GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Dickens of a good time with this Christmas Carol
Heart-warming: Lladel Bryant, Joe Alessi and Darren Kuppan in A Christmas Carol
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
A Christmas Carol
Leeds Playhouse
“DON'T be so hard on me!” whines Ebenezer Scrooge to the tortured ghost of his erstwhile business partner Jacob Marley, a line that captures the eternal child trapped within the central character as well as the pithy humour injected into Deborah McAndrew's adaptation of A Christmas Carol at Leeds Playhouse.
It's this focus on character and uplifting family entertainment rather than overt politics — despite the parallels in the narrative with Food Bank Britain that might be explored — that the playwright and director Amy Leach bring to the perennial festive favourite.
This is very much a production that remains faithful to Charles Dickens's Victorian sensibilities while playing loose with detail.
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