Theatre and Siân Hickson

Belt Up’s Twenty Minutes to Nine

Compelling performance with uncertain audience-actor dynamic

14 Aug 2011

This young company continue their commitment to fine storytelling in this solo piece documenting the unresolved history of an embittered woman (who may or may not be a famous literary archetype), inviting the audience into her secluded world to hear ‘a…

New Lyceum production of The Importance of Being Earnest

Production follows on from Romeo and Juliet

27 Oct 2010

The Importance of Being Earnest arrives hot on the heels of the Lyceum’s recent production of Romeo and Juliet, and is employing virtually the same cast and the same set. Director Mark Thomson is excited at the prospect of getting his teeth into Wilde’s…

Opium Eater

1 Sep 2010

Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is the grandaddy of the junkie philosophy genre and the inspiration behind Andrew Dallmeyer’s biographical play Opium Eater. Now Alasdair McCrone, artistic director of the Mull Theatre, is…

Now is the Winter

Confusion abounds

25 Aug 2010

Unless you’re seriously intimate with Shakespeare’s original give this a miss. This one-woman reinterpretation of Richard III retells the story from his ascendancy to the battle of Bosworth through the eyes of a faithful servant. A challenging notion…

Freefall

Take the plunge

20 Aug 2010

Michael West’s new work has already garnered a clutch of accolades in the company’s native Dublin, and richly deserved they are too. This is a piece of startlingly brilliant theatre; the powerful and enthralling tale of ‘a perfectly normal life’ told in…

Reykjavik

Get on the next flight

19 Aug 2010

Not one for the participation-averse, but any production where you get to dress as a Ghostbuster is fine by me. Flippancy aside, this is something a bit special. The unpromising surroundings of the Bongo Club are transformed into an evocative…

Are You There?

Above-average student drama

14 Aug 2010

A dingy apartment is the setting for this paranormal tale of a fraught couple’s enforced cohabitation with a sinister presence. Adapter/director Charlie Ward has done a cracking job with Javier Daulte’s original work and the young cast of two rise…

Burst

Atmospheric as a whole, but the script lacks polish

14 Aug 2010

This tale of a Sudanese girl forced into an arranged marriage in the wake of colonial independence sadly fails to sparkle. The plot is unnecessarily and clunkingly intercut with a rushed account of her uncle’s fatal foray into 1920s London, which is…

Shakespeare the Man From Stratford

Spellbinding mix of thundering speeches and historical storytelling

12 Aug 2010

Simon Callow’s Fringe show is a magnificent three-course banquet of storytelling that will prove irresistible to anyone with a passing interest in Shakespeare. Writer Jonathan Bate builds a biography of the Bard told around extracts from his works…

The Fly in the Fridge

No flies on this

12 Aug 2010

This is what the Fringe is all about. One ersatz stage, one stepladder, and one immensely-talented performer. Karin de la Penha enacts the traumatic true story of an Orphean journey through an underworld of heroin and prostitution. At times almost…