CityLife

Review: A Night On The Tiles @ Contact Theatre

By Alan Hulme

LITTLE is what it seems or what you might expect in this debut show from young Manchester-based company Pen-ultimate. Even the title is a pun, as the tiles in question aren’t those of a raucous night out but the plastic letters of Scrabble.

Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream @ Bolton Octagon

By Alan Hulme

TAKING his cue from the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album cover, the Sixties in general and - for reasons by no means clear – the reign of the Greek Colonels, director David Thacker has imposed a concept on Shakespeare’s most popular comedy that is more than a little odd.

JB Shorts @ Library Theatre

By Natalie Anglesey

THE Library Theatre, which has housed many innovative productions in its long history, is doing good business with JB Shorts, a collection of fifteen minute plays by television screenwriters.

Review: Salt @ Royal Exchange Studio

By Alan Hulme

TWO thirty-something couples, five dinner parties over a period of nine months, a plush London basement kitchen and the cooking of real food on stage – sounds like one of Alan Ayckbourn’s typically tricky plot ideas, doesn’t it?

Review: A Raisin In The Sun @ Royal Exchange

By Alan Hulme

A HUGE, award-winning, Broadway hit in the late 1950s, Lorraine Hansberry’s compassionate and gently humorous family saga has always been viewed as a cornerstone in the development of Black theatre.

These guys put the flame into flamenco

Anonymous wrote: Lucky enough to get tickets for this show in Barcelona just before Christmas..its not just Flamenco..its ballet..its street dance..its a live music show..its amazing. these guys are all brothers, someone said to me there were 39 brothers and sisters in all!. Individually they have danced with major dance companie... Read more…

Raisen in the Sun

ecbian wrote: This is an exceptional production, with strong performances from all the excellent cast. Starletta DuPois is capitavting as the widdowed Matriarch watching her children struggle to find their way in a changing but still cruel world. Jenny Jules is perfect as Ruth shackled by the need to ... Read more…

Powerful stuff let down by poor acting

Julia Coulton wrote: This play by Lorraine Hansberry set in the south side of Chicago in the 1950s was the first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. Read more…

Grimm, great entertainment

Julia Coulton wrote: If you like your Christmas family entertainment without the corny jokes and saccharine sweet content, then this just might be the show for you. It is a modern reworking of some of the well known, and not so well known, tales from the brothers Grimm, by Manchester’s own current poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Read more…

What a fantastic production

Anonymous wrote: Amazing Christmas production not to be missed Read more…