Theatre review: Pride

Twelve years after the film shone an overdue light on the relationship between the LGBTQ+ and mining communities that were equally targeted by Margaret Thatcher's Britain, director Matthew Warchus reunites with original screenwriter Stephen Beresford, who provides the book and lyrics, plus composers Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde to stage Pride the musical. In 1984, young gay activist Mark Ashton (Jhon Lumsden) is looking for a way to mobilise his and his friends' Pride protests into something that has a wider effect, and lands on the idea of joining forces with another group that are struggling to have their voices heard: The coal miners' unions are on strike and being demonised in the press as "the enemy within," while the small town communities they support are feeling the financial strain.

Theatre review: Reykjavik

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I caught Reykjavik's final preview performance before they invite the press in.

Add Richard Bean to the ever-growing list of playwrights who really just want to write a ghost story: It's fair to say I've had mixed reactions to his plays, but while the writer's biggest hits have been with comedy, the mournful, haunted Reykjavik is probably the best of his plays that I've seen. Set in 1976, with the Cod Wars (Iceland demanding, and invariably getting, an increasingly large area of exclusivity for fishing its waters) nearing their end, the fishing industry that makes up a huge proportion of Hull's economy looks under serious threat. But for Donald Claxton (John Hollingworth,) whose company owns several boats, there's a more immediate problem: One of his trawlers has sunk in the freezing waters off Iceland, and all but four of the crew are dead. It's something all the trawlermen know is a possibility, and the city has traditions for dealing with it.

Theatre review: The Man in the White Suit

Sean Foley’s comic instincts have never been infallible (remember Ducktastic? I certainly don’t, it closed with unseemly haste before I could see it) but I do seem to be disappointed with his work more often lately. Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense was one of his bigger hits a few years ago, but teaming up again with its star Stephen Mangan hasn’t really recaptured that magic as they bring Roger MacDougall, John Dighton and Alexander Mackendrick’s Ealing comedy The Man in the White Suit to the stage. Mangan plays Sidney Stratton, a lab technician at a Lancashire textile mill in the 1950s, who keeps blowing things up in his attempts to create a revolutionary new kind of material. When he gets fired from Corland’s (Ben Deery) factory he wangles his way into rival mill owner Burnley’s (Richard Cordery) lab, where he finally comes up with a fabric that never deteriorates, loses its shape or even gets dirty.

Theatre review: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Like so much about Hamlet, the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are open to endless interpretation. Two old friends of Hamlet's, they're brought in by King Claudius to spy on his nephew's erratic behaviour, get to the bottom of it if they can, and report back. Later they're used by him again as messengers in an attempt to have Hamlet killed, a plot that ends up backfiring on them. But their appearances are sporadic and brief, leaving each production to fill in the gaps, particularly with regard to how guilty they are of collaboration: Are they happily betraying their friend in return for promised reward? Unhappy with their actions but aware they'll be in danger if they don't comply, like Rosencrantz in the current Robert Icke production, or honestly believing they're helping, like Guildenstern in the same production? Or are their onstage scenes the only idea they have of the main plot, meaning they're barely aware of the story or their part in it?