Midsomer Murders
Having entered the theatre worried this show might not be for me, I left after one of the most unexpectedly enjoyable evenings at the Theatre Royal for quite some time
Read full Article >Hamlet
This was a noble attempt to breathe fresh life into a play we know too well to enjoy as the author intended. It was a feast for the eyes and, with the text stripped to the bone, offered up an unusually urgent and fast-moving version. Whether that justifies a staging conceit that strained credulity is a moot point.
Read full ArticleRay O'Leary - Laughter? I Hardly Know Her
Ray O'Leary, is fair to say, has a distinctive way about him. Wild, curly hair. Beer belly out and proud. A face only a mother could love. And that suit. It's a look that says he knows exactly what he’s doing and that he does it very well.
Read full ArticleDear England
This play about football was not really about football at all. It was a play about male bonding, humanity, mutual respect, facing your demons, and about meeting with triumph and disaster, and treating those two impostors just the same.
Read full Article2:22 A Ghost Story
This is a ghost story, not a horror story, with an uneasy atmosphere of impending doom. The play is handsomely staged, with subtle but effective use of sound and lighting. Along the way we get red herrings, misdirection and tension-busting humour. Robins even lobs in class-conscious social commentary into the mix.
12 Beans of Christmas - Adam Riches
What seemed clear from the outset was how much fun Adam Riches was having, and how effortlessly that good humour infected everything that went on.
Inspector Morse - House of Ghosts
Actors, directors and backstage crews work just as hard, perhaps even harder, when things aren’t working out, and I take no pleasure in finding fault. However, whatever the reason, the play was a disappointment
David Olusoga - A Gun Through Time
What was most surprising was how witty a speaker Olusoga is, quite a revelation given his austere TV persona. Given the grim journey he was about to take us on, perhaps its purpose was simply a chance to get to know each other before discussing the elephant in the room - or at least the gun on stage - the Maxim gun, known as the Devil's Paintbrush, spewing out 666 bullets a minute.
Warhorse
The moment when Joey transforms from a foal to a fully grown horse is a gasp inducing theatrical wonder. Such is the skill of the three puppeteers operating Joey, they are entirely invisible to the mind's eye, despite being in plain sight
The Midnight Bell
The production values of The Midnight Bell were superb. Lez Brotherston's set and costume design was an inventive delight. I would judge Terry Davies's original composition to be his finest collaboration with Bourne to date. The performances were faultless. This was a delightful spectacle that brought the stage to life.
Exoplanets
I felt like I had slipped sideways into an alternative universe, where a mash up of live action, orchestral performance and planetary projections was being presented to a full house in the biggest performance space in Norwich
Edgeland
The abiding message was the longevity of the natural world, notwithstanding its perilous state, and how ephemeral is the part we play in it.
Elf Lyons - Horses
This was an outstanding night of well structured, faultlessly executed, comedy/performance art and credit is due to the Theatre Royal for opening up a space for such an exhilarating, genre defying show.
Ghost Stories
Whether you were in Team Sceptic or Team Believer, as Danny Robins would say, this was a jolly hoot from beginning to the end.
Picture You Dead
All in all, a grand, old fashioned night out appreciated by a capacity audience, which is not something to be lightly dismissed in this day and age.
Juliette Burton: Hopepunk
Her gift, and it cannot be overstated, is to normalise what might otherwise be too traumatic to discuss, embracing not only her philosophy but her audience as well, so that the evening felt less like a performance and more like a conversation.
Birdsong
Birdsong staged scenes as powerful as I can recall ever seeing in a theatre, offering a coherent and deeply moving account of bravery in war, the damage war does, and most fundamentally, the wretchedly pointlessness of it all..
Murder on the Orient Express
Given that the stage version of Murder on the Orient Express is an entirely new play, one might have expected great liberties to be taken but the reverse was the case - there was an evident reverence for the source text apparent throughout Ludwig's adaptation that tiptoed lightly over the darker themes of Christie's novel, preferring instead to focus on flashes of humour and the cosy familiarity of a tale retold.
Art
Given the acrimony of Brexit, covid vaccination and even the recent Lucy Letby controversy, far from feeling dated, the play feels surprisingly relevant – an exemplar of what happens when we lose the ability to disagree civilly, instead content to take lumps out of family and friends with little regard for the consequential fallout.
Drop the Dead Donkey
I dare say that my memory of the TV show itself is rose tinted, but if wallowing in nostalgia is an inexcusable crime then I plead guilty, as critical facilities crumbled in the face of a production that was simply, and unapologetically, silly good fun.
Jesus Christ Superstar
There's no denying this was a musical and visual spectacular to satisfy the most jaded of palates. In writing this, I've had to wrestle with the jumble of songs now roaming my brain as conflicting ear worms do battle.
Ed Gamble
For all his ribald profanity, Gamble is an unusually old fashioned comic, building up mental pictures in the mind of an audience from a grain of truth, who then laugh loudest at situations that, but for the grace of God, go I.
Ross Noble Jibber Jabber Jamboree
Dispensing with the notion of a support act, we collectively jumped into the deep end, as he homed in on the brave souls on the front row. It's not unusual for a comic to break the ice with a bit of a chat with the audience before launching into the act, but it quickly became apparent this was the act. At times, he seemed less like a slick comic, and more like the funniest mate down the pub.
A Family Business
Often, theatre is a device for escaping our troubles, and I suppose there's nothing wrong with that, but for those of us that yearn for more nourishing fare, it's good to know something reliably substantial is still being served up on a China Plate.
Tom Allen
Tom Allen is the master of the pointed question, the cheeky put-down and the witty response
The Woman in Black
Such was the atmosphere generated, it was easy to imagine, out the corner of your eye, that you caught a glimpse of the eponymous Woman, such was the descriptive power of the text. Who would have thought that possible with only two actors on a bare stage?
Grayson Perry - A Show About You
Despite ambitions to be the enfant terrible of British art when he won the Turner Prize in 2003, Grayson Perry is officially a National Treasure. His recent reinvention as an investigative explorer of countercultures and communities, albeit in his civvies, offered a clue as what to expect from his live show. What I didn't expect was for him to break into full throated song.
Noises Off
First staged forty years ago, Michael Frayn's Noises Off continues to be performed all over the world, and continues to have audiences howling with laughter. With Norwich only its third outing, I got the sense the cast had not yet entirely settled into their roles, but for most part this was a thoroughly entertaining, and mercilessly funny, night at the theatre.
Quiz
Anyone under the age of thirty must find it bewildering that such a prosaic misdemeanour is even remembered, let along dramatized for the stage. And yet its grip obstinately refuses to let go. It’s a testament to the quality of Graham's writing that the show was not only entertaining, but gripping, with an ability to surprise in spite of its well-trodden path.
2:22 a Ghost Story at the Theatre Royal
I don't think I can recently recall seeing a play that so exactly matched my expectations, which was for a jolly night out watching hokey nonsense delivered with style and brio.