theatreVOICE

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 […]

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 […]

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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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]