Reviews

Fans of Roald Dahl’s cheeky children’s classic The Twits will know that it is one of Dahl’s typically non-PC tales of terrible, smelly, ugly characters who run a circus, play practical jokes and fight with one another – a lot! This gives the award-winning team at shake & stir – one of our premier touring companies – a wonderful setting to bring the tale to life for theatre goers, young and old.

Some theatre companies have had really bad luck with COVID-19: then there’s Eye Contact Theatre. In 2020 they were 24 hours away from bump-in at the Kings Cross Theatre when – bingo! - the whole thing was called off. And now, two years and a new cast later, just when everything is looking good, two of their lead actors have come down with the wretched disease, leaving fill-ins Di Adams and Gerard Carroll to boldly read from scripts on opening night. Thanks, COVID!

The Great Un-Wondering of Wilbur Whittaker is a large-scale production that feels like the biggest production to come out of Barking Gecko to date. Fun, exciting and both literally and figuratively full of wonder, this is a school holiday treat - a family show with a difference.

Maxim Gorky’s famous 19th-century contemporary and critic (and co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre), Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, once vented his frustration with actors’ obsessions: “Non-stop smoking, cold food, sausage, herring, gossip, vulgar flirtation, backbiting, jokes, and vodka.” He could be describing the characters in Gorky’s Summerfolk. And one of this play’s funniest lines is the disdainful “The house is full of theatre types!” as the cast of characters expands.