GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Best of 2019: Performance
EARTHBOUND MOVEMENT: Dada Masilo's Giselle
[John Hogg]
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
INVENTIVE adaptations of old favourites were the order of the year, perhaps in response to political and social uncertainties.
Wise Children, the new company set up by Kneehigh's Emma Rice, was responsible for two of the year's highlights, with Malory Towers (York Theatre Royal) turning Enid Blyton's somewhat dated story about a girls' boarding school into an uplifting piece of musical theatre that addressed bullying and the value of community with humour and a big heart.
Those elements were also present in the company's production of Angela Carter's Wise Children (HOME, Manchester). A love letter to the theatre, it used bawdy comedy, song and dance and puppetry to address heavyweight subjects and emotions.
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SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an exuberant blend of emotion and analysis that captures the politics and contrarian nature of the French composer
JAN WOOLF finds out where she came from and where she’s going amid Pete Townshend’s tribute to 1970s youth culture
GORDON PARSONS joins a standing ovation for a brilliant production that fuses Shakespeare’s tragedy with Radiohead's music