The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an impressive impersonation of Bob Dylan
Mr E’s adventures in Cartoonland
SUSAN DARLINGTON applauds a play that explores the role that imagination can play for children growing up through trauma
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Here, Vermiglio, William Tell and Wolf Man
New releases from Thorpe and Morrison, Daria Kulesh, and Will Finn and Rosie Calvert
RINA ARYA confronts the brutal operation of Francis Bacon’s approach to portraiture
Emphasising his continuous engagement in labour movement struggles, ALISTAIR FINDLAY salutes John Foster’s contribution as activist, strategist, intellectual and defender of the Morning Star
ANDY MIAH advocates the use of AI to assist people by expanding access to global literature and culture
EWAN KOTZ relishes a veteran Glasgow band that have lost none of their verve for live performance
Please Right Back
Leeds Playhouse
TWO people in dunce’s caps mutely hand out pencils to the audience. A voiceover explains that the story we’re about to watch could be based on real life, or it could be a work of fiction. It’s unclear how, or indeed if, the various elements relate but if you sit back and let 1927’s “dysfunctional family show” wash over you, it does begin to make sense.
Framed within the tropes of film noir, the multimedia play opens with Mr E (Stefan Davis) being instructed to hand over a briefcase to a mysterious Mr Jones. In scenes reminiscent of classic Hitchcock, the case is stolen and he must go on a special mission to retrieve it before he can return home to his family.
More from this author
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
ANGUS REID time-travels back to times when Gay Liberation was radical and allied seamlessly to an anti-racist, anti-establishment movement
ANGUS REID speaks to historian Siphokazi Magadla about the women who fought apartheid and their impact on South African society
Similar stories
SIMON PARSONS questions whether a dark take on Shakespeare’s Seasonal comedy is in harmony with the original text
SUSAN DARLINGTON is unmoved by a production full of spectacular tableax but without emotional connection to the characters
MATTHEW HAWKINS speaks with Alice Christina-Corrigan who thinks there are too many revivals of ‘safe’ repertory plays
SUSAN DARLINGTON isn’t convinced that the many parts of Frankenstein fit together in a new production