EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Alma, A Human Voice An unnamed man walks on stage and unpacks from a suitcase women’s clothing and wigs. It’s the start of the creation of two very different women and a downbeat beginning to a visually stunning, if at times bewildering, hour of entertainment. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
REVIEW: Exit the King @The National Theatre The rarely performed absurdist play Exit the King by Ionesco gets a rare airing at the National Theatre and leaves you glad to be alive and hopefully much further from death than our principal character King Berenger 1, played stunningly by Rhys Ifans. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
REVIEW: The King and I @The Palladium The King, dealing as it does with the comic side of misogyny and the clash of alien cultures, could be deemed in some circles to be out of joint with the times. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Kyle Barton with Niamh Cusack and Christopher Eccleston Macbeth Production Photos The RST – Stratford Upon Avon Photo Credit : The Other Richard REVIEW: Macbeth @Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon Shakespeare’s Scottish play is grounded in our obsession with time – “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”, “this ignorant present”. And “what’s done cannot be undone” to mention just three references in the play. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
REVIEW: Miss Littlewood @Stratford-upon-Avon The audience for Miss Littlewood at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre grew up like I did in the English Theatre revolution of social realism in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
REVIEW: Guy: The Musical @The Bunker Theatre, London In a wonderfully intimate theatre space which is literally underground, we meet Guy – a self-confessed obese young man who spends his life as a graphic designer, gamer and binge eater. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
REVIEW: Iolanthe @Theatre Royal Sasha Regan’s all-male version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 140 year old comic opera about fairies and a wayward stupid House of Lords has a terrific, funny, energetic and touching style. A group of what look like posh schoolboys come through the auditorium with flashlights and happen upon a derelict b By Brian Butler • 2 min read
REVIEW: Rebelles @Rialto Theatre True to their stage name, the nine female voices that make up this Brighton singing group, are combined to fight back against the useless, disloyal and – in this show – absent men of the world. The members have gathered up for a committee meeting upstairs at the Rialto Theatre, and in between readin By Brian Butler • 2 min read
REVIEW: Les Musicals – live concert tour @Theatre Royal Rhydian Roberts and Jonathan Ansell are a powerful duo in the mould of Michael Ball and Alfie Boe, with the same magic formula of stunning singing ranges, humour and chemistry. This songs from the shows compilation which came to Brighton as part of a national tour of one-nighters, is middle of the r By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Fringe REVIEW: Vanessa @Purple Playhouse Theatre In this gender fluid solo performance co-writer Sam Beckett Jr plays not only Andrew the gay black guy about to marry his white middle class boyfriend, but she also morphs with ease into Vanessa, Andrew’s mother on her way to the wedding with her unseen husband. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Fringe REVIEW: Cooked @The Rialto Theatre While the very good-looking student/shelf filler at Foyles bookshop, Adam, (played by John Black ) goes on a new date, the dye is cast – and not in a good way. It’s pretty clear early on in Natalie Audley’s multi-scene drama that Brett, the American advertising executive is far too career-centred an By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Festival REVIEW: Crazy for You @Theatre Royal This show is exactly what an escapist stage musical does best – it’s highly entertaining, doesn’t tax your brain or your ethics and after boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again – we all walk out into the sultry rainy night happy. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
