REVIEW: Girls Don’t Play Guitar
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe story of four girls from Merseyside in the mid-60s, who carved out a place in musical history as the world's first all-female rock'n'roll band.
Heather Doquiatan
REVIEW: Two Cities…Half The World Away
Reading Time: 2 minutesA three-hander written by Nicky Allt, 'Two Cities' is a smart, two hour commentary on two Northern cities which have so much in common but are divided by one unavoidable chasm: the football.
REVIEW: A Celebration of Puccini
Reading Time: 3 minutesLast night's performance of A Celebration of Puccini at the Liverpool Philharmonic was an opera lover's dream. Performing to a packed auditorium, the orchestra was ably conducted by Liverpool's renowned Domingo Hindoyan for two acts of emotive magic, featuring guest soprano and tenor Sonya Yoncheva and Riccardo Massi.
REVIEW: Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn Liverpool for the first time in its 16 years running, 'Showstopper! The Improvised Musical' is not to be missed, whether you run, walk, bus, taxi, or crawl your way there.
REVIEW: My Beautiful Laundrette
Reading Time: 3 minutesGuileless Omar (Lucca Chadwick-Patel), a British-Pakistani teen, lives with his father in London during the Thatcher years. Palmed off to work for his rich Uncle Nasser to get him off the dole, Omar ends up taking on a barely-functioning laundrette. Living amidst the myriad tensions of England in the '80s, Omar manages to halt a would-be gang attack on him and his Uncle's right-hand man (the aforementioned pink-suited Salim, played by Hareet Deol), because he knows one of the gang members: Johnny, an old childhood friend, played by turns damaged and sweet by Sam Mitchell. The two are spotlit for this encounter, with Johnny atop the scaffolding and Omar looking up at him, a visual unavoidably reminiscent of Shakespeare's famous balcony scene. Omar manages to recruit Johnny to work at the laundrette with him, and so begins their love story.
REVIEW: Spirit of Christmas
Reading Time: 3 minutesCheery and heart-warming, the rafters were raised by voices and instruments coming together I arrived a bit too early for the Spirit of Christmas concert at the Liverpool Philharmonic. Halfway down Hope St. just before 7pm, I noticed,…
REVIEW: Brahms’ Double Concerto at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe audience at the Liverpool Philharmonic settled into this soundscape as we took our seats for Brahms' Double Concerto on November 23rd,, at which the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by Domingo Hindoyan and was accompanied by cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière, along with violinist and Artist in Residence Simone Lamsma.
REVIEW: Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe week before Halloween is a wonderfully atmospheric time for the Liverpool Playhouse theatre to host Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning, a retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula written by Mona Pearson and directed by Sally Cookson.