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Reviewed – Catch 22 at the Birmingham Rep
First I have to make a confession. I have never read the Joseph Heller classic Catch 22. Nor have I seen the 1970 film version starring Art Garfunkel and Alan Arkin. But I know all too well what a Catch 22 situation is – one where you just can’t win, where you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, and this awesome piece of theatre, currently playing at the Birmingham Rep, perfectly illustrates this most frustrating of situations with style, humour and pathos. The truly wonderful Philip Ardetti is Yossarian, a war weary bombardier in World War 2. He dreams of going home, but fears it will never…
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Dial M for Murder spellbinds at The Rep
Can a perfect murder ever be committed, or do human frailties mean we miss tiny details that would inevitably get us caught? That is the premise for ‘Dial M for Murder’, a claustrophobic thriller by Frederick Knott that was most famously bought to life by the genius of Alfred Hitchcock and the beauty of Grace Kelly. A new production by Lucy Bailey is currently playing at The Rep theatre in Birmingham, and I went along to see how the suspense holds up 60 years after it was originally written. The story is many layered. The glamorous Kelly Hotten plays Sheila Wendice, a once adulterous, now devoted wife of ex- tennis…
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Reviewed – Moon on a Rainbow Shawl at The Rep
Last night I was privileged to watch an astounding piece of theatre. ‘Moon on a Rainbow Shawl’, a 1957 play by Errol John is currently having a revival, touring nationwide in a production by the Talawa Theatre. I caught the opening night at Birmingham Repertory theatre and was thoroughly enthralled by what was an epic production. The play is set in the mid 1950s in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and all the action is confined to a yard containing poor tenement housing. We meet a host of characters, the downtrodden Mrs Adams, who works day and night, married to Charlie, a man who was once an inspirational sporting hero, but…
