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Annie

Lowestoft Players Marina Theatre Review published in Lowestoft Journal, 23 May 2014 Multi-award winning Lowestoft Players have revisited an old musical favourite for their latest production, complete with orphans, US President Roosevelt and a dog. 11-year old livewire Annie (Kitty Taylor and Jessica Tovell) is taken from an orphanage to spend Christmas with a billionaire. It’s her opportunity to find her long-lost parents. For him she is the key to a reconnection with humanity. Things don’t turn out as she’d dreamed but it’s still a heartwarming ending when the baddies are caught. The song ‘Tomorrow’ is the best known. The whole show is slick with professional quality commitment from everyone – on stage, orchestra, back stage and front of house. They make the audience feel free to just sit back and enjoy. The company are a good … Read entire article »

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Long Live the Little Knife

Fire Exit at Loddon & Chedgrave Jubilee Hall as part of Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2014   Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 13 May 2014 In a little story in a play doing the rounds of city and county venues, Long Live the Little Knife sees two performers playing minor league con artists/art forgers hurtling through a range of emotions that leave everyone swirling! David Leddy’s piece is a lively romp through the travails of the underworld carrying some well crafted comedy too – ‘champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.’ Wendy Seager and Neil McCormack brilliantly play the couple, happily together yet not, switching voices and personas with breathtaking speed as the characters face up to their misfired plans. They – ‘we tell lies for a living’ – are the … Read entire article »

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Ray Davies

Ray Davies at the Playhouse Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2014 review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 12 May 2014 Ray Davies, the man behind the influential Kinks band, sat relaxed on stage at the packed Playhouse talking about his life, work and fifty years of music. As it was the literature section of the festival under the auspices of Writers Centre Norwich he was interviewed by author Peter Blegvad. He didn’t need questions to open up. He read from his book Americana: The Kinks, The Road and The Perfect Riff to set the scene for a musician, writer, artist and film enthusiast who’s seen and done it all, including being shot in a mugging in New Orleans. Never far from his working class north London upbringing, Ray has written and sung about Englishness for Britain and … Read entire article »

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Woman in Mind

Woman in Mind Open Space Theatre, Beccles Public Hall review published in Eastern Daily Press, 12 May 2014   Despite being almost 30 years old, this play resonates today with its ideas, characters and that bitter-sweet comic/tragic life commentary we expect from Alan Ayckbourn. Susan (mesmerisingly played by Yves Green) is a woman of a certain age going through a mental breakdown. She has created a fantasy life that becomes ever more real and gradually merges with her banal ‘normal’ world. Her husband (Geoff Cadman), her real son (Jake Kubala), her sister in law (Gill Mullen) and the hugely eccentric, comic doctor (Simon Evans) are cleverly interwoven with the idealism of her parallel family. The oily fantasy husband (Paul Baker), his brother (Steven Phipps) and the daughter she always wanted (Emma Martin) see and despise the real … Read entire article »

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