There Has Possibly Been An Incident
Conflict between characters makes for entertaining viewing in any medium. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Royal Exchange’s There Has Possibly Been An Incident. Sam Pritchard (Royal Exchange...
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Daniel Kitson branches out
Daniel Kitson has made an art of taking the unconventional route. As a stand-up, he’s largely given TV and radio the swerve. You’re not likely to see him pop up on Live at the Apollo or on the panel...
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Carnage at the Royal Exchange
Emotional carnage was adroitly presented to a shocked and thrilled audience on Wednesday night, as Manchester’s Royal Exchange took up the challenge of presenting theatre-goers with a devastating...
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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Not long into the first half of Sweeney Todd, my stomach rumbled and I realised the folly of failing to have any tea before the show. Nearly three hours of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street lay ahead,...
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Victoria Wood’s That Day We Sang
When I was 21, I spent an enjoyable year working as an usher at Manchester’s Palace Theatre and Opera House. It was the equivalent of a ‘year off’, a bit of fun with a bit of cash before I became a...
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Theatre at its most theatrical: the must-see production of Orlando
Christ, Jesus, the Royal Exchange‘s production of Orlando is good. In a canon which dwelled on inner and outer darkness and popularised the stream of consciousness narrative, Virginia Woolf‘s fictional...
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A Day of Song
The Royal Northern College of Music is an ambitious institution. It is ambitious to further its already considerable reputation as a world-class conservatoire and it’s ambitious on behalf of its 700...
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The Last Days of Troy
Simon Armitage’s The Last Days of Troy at Manchester’s Royal Exchange is the stuff that dreams are made of. For the dramatist it is the cumulation of a dream that began in the café of Hebden Bridge...
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Billy Liar at Manchester’s Royal Exchange
I have a confession to make. I tell lies. I have told them often and without regret. Whether they are teeny, tiny lies to save a friend’s feelings, big, fat ones to get myself out of sticky situations...
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Around the World in 80 Days at Manchester’s Royal Exchange
A collaboration between the New Vic and the Royal Exchange theatres, Around The World In 80 Days owes less to the 1956 film version starring David Niven than it does to the 1980s cartoon Around The...
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Review: Hamlet at Manchester’s Royal Exchange
There’s a terrific, often overlooked sketch in the first series of The League of Gentlemen. In amongst the homicidal shopkeepers and deranged Job Club officers, we see Reece Shearsmith and Steve...
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Maxine Peake talks to Northern Soul
Months ago, when the news that Maxine Peake was going to play Hamlet had just gone public, I asked her, in so many words, ‘”why?”. Her answer back then speaks volumes about the qualities of daring,...
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Review: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Manchester Royal Exchange
Director James Dacre, speaking to me as his version of Tennessee Williams’s Cat On A Hot Tin Roof was just about to set out on its tour of Northampton’s Royal & Derngate, Newcastle’s Live Theatre...
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Walking in the footsteps of the scuttlers
On a suitably grey Saturday, I retraced the steps of the formidable gangs of the 19th Century known as scuttlers, recently recreated by Manchester’s Royal Exchange in Rona Munro’s play of the same...
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In detention: Rule 35 and Community Arts North West
Rule 35 is a new production from Community Arts North West, an immersive show which allows the public to experience the fear and isolation of women held in detention centres such as Yarl’s Wood....
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Review: Rule 35, Z-arts in Hulme, Manchester
“Don’t be late,” said the director when I interviewed her for Northern Soul. I knew why. Audience members wandering in halfway through would be devastating to the illusion of containment in a play...
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Review: The Rolling Stone, Royal Exchange, Manchester
Running in repertory with the current Exchange production of Anna Karenina, and using many of the same cast and backstage team, The Rolling Stone is, for my money, a much more impressive production....
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Review: The Skriker, Manchester International Festival
Maxine Peake’s artistic reunion with director Sarah Frankcom after The Masque Of Anarchy and Hamlet has, predictably, proved to be one of the hottest tickets at this year’s Manchester International...
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Review: The Crucible, Royal Exchange, Manchester
There are two people in a room, the director of The Crucible and her designer. They are talking about the final act, the one after the interval, and saying it would be a brilliant idea to fill the...
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Review: Into the Woods, Royal Exchange, Manchester
Matthew Xia’s first production as associate artistic director at Manchester’s Royal Exchange is a bold festive choice and one that is bound to be a crowd pleaser. After the success of the 2014 film...
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