The Blog

Fiona Mountford

Pure Theatre

by Fiona Mountford
April 29th, 2008

One of the perils of the critic’s life -along with a bad back and an ability to relate to emotion only if it comes in a neat two-hour package - is a deadening of the senses to the live theatre experience due to over-exposure. As a form of self-medication, I have of late been taking […]

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Neil Haigh

Cartoon de Salvo: mistakes are our friends

by Neil Haigh
April 26th, 2008

The Continuing Chronicle of ‘Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories’ on tour… www.cartoondesalvo.com
Six months ago I couldn’t do this; tell a totally different improvised story every night (incorporating live music). Now I can rely on something strange happening between the three of us and the audience every time we step out: from a shared starting […]

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Dominic Cavendish

Button-it, Billy

by Dominic Cavendish
April 25th, 2008

I read in the Daily Mail, in Baz Bamigboye’s Friday showbiz pages - filed from New York - that Stephen Daldry has vowed that he won’t tame the language in Billy Elliot - the Musical when the show opens on Broadway in October. Producers apparently asked him whether he could get rid of the swearing but he […]

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Steven Jon Atkinson

HighTide: a festival in rehearsals

by Steven Jon Atkinson
April 24th, 2008

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It finally dawned on us this week, why over the course of the last year, when we’d told people of our intentions to produce four full-length theatre productions simultaneously, the general response had been wry smiles and raised eyebrows. Unlike every other festival we know of, HighTide is not a forum of curated art. We […]

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Alex Murdoch

Cartoon de Salvo: playing against type

by Alex Murdoch
April 20th, 2008

The Continuing Chronicle of ‘Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories’ on tour… www.cartoondesalvo.comÂ
I just found myself texting Cecile, a colleague who is organising our website, about some work I have to do next week. And the text ended: ‘Last night we were transported convicts. I married a bare-breasted native queen’. The show was in rural […]

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You must see Molora

by Sam Marlowe
April 17th, 2008

I’m in Liverpool today, covering Matthew Kelly’s turn as Hamm in Endgame at the Everyman for the Times, so I don’t have much time to blog. But I’m urging everyone I meet at the moment to get down to the Barbican Pit, to see Molora - an extraordinary piece of work that transposes The Oresteia to […]

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Dominic Cavendish

Should playwrights be cool?

by Dominic Cavendish
April 17th, 2008

Watching Noel Fielding performing at the Royal Albert Hall the other night, as part of the week of gigs there in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust, I was struck by two things. Firstly, that part of Fielding’s star-quality resides, rarely for a stand-up comedian, in his flamboyance. He dresses glam-rock (make-up, girly accessories, outrageous […]

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Brian Logan

Cartoon de Salvo: three more stories from nowhere

by Brian Logan
April 14th, 2008

The Continuing Chronicle of ‘Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories’ on tour… www.cartoondesalvo.comÂ
Soliciting for a title is one of the trickiest aspects of this show. We’ve had all sorts over the course of our tour so far, from the thrilling ‘The Unseen’ and the matter-of-fact ‘Mud’, via the urgent ‘Not Before Time’ (proposed by a […]

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Alex Murdoch

Cartoon de Salvo’s Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories

by Alex Murdoch
April 11th, 2008

The Continuing Chronicle of ‘Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories’ on tour… www.cartoondesalvo.comÂ
It’s Sunday 6th April, and my family and pals in Cardiff have assembled quite a throng for Cartoon de Salvo’s gig at the Wales Millenium Centre. They love going out to see a show and I’m coming home to play in our beautiful […]

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Dominic Cavendish

Eco-worriers; Olympic farces; new directions?

by Dominic Cavendish
April 10th, 2008

Time to get peddling - and pedalling
Visiting the Arcola in Dalston the other night to see An Enemy of the People, I was impressed to read up about their ongoing scheme to make ‘Arcola the world’s first carbon neutral theatre’: The aim is to install ‘biomass heating, solar panels, fuel cells and state of the […]

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