Articles Comments

David Porter » Entries tagged with "Marina Theatre"

The Mousetrap

The Mousetrap at the Marina Theatre, Lowestoft   Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 24 June 2015 and the Lowestoft Journal, 26 June 2015 Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is an institution – over 60 years old and still running in London. The celebratory national tour reached Lowestoft and thrilled another new audience. A play of this vintage ought to creak like a relic, but a good who-dunnit is timeless. Trap a collection of oddball characters in an old country house for days by heavy snow outside. Let actions from the past haunt people with secrets and we have a great mystery. A feeling that nobody can actually be trusted builds to the unexpected final twist. Over the decades the production has periodically been refreshed and this one directed by Ian Watt-Smith makes real to a … Read entire article »

Filed under: Reviews

Legally Blonde

Legally Blonde from the Lowestoft Players at the Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 4 June 2015 and Lowestoft Journal, 5 June 2015 Unafraid to embrace risk and challenge, the Lowestoft Players are staging the East Anglian amateur premiere of the bubble gum, high-energy fun musical Legally Blonde. Based on the myth of the dumb, ditzy blonde bombshell unable to cope with legal training at Harvard Law School, this musical love-comedy follows Elle, stunningly portrayed by Polly Woodward, as she learns that the law can help others. She is the outsider who shakes up a stuffy establishment, in love with the creep (Lewis Caplin) and unaware of her true destiny (Tom Guttridge) till the explosion of dancing, singing energy that is the finale. Yes, individual roles impress, but as always with the … Read entire article »

Filed under: Reviews

The Sensational 60s’ Experience

The Sensational 60s’ Experience at Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 2 December 2014 A packed audience, mainly of a certain age, rocked and rolled the The Marina Theatre, Lowestoft, revelling in a nostalgic trip down Memory Lane. This 1960s’ experience showcases groups, some with surviving original members, performing songs from their own hit catalogues and sampling the massive range of timeless classics which were the cultural hallmark of that iconic decade, when the world was a very different place. Alan Mosca of Freddie and the Dreamers compered. Dave Berry proved himself much the same showman and song interpreter who first hit the charts fifty years ago. The Ivy League, Union Gap UK, The Swinging Blue Jeans and Herman’s Hermits entertained with banter and jokes as well as melodies, harmonies and … Read entire article »

Filed under: Reviews

John Newton – Amazing Grace

‘John Newton – Amazing Grace’ Saltmine Theatre, Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 17 February 2014 The man who wrote the world’s most famous hymn, Amazon Grace, was John Newton (1725-1807). To state that doesn’t do justice to an extraordinary life of sea adventuring, long-life romance with his wife and finding God. However, Saltmine Theatre have taken his story and brought it to life in a gripping drama culminating in his crowning achievement of his hymn. In a period when the British economy depended on slavery, Newton was press ganged into the navy before working slave ships to the colonies. When his ship was storm threatened, he cried out in wretched fear to God to be saved and became a passionate Christian believer, leading into ministry. A parallel with the Prodigal Son was well … Read entire article »

Filed under: Uncategorised

Miracle on 34th Street

Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 6 December 2013 As an appetiser for the Christmas and pantomime season and an example of how almost anything can be turned into a musical, Franklin Productions brought a staged version of the 1947 movie to Lowestoft before visiting Norwich next week. It’s a simple, heart-warming tale. An old gentleman working in Macy’s famous toy store claims to be the real Santa Claus. He is put in an insane asylum and a lawyer takes up his case in court to prove he is the real deal. Sitting alongside The Snowman and It’s a Wonderful Life the film has become a perennial family favourite, originally entitled The Big Heart in Britain. The show could follow. With singing, dancing, some jokes, fast-moving scenery changes and lashings of … Read entire article »

Filed under: Reviews

Educating Rita (2)

Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review commissioned by Eastern Daily Press, November 2013, not published by them Willy Russell has written successful dramas capturing life’s bitter-sweet shades – Shirley Valentine, Blood Brothers and Educating Rita. This two-hander about a young hairdresser (Jennifer Daley) who crashes into the study of the professor (Brian Capron) for Open University tutorials follows the academic year. Her street-wise, working-class Scouser, hard life exterior is pushed aside by a thirst for knowledge and betterment that he first finds appealing in a faintly patronising way. He is a middle-aged, world-weary, seen-it-all, read-it-all superior academic with a severe alcohol problem. Rita gradually gets under his skin and into his heart. He becomes besotted with her; she doesn’t realise. His tragedy is that she outgrows her need for his teaching and moves on, stronger, more fulfilled. … Read entire article »

Filed under: Reviews

Save the Last Dance for Me

Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 5 July 2012.   Fresh from the creators of the top-rated Dreamboats and Petticoats, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, comes a musical concoction set in the early 1960s. It is appropriate that it should come to Lowestoft en route to the West End, as much of it is set in the town of that time. Memories flood back. The plot is simple – black US airman and white English girl fall in love when she and her sister take a week’s seaside holiday against their parents’ wishes. But music brings it to youthful life. Reliving the hit songs of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, the on-stage band pump out classics like This Magic Moment, Sweets for My Sweet, A Teenager in Love, Suspicion, Viva Las Vegas, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Reviews

Dangerous Corner (1)

Bruce James Productions at the Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 7 September 2006 Dangerous Corner Another offering by Bruce James Productions in the Marina Theatre’s long-term project to bring quality drama to the stage, sees this JB Priestly classic given a successful outing. One of his renowned ‘time plays’, it’s an absorbing tale based on the notion that if one simple thing had distracted somebody – a piece of dance music played instead of an inquiry into the link of a music box to a suicide – then subsequent history would have been different. Nobody would be any wiser about the lies and deceit everyone covered up. It is not such a new idea these days, but must have been almost revolutionary when it was written. This rendition keeps much of … Read entire article »

Filed under: Reviews