GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Bloody chamber theatre
SUSAN DARLINGTON revels in an exhilarating adaptation of the gruesome fairytale that invokes the real-life horror of women lost to male violence
Tristan Sturrock and Katy Owen in Emma Rice’s Blue Beard
[Pic: Steve Tanner]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Blue Beard
York Theatre Royal
ANYONE who’s seen a previous Emma Rice production will know what to expect from Blue Beard: bawdy humour, music hall, and emotional heft. These are all characteristics she shares with Angela Carter, whose work she admires so much she named her theatre company after her 1991 novel Wise Children.
The biggest surprise is, perhaps, that it’s taken her so long to adapt Charles Perrault’s gruesome folktale, which Carter notably updated in classic feminist short story The Bloody Chamber. Rice leans into this revisionist angle in a way her hero would doubtless approve in this co-production with Birmingham Rep, HOME Manchester, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, and York Theatre Royal.
It’s a characteristically unruly, exhilarating show that lures the audience into false security with mischievous jokes aimed at everyone from Jamie Oliver to Claire from Steps.
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