturday and visits Manchester in April. #JodiePrenger #partyfromhell #Seventiesclassic

Joseph Stein (rev. David Thompson), Stephen Schwartz & Charles Strouse Aria Entertainment and Hope Mill Theatre Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester 2 March 2019 – 6 April 2019, 2hr 25min, inc 20min interval So what happened to the people of Anatevka after the end of Fiddler on the Roof? This is a musical that tells the story of one family – well, one plus a solo mother and her son they take under their roof – struggling to make a new life in their Promised Land, the USA of 1910. It’s not the characters we know from Fiddler, but it could be others from their village. Rags was written over 30 years ago and flopped on Broadway in its original version. Now the book has been revised by David Thompson, the lyrics and some of the music have also been adapted by Schwartz and Strouse, and this is the UK premiere of the new version. Rebecca is the solo mum, and she brings her son David with her to New York on the ship from Dantzic. On the trip she befriends young Bella, who is travelling to join her father, Avram. He is widowed and shares a home with his younger sister, Anna, and her tailor husband, Jack, and they share what hospitality they have with Rebecca and the boy. It’s a struggle for immigrants to make their way in America in 1910, and we meet their neighbour Rachel, young Ben, who is a self-taught musician who immediately falls for Bella, Bronfman the businessman, who gives them work but exploits them, and Sal, the Italian trade union firebrand. Sal and Bronfman are both attracted to Rebecca, Rachel has designs on Avram, and the story works out in miniature the battles and dilemmas that come from this Jewish experience of being strangers in a strange land. In Bronagh Lagan’s production it’s all perfectly clearly told (with four more ensemble performers and some doubling by the named cast) so the kaleidoscope of New York life moves smoothly and highly sympathetically through the show. I loved it for its presentation of another place and another time, and its warm and human values. As a musical though, it has limitations. The songs catch different styles – klezmer, ragtime, early jazz and good old-fashioned schmaltz – and that’s all appropriate to the story, but there are actually too many of them, particularly in the first half, with only one really memorable - ‘Children of the Wind’, which comes very late in the show and makes a great finale but could have been a theme throughout. ‘Rags’, which is the title song and is reprised near the end after closing the first half, doesn’t have the same impact (and in our town, home of the ‘rag’ trade, its lyrics sound old hat). The cast, led by Rebecca Trehearn as Rebecca, and including a professional stage debut by Lydia White as Bella, are all very good indeed, and the musical qualities (MD Nick Barstow) are high, using actor-musicians as the four ensemble performers and so mobilising the band into the action. I just wished the revisers of the show had had the nerve to be a bit more radical yet. #HopeMillTheatre #RAGS

Schikaneder & Mozart Opera North Lowry Lyric, Salford 2 hours 55 minutes, including 20min interval 5 March 2019 – 9 March 2019 This is the one completely new production Opera North are offering in their winter-spring season, and pulls in the crowds as it ever does. It’s the fifth version of The Magic Flute I’ve seen Opera North do, and though my favourite is still one of the older ones, this runs it a close second. It’s good they’ve gone for an update after a decade or so. Technology has changed, and a show that always relies essentially on some kind of stage effects has to benefit from imaginative image projection (and a few light sabres). How else do you show ordeals by fire and water – and even the monster at the start (though that was reassuringly physical, too)? Director James Brining’s update goes much further than that, though. He sees the whole thing through a child’s eyes – a little girl being put to bed, in a silent prologue acted out during the overture, and then (presumably) dreaming the rest. In the room behind are her father’s grown-up friends, gathered around the dinner table, and a number of them are reincarnated as characters in the story. That’s not a new idea (it’s been used a few times for Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet, for instance), but it’s a good one for a fantasy tale such as this. Ah, but there’s more to it than a happy family gathering – because this dad is estranged from her mum, who arrives unexpectedly and demands access rights. Who is the daughter to side with: the mother who bore her or the father who has power over her? That becomes the underlying interpretation of the story … as her nanny morphs into Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of the Night, who is held captive by Sarastro and his seemingly impregnable company of high-minded disciples. Will her Prince (Tamino) come to find her, and will love conquer all? I have to say that Sarastro and his mates do not come out of things very well in this version. Virtue and steadfastness (not to mention feistiness, as exemplified by the blood-spattered Three Ladies) are qualities of the female characters not the male, and the Masonic values mouthed by the brotherhood emerge as sheer hypocrisy. When John Savournin (as Sarastro) commends Tamino’s worth because he is a prince … and then also because ‘he is a man!’ a pause before he says the line upends it, and every woman in the audience chuckles to herself. John Savournin was suffering from a cold on opening night in Salford and asked for our understanding (he sang very effectively all the same) but his casting as Sarastro, and Dean Robinson’s as the Speaker of the community, was a move away from the tradition of heavy, authoritative voices for these roles and made them fallible human beings. Gavan Ring, as an Irish-sounding Parageno, though, was a lovable and attractive male figure (phew!) and one of the stars of the evening. The other was Samantha Hay, whose Queen of the Night was imperious and vocally stunning, as she should be. Vuvu Mpofu (Pamina) and Kang Wang (Tamino) both have lovely voices – the latter known to RNCM operagoers already, of course – and were never less than a pleasure to hear. It’s a strong company effort all round, with notable singing in every role, and the children’s contributions (including the assured voices of the Three Boys) were excellent. Robert Howarth conducted with lively tempi and some very detached articulations to give the score plenty of punch, so no complaints in that area. The Brining version of the story, though, refreshingly of the moment as it is, does leave a few questions hanging. Does Monostatos have to be re-interpreted as quite so repulsively libidinous? And did there need to be such clear visual hints in Colin Richmond’s costume design that the Brotherhood is a precursor of the Nazis, with a company of nuns thrown in? Conformism has many faces, and those are not the only ones we know. #operanorth

Arthur Miller University of Bolton Bolton Library Theatre 28 February 2019 - 16 March 2019, 2 hr 5 min with interval Two married couples, each coping with mental illness, could hardly make this play more relevant. Except that this is a 1990s period piece of writing by titan of modern literature, Arthur Miller, so the fault lines it examines in personal relationships run rather deeper into the fabric of American society. In the first act, respective husbands Leroy (David Ricardo-Pearce) and John (Patrick Poletti) meet for the first time in a hospital waiting area and are drawn into discussion of the depression that afflicts both of their spouses. It’s a conversation that reveals as much about their own fragility, and background, as that of their wives. The play then moves into the hospital ward, where Patricia (Juliet Aubrey) and Karen (Annie Tyson) brace themselves for their visitors’ arrival. What follows is a gripping and moving account of lives laid bare by perceptions of what counts for fulfilment in modern society. The mirrors, used as a backdrop to the sterile ward setting of Ciaran Bagnall’s stage design, deliberately reflect a large part of the audience into the ‘debate’, while the semi-circular setting of this venue suggests almost an autopsy held in a medical lecture theatre. Add in such details as the character Leroy being an artisan descendant of US founding father Alexander Hamilton (that’s right, the one from the hit musical!) or even the fact that Arthur Miller himself, at one time, was married to Marilyn Monroe – a woman whose own life typified the success and failure of the American Dream – and it’s fair to say there’s a lot to absorb in two hours of confined and combative drama. Juliet Aubrey is quite mesmerising as a restless spirit of motherhood. Beside her the stillness of Annie Tyson makes a vivid difference. The acting throughout is peerless. Then again this is a production by David Thacker, whose time as artistic director at Bolton Octagon created memorable revivals of other Miller plays. Both men enjoyed close collaboration together in the 90s, and it was a partnership whose dividend is again abundantly evident here. #ArthurMiller #JulietAubrey

Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, adapted by Antony Lampard The Classic Thriller Theatre Company Grand Theatre, Blackpool 4 March 2019 - 9 March 2019, 2hr 5min with interval Playing cherchez la femme across several moving train carriages was never going to be the easiest story to switch from screen to stage. Undaunted, Bill Kenwright’s Classic Thriller theatre company does just that, booking seats for a first-class cast to re-enact Alfred Hitchock’s famous black and white movie in this fast-moving stage adaptation. It’s an express train ride, condensing the story into two rapid 50-minute acts where plot, and characters, occasionally flash by just a little too quickly. Audiences familiar with the original 1938 movie, or even the more recent cinema and TV re-makes, should at least enjoy the ride. Original writers Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder constructed a multi-faceted story of intrigue, romance and even comedy, all aboard a train ride across pre-war Europe. When a young English tourist (Lorna Fitzgerald) discovers an elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared, her unlikely saviour is a young musicologist (Matt Barber). Nowadays of course it’s much more likely that the entire train service has vanished... Top billing here actually goes to husband-and-wife stars Juliet Mills and Maxwell Caulfield, and without spoiling too much of the plot it’s fair to say she tends to top and tail the story. Other familiar TV faces, Robert Duncan and Ben Nealon, re-create the comedy double act of Charters and Caldicott, who actually went on to appear in several more films. The original movie poster for The Lady Vanishes promised ‘comedy, chills and chuckles’ and this production doesn’t always get them in the right order, or at least where it might want them. On opening night, an obstinate railway compartment door provided its own thrills for several members of the cast, and not a few chuckles from the audience. The young lead characters are maybe a little too animated – or too youthful to know – that actually running along a swaying train corridor was nigh on impossible. But this is, expressly, a romp as much as a thriller. #ladyvanishes #Hitchcock #classicthriller

Stravinsky; Forzano & Puccini Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre Grand Theatre, Leeds 16 February 2019 - 2 March 2019, 2hr 5min inc 30min interval At The Lowry, Salford, on 8 March 2019 One thing’s for certain about this double bill – you get value for your money. It’s unusual for an opera company to include a dance show on the same night as an opera, even more so when the dance show is Stravinsky’s ground-breaking, big-orchestra-requiring The Rite of Spring, and the opera is Puccini’s glorious, 16-role, comedy-with-a-hit-aria-thrown-in, Gianni Schicchi. Opera North get together with Leeds-based Phoenix Dance Theatre to deliver the goods, and how they deliver. The first big reward is the quality of the orchestral playing in The Rite. It’s become a concert hall staple more than a ballet company favourite, and I’ve heard a few concert versions in my time, but never with quite the rawness and electric energy that the Opera North orchestra delivered – albeit in a reduced-size version – under Garry Walker’s baton. It would have been wonderful just to listen with my eyes shut. But I didn’t, because the second reward was Jeanguy Saintus’ choreography and the Phoenix dancers’ performance. They are a contemporary company, and this was a reinterpretation of the score, because that’s what contemporary dance companies do. They don’t have the traditional principals and corps de ballet of the classicalists – just eight dancers in all, and despite the fact that The Rite has its ‘numbers’, with titles that imply a narrative (of a pagan sacrificial ceremony to placate the gods of spring in primitive Russia), Saintus takes his cues from the music and gives us movement that springs from the sounds themselves. There are images of savage, brutal frenzy, and a victim singled out (more than one in different settings), but that’s about as near to a narrative as you get. Still, it’s exciting stuff, often presenting the eight in a phalanx or divided in even numbers, and, considering the fact that there’s no set at all, remarkably colourful by virtue of the costume design alone (Yann Seabra). And then there was Gianni. Puccini wrote it as a one-act comedy to finish an evening, and in Christopher Alden’s directorial hands it does that brilliantly. This is a revival of his production of 2015, and he goes for laughs from the start, with a dead mule suspended above the stage (we find out what that’s about later in the story) and a little mime sequence in which Dante, the original creator of the story, pops up and then morphs into the about-to-be deceased Buoso Donati, tugging his own deathbed around the stage. The tale is about the greedy and venal relatives of the late Buoso, how they scheme to get their hands on his assets when he’s left them all to a monastery, and the man of the title role who comes up with the idea of impersonating the dead man and dictating a fake will before anyone finds out. He does what they want, but makes himself wealthy in the process, too – and what can they do, as they’re all accomplices? It’s exceptionally well acted by Richard Burkhard as Gianni (as well as sung) and the other principals and characters, and with Alden’s help they differentiate each one to much comic effect, and the music comes over richly in Walker’s care. And there’s the show-stopping aria, O mio babbino caro, delightfully sung by Tereza Gevorgyan as Gianni’s daughter Lauretta, the young inamorata of penniless Rinuccio, to both of whom he grants the fulfilment of their dreams in the course of his subterfuge. It’s a plea to her dad to help them out of the black hole of Buoso’s meanness to his family, when the other interested parties don’t trust him anyway. Usually it’s sung in the death chamber with everyone listening, which brings a dramatic problem because you wonder how her words to him can make any difference to anything – or else you have to conclude that it’s all simulated emotion because the two of them have plotted the whole thing in advance. Alden clears the stage and presents it just as a moment of pure beauty in the midst of a naughty world, almost unrelated to the rest. And everyone always applauds it, so that’s fine. #operanorth

Based on the Ragdoll television series created by Andrew Davenport. Lowry Lyric, 28 Feb to 2 March then touring, including Floral Pavilion (Wirral) 4 & 5 June; Palace Theatre Manchester, 28 & 29 August, and Grand Theatre (Blackpool) 7 & 8 September 1hr approx (no interval) An enduring success on the small screen for well over a decade, In The Night Garden’s first ever theatre show enjoyed its tour premiere at The Lowry this week. While it is the brand’s first theatre show, it has of course been a summer staple around the UK for a few years, setting up its self-contained ‘showdome’ at places like the Trafford Centre. But now the production and brand have been adapted to tour theatres, giving fans the chance to enter the Night Garden by a more familiar theatre setting. This has the immediate bonus of being able to sit in designated seats rather than turning up to queue - the showdome has unallocated seating. And it absolutely feels a more intimate experience than watching in a slightly impersonal pop-up venue. The new production, Igglepiggle’s Busy Day, is written by Helen Eastman and recreates the whimsical Night Garden and all its favourite characters, as well as having perhaps the most cuddle-worthy costumes ever seen on stage. There’s a definite - if somewhat incongruous - thrill in hearing the regal tones of Derek Jacobi echoing around the Lowry’s Lyric Theatre auditorium. As with the television show, the legendary actor provides the narration. This is clearly a lovingly-made and thoughtfully-created show, with the Night Garden world and characters beautifully realised and brought to life with a mix of life-size costumes, scaled down puppets and videos. Samuel Wyer’s set looks to have no expense spared, all grassy knolls and twinkling lights, and has plenty of familiar elements you’d expect to see - from Upsy Daisy’s megaphone to Makka Pakka’s soap and sponge! Praise must go to Vinnie Monachello and Victoria Jane absolutely perfecting Igglepiggle and Upsy Daisy’s physical mannerisms - identical to those seen on the small screen, thank goodness! There’s also a number of green-clad, bowler-hatted puppeteers who are rarely off stage. They do great work, hitting the right balance between not distracting from the ‘stars’ as well as raising smiles themselves with their enthusiasm and charm. The witty, teeny-tiny Pontipines family of puppets prompt chuckles as they bob about the stage - and all over their puppeteers. In fact all the puppet versions of the characters seemed to have the ‘awwwww’ factor - especially for my four year old. And I think only the hardest of hearts would fail to be moved by the audience response to the first appearance of the characters on stage. My only real gripe was allowing photography during the production - a distraction even in a family-friendly and relaxed affair such as this. Flashes were not turned off despite the pre-show request. If you missed it at the Lowry then In The Night Garden Live is returning to the North West a few more times, including the Wirral, Manchester and Blackpool (see top), so there are a few more chances to set sail to the Garden in the Night... #InTheNightGarden #TheLowry #Igglepiggle #Family #childrenstheatre