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By Hilary Cordery We’ve all been there, the family Christmas Day from hell. Everyone tries really, really hard but there comes a point when something (or someone) snaps and all hell breaks loose, “bedlam” to quote the aptly named card game of the 2nd Act of Sam Holcroft’s “Rules for Living”. Director Jane Buckland’s production brought this oh-so-familiar scenario hilariously to the BLT stage. But the production was much more than a gloriously riotous and uproarious comedy. Intriguingly, we got… Continue Reading Review of ‘Rules For Living’

By Mike Savill ‘Community theatre’, ‘semi-professional’, ‘am-dram’ – call it what you will but for the vast majority of us that practise it, this is a hobby- albeit a sometimes all-consuming, emotionally fluctuating, midnight oil burning and, very occasionally, potentially lucrative one. And like most hobbies it is only fun when one can get immersed into it. Inclusivity is the key and this has been nowhere better exemplified to me in recent times than in the marvellous youth group production… Continue Reading Review of ‘James And The Giant Peach’

By Mike Savill One of the challenges in putting on a play as well known as ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ is how to capture the essence of the production which made it famous and yet give it an identity of its own. There is no right or easy way of making it work, and the proof of the pudding is definitely whether the audience have had a good time or not come curtain down. Such was the task facing the… Continue Reading Review of ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’

By Mike Savill Some pieces of theatre are designed to entertain, to elicit emotional experience – laughter, tears, edge of the seat thrills but nothing more, clear cut, brightly shaded and obvious with barely any room for an artistic manoeuvre. Others speak of the human condition or a particularly pertinent theme of the ages but are wrapped up in a conventional narrative so that the viewer can take or leave as he or she sees fit. And then there are… Continue Reading Review of ‘Old Times’

By Paul Campion Men find it extremely difficult to get married in Oscar Wilde plays. In ‘The Importance of being Earnest’ Jack Worthing is thwarted in his marital ambitions by possessing the wrong name. In ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ – dramatised by Constance Cox from Wilde’s original short story – the hero faces an even greater obstacle to getting hitched. Young blade-about-1890s London Lord Arthur Savile is all set to wed his sweetheart Sybil. Unfortunately Sybil’s mother is in thrall… Continue Reading Review of ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’

By Patrick Neylan The lights go up and we walk out to the bar. We are – how shall I put it? – pensive. Finally my friend offers: “The set’s good, isn’t it?” If it were the final curtain instead of the interval, that would be the kiss of death. As they say in musicals, ‘No-one comes out whistling the set’. Actually nobody came out whistling anything. Other Desert Cities isn’t that sort of play. But with Serious American Drama… Continue Reading Review of ‘Other Desert Cities’

By Richard Bowdery I must confess at the outset to having more than a passing interest in the theme of this play. During my time at the Home Office I worked on ‘It Doesn’t Have to Happen’, a campaign aimed at reducing knife crime amongst young people. I heard first-hand testimony from those whose lives fell under the brutality of this terrible crime. Yet in amongst the darkness there were shafts of light: people who chose to make a positive… Continue Reading Review of ‘The Long Road’

By Hilary Cordery BLT is no stranger to the plays of Martin McDonagh. Previous seasons have treated us to acclaimed productions of The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Cripple of Inishmaan. BLT’s latest production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, the festivals entry this year, continued the trend of marrying great writing with a very high standard of production – although the play wasn’t for those of a squeamish disposition or cat-lovers! It is the early 1990s in Northern Ireland.… Continue Reading Review of ‘The Lieutenant Of Inishmore’

By Nikki Packham For anyone who has seen either of the films based on Hardy’s novel, the story is a familiar one; feisty Bathsheba, quite the feminist of her day, struggling to farm alone in 1870s rural Dorset. Into her life come three men who all profess to love her and who all want to marry her. Firstly Gabriel Oak who, having faced the loss of his flock after Bathsheba has rejected his proposal of marriage because she doesn’t love… Continue Reading Review of ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’

By Steve Williams When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell is a complex play covering eighty years and many lifetimes of emotions in just two hours. The characters go through the whole gamut of joy, love, pain, heartbreak and tragedy and, at times, those differing emotions are being played out by both the younger and older versions of the characters at the same time as we flit back and forth between generations. The play spans the years 1964 to… Continue Reading Review of ‘When The Rain Stops Falling’