Reviews

Kenneth More Theatre, Ilford
to 24 January

Nigel Ellacott’s version of this classic pantomime is a skilful blend of the traditional and the unexpected. The basic story line is the familiar one but there are some interesting twists, especially in the second act. And, for a production in a smallish 1970s theatre, it packs a powerful visual punch. Read more »

Theatre Royal, Norwich|
to 18 January

It’s a big show upon which thought as well as money has been lavished to fine effect. The story is familiar to most children, through the 1937 Walt Disney animation if not through the tales collected over 100 years earlier by the brothers Grimm, but writer and director Richard Gauntlett (who completes the hat-trick by playing Dame) runs some interesting variations across it. Read more »

News

The pantomime may be over at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge when February arrives, but there’s a touch of the festive season lingering with the first play to be staged there in 2009. This is Alan Ayckbourn’s latest dark comedy Life and Beth, about a new widow facing her first Christmas without her husband. Read more »

The New Wolsey Theatre is keeping up its reputation for exciting new work as the recently-announced spring season suggests. There are in-house productions, productions shared with other theatres, a series of adventurous short runs from visiting companies and an Arts Council project to supplement existing signed and audio-described performances with captioned ones. Read more »

Interviews

He’s an actor, renowned internationally as a director of plays and opera, was director of the Palace Theatre, Watford from 1965 to 1969 and then went on to run the Citizens’ Theatre in Glasgow for 34 years. So what the Dickens is Giles Havergal working on in Colchester? Read more »

A drama which focuses on West Indian servicemen’s experiences fighting for the British Empire during the First World War sounds both unusual and intriguing. Suffolk-educated Juliet Gilkes-Romero tells us how At the Gates of Gaza was researched and written. You can catch it at the New Wolsey in Ipswich on 10 and 11 and then at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds on 17 and 18 as part of a national tour to 25 October. Read more »