Author: The Greater Manchester Reviewer

Reviewing theatre, music, food etc. - all over Greater Manchester!

Woman On Fire

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The Waterside Theatre, Manchester College; Monday 15th July, 2019

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In July 1913, the peace and tranquility of polite British society was rocked by the astonishing exploits of a 40-year-old doctor’s wife from Preston –  a woman who detonated a pipe bomb in the Liverpool Corn Exchange before then going on to torch a bungalow in Bolton belonging to the eldest of the Lever Brothers just two days later.

Edith Rigby’s extraordinary acts of violence serve as the opening scenes of Woman On Fire – a gripping single-hand show created and performed by Claire Moore and the Certain Curtain Theatre Company.Read More »

Stages

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The Way Theatre, Atherton; Saturday 13th July, 2019

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When you share a huge problem with someone, you can cut it in half. But if you cut a huge problem in half, you still have a huge problem.
Co-created by Marissa Moore and Joe Kennedy, Stages follows the story of a family struggling under the weight of a viscous grief which seems to be slowly grinding them to a complete halt.
In a fantastic twist which is cleverly held back till the very end of the performance, the grief event that stalks them is never really explained or sufficiently elaborated upon – it simply lurks in the story line, the perfect villain of intangible infamy, an enemy which is unseen, and therefore one which seems undefeatable.

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Pramkicker

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The King’s Arms, Salford; Saturday 13th July, 2019

PramKicker_1

Sisters Jude and Susie are a right pair of feisty gobshites. WE’RE A COUPLE OF SICK FUCKS, they proudly boast. Bold, brash and fiercely loyal to each other, they’ll tell you to your face that they could go off at any moment.

And go off she did. In an independent coffee shop full of Yah Yah Mummies, Jude got a little too close to the children’s artwork, had a proper dust-up with Bitch Mother #1, before losing her shit completely and kicking a pram down some steps out onto the street.Read More »

Fly

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Old Bank Residency, Manchester; Thursday 11th July, 2019

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“Hello, welcome to the meeting. Please enter your pass code, followed by the hash key …”

“After the tone, please say your name, followed by the hash key …”

The crackling murmur of someone silencing their What I’m Up To At The Weekend Blah Blah Blah Intro Banter Nonsense as the horrifying sound of your own voice bellowing out your own name pollutes the airwaves. 

It’s awful.

They’re looking at you now, staring at you, even though they’re on the end of a phone; they’re all looking at you. Please let someone else dial in right now and take the limelight. Please.Read More »

People Are Happy On Trains

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TwentyTwentyTwo, Manchester; Monday 8th July, 2019

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Theatre made national news last week with the announcement that a London playhouse is to offer advance trigger warnings to audiences who may experience distress at certain scenes in their productions.

The Silent Majority denounced the move as PC gone mad, but surely there is a powerful argument that trigger warnings for individual scenes don’t go far enough: what about those of us throwing up in disgust upon clicking GM Fringe’s “What’s on” link, why aren’t we given trigger warnings for plays with titles that absolutely do offend??

war/war/war theatre are a start-up collective hailing from Galway in the West of Ireland. One can only presume that people are happy on trains across the Irish Sea, because people sure as hell are not happy over here in these here M postcodes.Read More »

Men Chase, Women Choose

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Men Chase, Women Choose

S. Giddens, E. Shotton; Hope Mill Theatre, Hope Mill, 113 Pollard Street, Manchester, M4 7JA; 14:00, Sunday 7th July, 2019.

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Figure 1 – Women doing science

 

Abstract

Giddens & Shotton present a powerful argument that latent, societal gender narratives embedded in early 21st century scientific paradigms are false – specifically because the science was all done by men.

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A Quick Guide To Ruining Your Life

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The King’s Arms, Salford; Saturday 6th July, 2019

 

It started with a cheap bottle of rioja. 

With a start like that, you can probably guess then how this might end.

Dawn Peechman is 33 and about to become an International Sales Representative. She’s big in pharma and has a massive new job lined up, abroad, in the sun. Big money one presumes. It’s all looking good.

So why then is she moping around a gloomy attic in a cowskin onesie???Read More »