By Chris Richards. photo: Richard Hubert Smith. My mum got totally distracted by one courtier’s long, thin, and (most probably) fake willy. It was my first opera, it was eye-opening. I have long considered an opera to be mainly about the big drama moments and fabulous costumes – underpinned...
Articles with the Tag mayflower
Review – The Mountaintop, MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton
By Graham Hiley. The Mountaintop scaled new heights at MAST Mayflower Studios. Katori Hall’s re-imagining of Dr Martin Luther King’s final night on earth is utterly captivating and deeply thought-provoking – and superbly performed by two actors at the peak of their powers. Ray Strasser-King is completely convincing as...
Review – War Horse, Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
By Graham Hiley. I had always resisted every entreaty to go and see War Horse. I didn’t think it was my sort of thing. After being persuaded to see it at Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre, I can honestly say it is everybody’s sort of thing – or at least it...
Review: An Officer and a Gentleman, The Musical – Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
By Nick Mabey. Opening night of a five-show stint at The Mayflower, Southampton and a near-capacity crowd was treated to an enthusiastic and emotional performance of the adapted iconic 1980’s film (25/6/24). An Officer and a Gentleman The Musical was conceived and first performed in 2012. After a stop-start...
Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
By Graham Hiley. It’s not every day that an inanimate object gets a standing ovation – but then it’s not often that a car is the star. And Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is no ordinary vehicle. It has a life and a personality of its own which shone through...
Review: And Then There Were None, Mayflower Theatre
By Martin Brisland. Image: Manuel Harlan. With a Mayflower programme full of musicals, concerts, opera and ballet it is refreshing to see a classic ‘whodunnit’ play with an intricate plot delivered by a company of excellent actors. Agatha Christie is the undisputed Queen of Crime and the creator of...
Review: Frantic Assembly – Metamorphosis, MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton September 27
By Anita Foxall. “One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect,” is the first line in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Frantic Assembly brought their fantastic stage adaptation (written by poet Lemn Sissay) to the MAST, and they took...
Review: Greatest Days, Mayflower Theatre, Southampton, September 26
By Joy McKay. Image: Alastair Muir. Greatest Days is the official Take That musical, premiering in 2017 under the name The Band. It has recently been made into a film and has been renamed in order to match. The Mayflower production stars Jennifer Ellison who originally came to fame...
Review: Ailey 2, Mayflower Theatre, Southampton, September 22
By Joy McKay. Image: Ailey 2 in Francesca Harper’s Freedom Series. Photo by Erin Baiano. Alvin Ailey was an American dancer and choreographer who grew up in the rural South under the reign of racism and segregation. He founded his American Dance Theatre in 1958 to carry out a...