Circa Theatre
Nov 15-Dec 21 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

PANTOMINE is recipe theatre; if you put in all the correct ingredients it comes out exactly as advertised, with no surprises, unpleasant or otherwise.

Take one old tale/legend/nursery rhyme and give it a new twist. Here we have Red Riding Hood – note, it is not Little Red Riding Hood, as she is no longer a little girl but a young lady with a hooded tracksuit and headphones who jogs through the forest, brightly played by Danielle Mason with grin wattage turned up high. She wants to study zoology which she knows ‘may not earn a great living but it will be an interesting life’.

Circa Theatre
Oct 11-Nov 8 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Wait Until Dark was a successful Broadway play before it became a well known film. I have never seen the film, so I was seeing the play without that influence. I was told by various members of the production that they had tried to make this version as close to the original as possible. The result definitely felt a little dated, and showed that despite the script being immaculately crafted, it too ultimately suffers from the same fault.

BATS Theatre
Oct 18-Nov 1 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

THE FIRST of this year’s STAB productions feels a little more like it fits with the ethos of STAB – exciting, experimental and full of potential for further development. Apollo 13 presents a theatrical take on the much chronicled space mission. It does so in a way that attempts to charge the audience with the responsibility for the three astronauts racing against the odds and break the ‘fourth wall’ so as to submerge them fully in the ‘world’ of Mission Control.