Now it’s time to visit Canterbury’s The Malthouse Theatre. This fresh new production from Matthew Townshend Productions moves forward in time to the year 1958, and the scene is set with period decoration and includes songs written and produced exclusively for the production by upcoming musicians Ben Goble with JS and the Lockerbillies.

The classic comic love story is the tale of a Salford cobbler with three unruly daughters that owes more than a little to King Lear and Cinderella. The daughters work in the shop unpaid, whilst Hobson (John D Collins) spends his time drinking with the fellow members of the masons at the Moonrakers pub. It’s music that keeps the girls inspired, but soon forthright and spiky eldest daughter Maggie (Becky Hoyle) has had enough and breaks free. The younger sisters Vickey (Chloe Carrington) and Alice (Marie Kemp) have the opportunity to make their own escape – but family ties and expectations run deep.

Debts, relationships, family feuds and success are all explored in this pacy and vibrant adaptation that remains faithful to the original script even as it updates it. Marriage is the only option – a Hobson’s choice, meaning no choice at all – for these women, modern as they are. Cutting through generations, it shows that in family life, some stories never get old – and some things never change.

It’s interesting to see a play moved to a more modern period, but one that still isn’t contemporary to the audience. Layers of historical interpretation build up, and its clear how relevant the themes are to whatever time period they are played in. Rebellion of young generation against parental expectations, gender norms and restrictions, and class issues make it as universal and relevant as when first produced in wartime London in 1916. Austerity is a flavour from the 1880s through to 1950s and today.

The sense that change is coming is well articulated, with the sisters believing that dance and music and rock’n’roll is the sign of something new. Interspersing each scene with some rock’n’roll dancing is great fun, and keeps the energy up. Their choices may be limited, but the delivery of this play means that the audience never feel constricted or bored.

It’s a brilliant show, with just the right mix of entertainment and thought provoking exploration.

The Malthouse Theatre, based at King’s School, opened earlier this year, after a 28 million scheme converting the Victorian-built Malthouse into a performance and rehearsal space. It’s a great space, with the audience at the level of the stage, so feeling very much ‘in the action.’

In a little village outside Ashford, a local group are putting paid to the idea that creativity and village life are dead. The Woodchurch Players, founded in 1980, have performed everything from drama to family panto, musical theatre to revue shows, shorts and epics, and their diverse CV includes Rebecca, Allo Allo, She Stoops to Conquer, A Matter of Life and Death, Treasure Island and the play version of Sweeney Todd.

This spring’s performance, directed by Mark Perrien , is their 99th show, and they’ve picked something that can appeal to all. Dancing at Lughnasa, performed at Woodchurch Village Hall, and from Thursday 18th May until Saturday 20th May, might be familiar to some. Written by Brian Friel over twelve days in 1989, it is a touching and heartfelt play about five sisters in 1930s Ireland. Bittersweet in tone and temper, it explores the relationship between the sisters and is cleverly narrated many years later by Michael, the son of the youngest sister Chris. Michael is to all intents and purposes Friel. Described as a ‘memory play’, it centres around the Mundy girls – Friel’s mother and her four sisters. There’s love interests, dancing, laughter and plenty of Irish charm – but knowing that it’s based on true events of loved ones who have passed away gives it a clear tenderness.

Rehearsals are going well by all accounts. It’s busy of course, but that all part of the fun. In fact, gathering together for rehearsals before it all comes together is just like hanging out with friends in many ways.

There are a myriad of benefits to being part of groups like this. Charlotte Maughan-Jones, who plays Chris explains how before she got involved with the local theatre scene, the stress of her job and changing circumstances had become too much. ‘Having just graduated and moved back home to Ashford to start my job, I found that all of my old school friends were no longer around, and I was, for the first time, very alone. I had a stressful job at the time and had given up all my hobbies to concentrate on my career – this proved disastrous for me and I subsequently spent time on antidepressants and in therapy. I have met some of the most amazing people through my drama exploits and I feel richer for it.’

Charlotte got involved with the Woodchurch Players, whom she describes as one of the most inclusive and supportive groups around. ‘The society were so friendly and welcoming to me as a newcomer and I fell in love with the intimate setting for the shows.’ What this means is that there are always opportunities available. Even those who believe they have no acting skills (something that should always be explored!), or just prefer not to be on stage, can get involved. No production can take place without technicians, lighting, costumes, prompting, direction – and those with existing skills or looking to develop theirs are always welcome.

In fact, it plays a major role in the audience’s engagement with a performance. Here, as Michael recounts the summer in his aunts’ cottage when he was seven years old the green fields of the fictional town of Ballybeg Ireland’s County Donegal play out behind him, whilst the period costumes immediately immerse you in August 1936.

The casts range from new members to existing, young and old, male and female. Every year the pantomime is filled with enthusiastic children taking part and becoming part of their local theatre. For Charlotte Woodchurch Players ‘embodies everything that a local community should be – people of all ages, all backgrounds and all talents coming together to do something they love, and something they’re passionate about.’

Come along and find out more whilst you are entertained with song, dance and drama at Dancing at Lughnasa. Tickets are available here or in person at the Woodchurch Information Centre.

Now on tour around the country, this bold and seductive production is one that will entrance fans of film, theatre and dance alike, just as it did at Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre.

Opening with dramatic chimes and a flickering curtain, we are immediately drawn into the film through a conductor waving his baton more like a magician and wand through dazzlingly atmospheric lights -courtesy of Paule Constable. It certainly feels enchanting, as well as a bit meta – a window to a screen on the stage observing an audience that we, here tonight, are watching.

Combining the drama of cinema with the theatricality of performance and romance of dance, it’s a ballet that does not feel like a ballet. This is what Bourne does – takes the familiar and twists it, adds his own ideas and challenges the audience’s preconceptions. And so the career of dancer Victoria Page (tonight played by Ashley Shaw), romantic struggles with composer Julian Craster (Dominic North), and a dedication to dance that is exploited by Boris Lermontov (Sam Archer), becomes not just a fairy tale, but a modern and vibrant piece of populist theatre.

The layers of set design shift between silhouettes and shadows, the stars of the night sky, sumptuous red velvet cinema and the interior of a theatre, as well as France and London. Designed by Lez Brotherston the revolving sections make for a seamless and swift movement between scenes that keep the pace moving. The dance styles are equally multifarious – there’s some jazz, ballet, ballroom and modern all coming into the mix. The dancers, as always, astound us with their talent, and even more so upon learning that the cast rotates every night so that no-one individual plays the same role constantly.

It’s a brief piece at just one hundred minutes long, but means that urgency and passion are retained. Ebbing gently at times, whirling with vivacity at others, the pace and passion are carefully managed. Sound is used to devastating effect by designer Paul Groothuis, temporarily throwing the viewer, and orchestrator Terry Davies weaves extracts from Bernard Herrmann’s film scores into the music that swoops as much as the dance itself.

As smoke billows across the stage and lights glare out, the only sounds we hear uttered by the performers are those of the fallen Victoria as she is hit by a huge steam train. The climatic drama here is breath taking and tragic, and the sadness felt testimony to the emotional tugs created in such a short space of time.  Melodrama and glamour mingle with sentiment and romance in a fashion that is rarely seen. Again, Bourne has taken leaps with imagination and confidence, and pulled off a masterpiece. Matthew Powell said that ‘The Red Shoes told us to go and die for art.’ You get the feeling Bourne would too.

Read more here, and go book here.

Bristol’s Creative Youth Network and their seasonal performance of Turkey is a production formed through collaborative workshops with young people participating in their schemes and arts initiatives, all based on true stories . Written by Alice Nicholas, directed by Nick Young and produced by Emily Bull, although very much created by the cast and their peers, this immersive and real life performance at The Station is both tender and gripping – just like the rest of the festive season.

‘T’was the night before Christmas’ begins our narrator Theo (Jake Bartlett), in his dazzling glitzy jacket – and as we hear from the characters it can be everything from borderline hell or most wonderful time of the year.’  Homelessness, poverty, loneliness, broken relationships and illness can all take their toll – and the feeling of being alone and failing is only exacerbated by what looks like the perfect Christmas that everyone else all around is having.  . Often through no fault of their own individuals find themselves unable to produce that perfect day, ‘just like everyone else.’ That’s what Abigail (Cirwen Farrant) wants for her and her unborn baby Biscuit, and she speaks tenderly to her child about the eternal hope of the new year and what it will bring. ‘I should be happy and full of Christmas cheer’ our characters feel – that should weighing them down.

Like most ‘perfect’ things in life, the depiction tends to be a somewhat filtered version of events. Whether it’s the Black Friday consumerist fight, one-upmanship pursuit, the hypocrisy of ‘pretending to believe in Jesus once a year then go back to being c*nts’, the demands of bratty children, finding out Father Christmas isn’t real, or  just the fact that domestic bliss skates on thin smiles that crack by something as simple as not buying ribbon. In the pursuit of the ideal Christmas the endless ‘rush, anxiety, panic and failure’ ring more loudly than any peace and goodwill.

Or so it seems. Because for everyone who walks straight past the homeless, there’s those like Hazel’s (Emily Gilbert) family who invite Alfie (Matt Fleming) and his ‘invisibility cloak’ in for dinner. Or Abigail and her sister Jas hand crafting presents. Or the mother supported through her breakdown.

And people like Creative Youth Network and the participants of Turkey. As well providing a brilliant evening’s entertainment and making the whole audience think, they invited us all to share a meal with them, all donated by FareShare and would have gone to landfill otherwise. Sharing, laughing, and feeling part of a community – that’s what Christmas is about, and that’s what Creative Youth dished up with their Turkey.

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Shakespeare Refashioned, Selfridges’ conflation of culture and consumerism (although have the two ever really been separate?) have added Much Ado About Nothing to their innovative programme of events that aim to both celebrate the Bard, and make him accessible to everyone in a riotous production crafted by theatre company The Faction.

Director Mark Lepacher and his cast of nine promise a ‘contemporary aesthetic’ that both remains true to the original and notes the continued relevance of appearance, image, rumour, and social standing to the society we live in. Via a television screen with Meera Syal as a Messina News reporter (also the CCTV to show Simon Callow and Rufus Hound as bumbling Dogberry and Verges), bright lights and chart hits, Leonato, played by Caroline Langrishe, becoming a feisty matriarch in a pacey performance, they’ve managed to daub the play in a modern flourish.

And, this being Selfridges, the contemporary twist is primarily portrayed through the clothing, with Beatrice’s shoes proving particularly distracting. With no scenery but a stage more evocative of a runway, there’s certainly a sense of glamour.

As always it’s the banter between Beatrice and Benedick that really makes this play infectious. The smart and sassy Beatrice is played by the excellent Alison O’Donnell, caught in the merry war with Benedick, Daniel Boyd revelling in a flamboyant performance that perfectly portrayed the linguistic wit of Shakespeare’s words. They’re a very different couple to the innocent Claudio and Hero (Harry Lister Smith and Lowri Izzard) also well performed, but as characters never as endearing to the audience.

The speed of the production (coming in at just over 100 minutes) makes it even more painfully apparent the lack of character, depth, and opportunity afforded Hero. Admired for her beauty, with no opportunity to express personality, bartered like a possession, this is not feminist power at its best. It’s unsettling that her mother and father are prepared to pretend that she has died, that Claudio is happy to replace the girl he was dizzingly in love with for one who looks just like her, especially if she now has twice the inheritance on offer too, and that a woman’s word can be so easily dismissed for the sake of honour.

But that’s a criticism of the play itself, or the play’s criticism of society itself, or whatever other complex layer that Shakespeare was trying to achieve, rather than of the Faction’s production. There’s something that feels slightly uncomfortable about criticising Shakespeare — and I feel uncomfortable even admitting that, even as this paragraph starts to get meta.

As in all of Shakespeare’s comedies, the duping and tricks are foolish, the masquerade unconvincing, and the crimes easily uncovered, exacerbated in part by the fast pace of the production. But when crackling dialogue is delivered with nimble eloquence and timing like tonight, realism is a small price to play. Swift paced and bold, with an innovative gaze, this is retail therapy at its best.

Running until May 21st 2016

It’s the first time Charlotte Keatley’s play has been performed in London in 25 years, but this production of My Mother Said I Never Should, produced by Tiny Fires and running at St James Theatre, suggests that the capital has been waiting that long. It’s easy  to see why the National Theatre ranked it as one of the most significant plays of the twentieth century in 2000, and despite it being the most performed play ever written by a female playwright, Paul Robinson’s direction and Tara Finley’s production keeps it fresh.

The family drama spans 1940 to 1987 and four generations of women, and explores not only the personal dynamics at play, but those of society and its effect work, marriage and motherhood.

The plot is simple – we have Doris, born in Oldham in 1900, her daughter, Margaret who inherits some of her work and duty values but is some more freedom, her daughter, Jackie, who has an unplanned pregnancy in 1969, and hands her baby daughter, Rosie, to her mother to bring up as her own. But as all mother and daughter relationships, the reality is all the more complex. The ways in which they mirror one another, even whilst trying to break away, are clear, and we see repeated a longing to be different coexisting with a desire to connect.

Of course things have changed and female freedoms extended and opportunities grown. There’s a sense of movement for the women – at one point Margaret says to Jackie ‘You’ve got to go further than me – otherwise, what’s it been worth?’ – but at the same time it’s very clear that much has stayed the same, particularly when it comes to the bonds and family dynamics. She herself made a similar assertion as young woman, declaring, ‘Well I’m going to be different! Women did so much during the war: there’s nothing stopping us now.’  Men are never physically present, but always casting a shadow, whether as husbands, fathers or bosses. However, rather than a play about women and men, this feels like more of a play about mothers and daughters.

Much of this is down to the convincing familial dynamics between the cast. Doris Lipman is superb as Maureen, showing grit, humour and strength of character even as she is constrained by conventions. Katie Brayben, Olivier Award winner last year for her performance as Carole King in Beautiful, plays Jackie, and manages to portray a wild child of the sixties to a mother parted from her daughter and the complexities of changing emotions and relationships. Serena Manteghi is vibrant and animated as the youngest character, and it’s touching to see her grow.  Huge congratulations and respect also has to go to Hilary Jones, who stepped in at the last moment to play Margaret due to Caroline Faber having to step down – this performance was the first configuration of the cast, and only the second time they had met.

Signe Beckman’s set design is sparse, with flickering television screens setting up the context of the time without overpowering the individual stories. Interspersed with movement through the decades are flashbacks, such as from Doris to 1923 when Jack proposed, and waste ground scenes where all four become children again, playing together and casting spells. There’s simple repeated motifs, such as the movement from ‘mummy’ to ‘mum’ to ‘mother’ to a first name, and the solitaire board that becomes a metaphor for winning at life by being an individual.

There’s no formula. The relationships between mother and daughter are delicate. Margaret says at one point that ‘You do what’s best for your daughter, and you find out it’s not what she wanted, or needed’ – a thought millions of mothers have had. But still the bond is there. The scene where the family sort Doris’ late husband’s house provides a particularly lovely lens through which to explore the relationships of the four women together.

Whilst watching My Mother Said I Never Should, I wished that my own mummy was there. I wanted to share the moments with her. This feels like high praise.