Much Ado About Nothing (Merely Theatre)

Like London buses, no sooner does one production of Much Ado About Nothing come along than another follows hot on its heels! This time it’s the turn of Merely Theatre, who are touring this beloved comedy alongside famous tragedy Macbeth – though beginning with a series of open air performances solely of Much Ado. Sadly […]

Much Ado About Nothing (Antic Disposition)

It’s summer 1945, and war is over in Europe; British soldiers are making their way home through a newly liberated France following a long and testing fight. This triumphant & seasonal setting is the location of Antic Disposition’s latest production of the much loved comedy Much Ado About Nothing, with Don Pedro and his troops stopping […]

Never Mind The Blog… Here’s August 2018

Though at the moment it looks quiet, I have finally got a draft schedule together for my time in Edinburgh, and it seems as if my plan to ease myself in has just gone out of the window… It’s going to be a hectic week for me up there, but it has to be done! […]

Never Mind The Blog… Here’s May 2018

An exciting couple of months coming up on the fringe – this month I’m checking out Theatre N16’s new venue for a couple of shows, for one thing, and next month The Bunker Theatre will be a bit of a hotbed for new writing. By now, you won’t be surprised that there’s a lot coming […]

Emma Rice at the Globe: top 10

It’s officially into Emma Rice’s last week at Shakespeare’s Globe, and I’m fully expecting to have a meltdown come Saturday evening… So while I’m still functioning, I thought it would be great to celebrate some of my favourite things about her time as the artistic director of the Globe – both from her shows and […]

Olivier Awards 2018 – nominees

I must admit that I was feeling slightly trepidatious about today’s announcement, having checked over the list of eligible productions for this year’s Olivier Awards and being reminded of some of the awful pieces of theatre I saw last year – so my immediate reaction is one of relief. Then follows a tinge of smugness […]

“Oh, for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention!”

You might be forgiven for thinking that only certain Shakespeare plays are allowed to be produced in any given 12-month period – for example, last year I saw five different Twelfth Nights, and this year are at least three Macbeths already on my radar… Michelle Terry couldn’t really come up with anything out of the […]

Favourite shows of 2017

Any number of shows could have been included in this post; frankly it’s ludicrous that I decided to stick with my whole top 12 idea… As I’ve seen about 90 more individual shows than last year, it’s almost a question of picking some of the shows out of a hat to be able to split […]

End of 2017 report

With Sunny Afternoon officially off the radar (I’d kept Wimbledon in mind, but timing & prices sealed it), 2017 was set to revolve almost entirely around the Globe. There was also the tiny thing of my solo trip to New York to think about early on… Despite a slow, measured start, I upped the pace […]

Favourite performances of 2017

This year variety has been the thing (though I’ve still managed to stack up certain repeat attendances), so that means I’ve seen a serious amount of performers – some even two or three times… So I’ve had incredible difficulty here. That was part of my reasoning as far as Mind the Advent 2017 was concerned; […]