Category Archives: Behind the Arras Reviews

Holmes for the Holidays – Grange Players, Grange Playhouse, Walsall

Posted on January 19, 2017 by garylongden

****  Holmes for the Holidays, aka The Games Afoot, is written by Ken Ludwig, an American anglophile whose education takes in both Harvard , and Trinity College Cambridge. Ludwig likes English literature. He has written  about Shakespeare,  Gilbert and Sullivan, … Continue reading →

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Holding Baby – Birmingham University

Posted on October 17, 2016 by garylongden

This production, on the afternoon of 15th October, was part of the University of Birmingham’s, “Book to the future” festival. Its milieu, the swathe of middle aged, and pensionable aged, folk, increasingly responsible for raising children cross-generationally. Ostensibly, that  might … Continue reading →

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Smelling a Rat – Grange Players, Walsall

Posted on September 19, 2016 by garylongden

  Playwright  Mike Leigh is best known for the television production of his play “ Abigail’s Party” and the film “Secrets and Lies”. His oeuvre is of making an art form out of the ordinary, ordinary conversations from ordinary people, … Continue reading →

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Back to Bacharach – Lichfield Garrick Theatre

Posted on July 15, 2016 by garylongden

Jukebox musicals have become increasingly popular in theatres around the country, presented in a variety of guises. Some construct a biographical narrative (Buddy), others a story (Mama Mia), some eschew all peripheral options and go for a straight concert style … Continue reading →

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Hairspray – Sutton Coldfield Musical Theatre Company

Posted on June 1, 2016 by garylongden

Hairspray, Sutton Coldfield Musical Theatre Company, Lichfield Garrick ***** Just occasionally, an amateur Musical Society can perfectly catch the zeitgeist of the spirit of a musical, injecting a zest and enthusiasm which breathes life into the original, taking it head … Continue reading →

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Hamlet – Derby Theatre

Posted on May 28, 2016 by garylongden

  ****   There can be no more apposite piece for Behind the Arras to review than “Hamlet” ! Most would have it amongst the finest plays ever written, it is certainly the play about which most has been written. … Continue reading →

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Two – Sutton Arts Theatre

Posted on May 27, 2016 by garylongden

This play, written by Jim  Cartwright in 1989,  is to actors what the Olympic Decathlon is to athletes. It requires two actors to assume fourteen different characters, as a night in a Northern pub unfolds. As such it is hugely … Continue reading →

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Priscilla Queen of the Desert- Wolverhampton Grand Theatre

Posted on May 3, 2016 by garylongden

An unseasonably cold, drab Monday evening in Wolverhampton, metamorphosed into the warmth and colour of the Australian desert drag and transgendered scene, as Priscilla rolled into town as part of a very successful nationwide tour. Spare seats were at a … Continue reading →

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All Star Stand Up Tour- Derby Theatre

Posted on May 2, 2016 by garylongden

  Derby Theatre’s diverse 2016 took another turn on Sunday night for a one night stop for the biggest comedy tour of the year, the “All Star Stand Up Tour”. Featuring double Sony Award winner and star of Mock The … Continue reading →

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Flare Path- Derby Theatre

Posted on April 20, 2016 by garylongden

  Anyone watching this play can be forgiven for a sense that it should be being performed in black and white as part of a double bill at the local Odeon cinema, such is the impact that the film version, … Continue reading →

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