There is a constant battle going on in the classroom as a teacher tries to impart knowledge against a background of pupil disruption. There is a constant battle going on in adolescence as teenagers try to come to terms with the hormones raging within. And outside in the wider world a real battle is being fought - an eternal war in time and place that involves violent bloodshed and will cut down a generation of young men. Read the rest of this entry »

Mary Rose is an odd character; both a girl who doesn’t grow up and a mother searching for her lost child. When we first see her in Tony Cownie’s new production of J M Barrie’s play currently at the Lyceum Theatre, she is climbing through the drawing room window from an apple tree outside - not the behaviour one would expect from an eighteen year old girl about to announce her engagement. Read the rest of this entry »

The King’s Theatre this week sees a revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1972 dark comedy “Absurd Person Singular”. The play is in three acts, set in three different kitchens on three successive Christmas Eves, as we witness what takes place as the same group of characters prepare for or take refuge from the party action in the next room. Read the rest of this entry »

63 years old and given another revival - that’s Carousel, which is on this week at the Festival Theatre ahead of a November opening at London’s Savoy theatre. So how does this 1945 musical look and sound to a present day audience? Read the rest of this entry »