Latest in: Arts Reviews

Pantomime season is back and Nottingham Playhouse is delivering a potentially perfect production. The performance was perfect in the sense of a traditional pantomime, because let’s face it – panto isn’t anything without the spontaneous and unexpected one-liners. The show is introduced by a short rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping...

MissImp’s website states that “Comedy improv is the fusion of sketch and theatre, with the script lying ignored on the floor. We’ll take you to places you’ve never been”, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. The show was a whirlwind of different locations and characters, with funny and gloriously bizarre...

Set in a backstreet American diner, What’s Cooking? is certainly no second-rate performance. As part of the Fringe season at Nottingham New Theatre, the production is entirely student-run and relatively low budget; but this does not stop writer and director Gary Berezin and his team from delivering a stellar...

La Traviata began with an ethereal full moon beamed on to the backdrop of Nottingham’s Theatre Royal and a polite notice that Hye-Youn Lee was unwell and Anna Jeruc-Kopec was to play the role of Violetta. As the silhouette of Violetta appeared and the murmuring of the audience ebbed away Jeruc-Kopec made sure no one would be disappointed by the...

I recently visited Nottingham’s Galleries of Justice and was struck by the exhibitions about men and women punished with transportation to Australia. It’s a strange and scary thought, to be sent halfway across the world for a crime that nowadays wouldn’t warrant a prison sentence- and so I was...

Money and marriage: a dangerous mix, and one that lies at the heart of Bedrich Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride. Under the direction of Daniel Slater, Opera North first revived this comedy within a context of 1970s Soviet Czechoslovakia in 1998, creating interesting parallels with the era of its...

In order to experience 40%, the audience is asked to draw themselves away from the safe haven of University Park and out into the sprawling streets of Nottingham. A frantic double-checking of google maps, a short bus ride and a hesitant walk in the freezing winter fog gives an...