599 stories by "Clare Brennan"
Macrobert, StirlingScottish Opera and Visible Fictions' adaptation of Philip Pullman's children's story is as cleverly contrived as an intricate mechanism of meshing cogs " and about as cudd…
Octagon, Bolton"David Lodge yokes together two warhorses, the campus novel and the novel of adultery, and uses them to pull an old debate " the rival claims of science and art " to tell the …
Everyman, LiverpoolTwo fissures in the broken-tiled concrete floor are filled with a foul-looking liquid, bubbling gloopily. A drifting smoke, from no seen source, hazes the air. Francis O'C…
Bardsea Malt Kiln, Cumbria"Augmenters of anecdotes" " if any there be who read this page " beware of calling on your mother for corroboration of exaggeration. Gary Bridgens, one of a pair of…
Royal Exchange, ManchesterBrad Fraser's new play, commissioned by the Royal Exchange, seems as if what it really wants to be is an issue-based TV miniseries dealing with addiction among a gr…
Belgrade theatre, CoventryIf this production had a meter attached marked at one end "sublime" and at the other "ridiculous", its needle would lunge between the extremes, barely registering m…
The way theatre programmes segregate actors from the creative process undersells their contributionWhen did theatre companies start to use the headings "cast" and "creative team" in their pr…
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsAcross the back of the stage stretches a cyclorama, drenched in the hues of a changing sky (Paul Keogan's lighting). In front is suspended an enormous disc, ti…
Traverse, Edinburgh, and touringOn to a towering set is projected an online exchange between a mother and her son. The mother has no idea how a computer "conversation" works. The son has to …
New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme, and touringConrad Nelson's production for Northern Broadsides is a white-knuckle ride but, if you can keep your grip, it is as physically and spiritually exhil…
UK dramatists are hugely popular overseas, where their work enjoys an exposure and longevity often denied it domesticallyFlying out to Slovenia for a new production of Simon Stephens's 2008 …
Crucible theatre, SheffieldDavid Hare's 1990 play about the state of the Church of England seems like a cross between the 1960s TV comedy All Gas and Gaiters (featuring Derek Nimmo as a st…
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsIn the USSR of the 1950s, playwrights, like other artists, had to conform to Stalin's notions of socialist realism; in 1950s UK, it was the West End, "Aunt Edn…
York Theatre Royal, and touringHarper Lee's 1960 story of a young girl's growing understanding of the dark complexities of human nature is one of the most powerfully compassionate novels ev…
Octagon theatre, BoltonAs packed with paradox as Shakespeare's play itself, this production is heart-stoppingly poetic yet jarringly mundane. The audience is arranged, as if in an arena, aro…
Royal Exchange, Manchester"So why," I asked, "does your municipal theatre [Münster, Germany, population approx 280,000] get as much subsidy as our RSC?" The technical director of the German…
Crucible theatre, SheffieldAs the train pulled out of Sheffield, the couple on the other side of the table declared this was best Me and My Girl they had ever seen " and they had seen a few.…
Liverpool PlayhouseIn front of a battered brick wall covered with remnants of things that once were " doors, windows, peeling remnants of adverts for safety matches " floats, or seems to flo…
National Theatre Wales, PenygroesThe Weather Factory is not a factory but a three-storey house. A fixed-price ticket (£20/£15) permits between one and six people to visit for a fixed p…
Octagon, BoltonBuilding on the success of last year's Oliver Twist, Deborah McAndrew again teams up with composer Conrad Nelson to adapt one of Charles Dickens's sprawling novels. Their care…
York Theatre RoyalTutti frutti, the Leeds-based children's touring company, teams up with Theatre Royal in this spirited adaptation of the picture book (Jutta Bauer's drawings, Peter Stamm's…
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughWhite lines trace two shapes at head height on blackboards to either side of the stage: mushrooms? muffins? A Jumbly boy and girl ("Their heads are green a…
Royal Exchange theatre, ManchesterOn to a sand-coloured floor, browned at the perimeter as if scorched by newly dead fires, strides the god Dionysus (divinely embodied by Jotham Annan, in fl…
Live theatre, NewcastleRemember Look and Learn, the children's comic that aimed to educate as it entertained? It's been on my mind a lot in the past few weeks, watching plays where character…
