Reviews

In 1827, in a little town called Polstead in Suffolk in the UK, a girl called Maria Marten disappeared. It was not until a year later that her body was discovered under the floorboards of a barn. She had been shot, strangled and hit with a spade by William Corder, the man she loved. The same man who had abused her psychologically in a nasty form of coercive control. The “Murder in the Red Barn”, Corder’s trial and very public execution are part of Suffolk history.

Gone with the Wind is an iconic American story with the 1000-page novel by Margaret Mitchell earning a Pulitzer Prize in 1937. Exploring politics, romance and contentious issues including human rights, it sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. The nearly four-hour movie adaptation in 1939 was also a great success, boasting one of cinemas most often quoted lines, ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’, which is cleverly built into the script of Moonlight and Magnolias, currently being performed by The Rep.

You know when someone gives you a bouquet as a gift and in amongst the blooms is an occasional twig or piece of greenery? This bouquet- The 2024 Variety Gala is a bouquet of joy - not a twig or boring leaf in sight.

Jonathan Biggins is no stranger to those who are devotees of The Wharf Revue, where Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phil Scott satirised the mean and the mighty for over twenty years. Biggins has played everyone from Bob Brown to Donald Trump and King Charles. But it is his wry, sardonic, self-assured interpretation of Paul Keating that audiences love best. Perhaps because, like the once PM himself, he keeps coming back to haunt the revue’s more recent political targets.