Shrek has arrived in Wolverhampton and judging by the brief look I got backstage tonight it's a tight squeeze! However from my vantage point in the dress circle you'd never know it. Continuing its first national UK and Ireland tour and now onto its second cast the show is displaying no sign of fatigue and is as fresh and fun as the day it opened.
Presented by Theatre Of The Vivarium Studio - France.
To many, this 80 minute non-stop offering would be a masterclass in how not to do theatre. However, this is a company renowned for pushing the boundaries and challenging the acceptable. This is experimental theatre, and this particular production is experimental theatre at its best and most accessible. And where better than Manchester's HOME for the UK premier of this piece. A theatre newly founded dedicated to the new, the upcoming, the 'different'.
Dark Arteries comprises three separate performances by Rambert: Dark Arteries, The 3 Dancers and Terra Incognita. Each performance lasts for thirty to thirty five minutes with a twenty minute interval in between each one.
The only thing I knew in advance was that the Dark Arteries section was inspired by the thirty year anniversary of the miners' strike (who would believe it was thirty years?!) and that the famous Fairey Band were accompanying that part of the show.
I am certainly no fan of the modernisation or relocation of Shakespeare plays. No other dramatist in our history has ever been so refashioned. Why do directors and theatre producers alike think that when they come to Shakespeare they have licence to set the play in any era using any costume, even changing the language and editing the text accordingly. Indeed, this is now seen as de rigeur and no self-respecting theatre company would ever think of setting a Shakespeare play in its original and intended context! No-one would be able to get away with such bastardisations of any other playwright, so why Shakespeare?
Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace first graced our TV screens in 2006 on the popular BBC show Strictly Come Dancing. When the programme first aired in 2004, it was uncertain has to how the show would be a hit or not. The format was inspired by Come Dancing, the popular ballroom dancing series that run for several decades since its first broadcast in 1949 but which now seemed like something from another, quainter time. Adding the word Strictly, an illusion to the cult 1992 movie Strictly Ballroom, gives a hint of 21st-century pizzazz, but it could have gone either way. It was in series four (2006) that Vincent and Flavia made their debut on the show. Vincent’s first celebrity dance partner was Eastenders Lynda Lytton; the pair made it as far as week ten. While Flavia was responsible for Jimmy Tarbuck (well you can’t win them all Flavia!), but unfortunately he had to withdraw for health reasons. In subsequent series, the couple coached stars as diverse as Paul Daniels, Russell Grant, Rachel Stevens, Felicity Kendal and Edwina Curry. In 2012, Flavia took gymnast Louis Smith all the way to end-of-series victory.
I intentionally didn’t Google Westcoast before the show. I like the Beach Boys and I expected a tribute act looking vaguely like the Beach Boys and singing Beach Boys songs, hopefully quite well. That wasn’t exactly what I got… and when the first song began I was bitterly disappointed. Five blokes came out and sang; their only concession to looking remotely like the Beach Boys were their striped shirts. They were singing well, but were performing a dance routine, almost mime, more akin to The Four Seasons. This wasn’t the Beach Boys, who were a band who played instruments and sang in close harmony.
Once upon a time, in kingdom on top of the highest mountain in all the land, there lived a grouchy Queen, and her son, the Prince. The Prince was always getting in to trouble for slouching, for running, for burping and dancing and not behaving very princely at all! His mother decided that he needed to marry the perfect princess to finally become a grown-up and a proper King. Hundreds of princesses came from all over the kingdom, but the Prince wasn't impressed by any of them... Until one princess arrived accompanied by her brother
What a romp! With giggles galore and bucketful’s of belly laughs, Opera della Luna’s interpretation of Offenbach’s classic is an absolute delight.
From the moment the late arrival of an audience member with a loud voice, the temerity to talk to her fellow theatre-goers and to interrupt and shout to the MD during the overture, it was just one rollicking moment after another.
Over 125 years since Swan Lake was first staged in Moscow in 1877, it continues as the most universally popular of classical ballets, both for its music and its story. Its origins may have been in a children’s entertainment devised some years previously among the family and friends of Tchaikovsky’s sister, Alexandra Davidova. The four-act ballet was commissioned by the director of the Moscow Imperial Theatres, Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, who seems to have mapped out the scenario in association with the dancer Vassily Seltzer. It is this on which Tchaikovsky based his composition and Julius Reisinger his first choreography.
In a professional capacity I always enjoy a show that has a good story, talented cast and (obviously my tastes are more for musicals) great music to help the story flow, however as well as being a campaigner for LGBT rights I also love a show that is camp, full of sparkle and riddled with comedy. Priscilla (Queen of the Desert, to give its full title as any queen rightfully deserves) fulfils that in bundles (nope, he’s a character from another musical!).
Sit back enjoy a trip down memory lane as Dreamboats and Miniskirts takes you back to the charm and music of the 60's. It's very safe to say the same team - Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran have done it again after bringing attention to the 50's with Dreamboats and Petticoats and now 10 years on with this smash hit juke-box musical. I just say I was a little hesitant about this musical as sequels can go either way when it comes to maintaining an audience but this is a real treat for those that can't get enough of the sound of the 60's.
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