By Cal
Link: https://www.stream.theatre/season/103
Available until: Monday 10th May-Saturday 30th May at 7.30pm. Matinées on Saturdays and Sundays at 3pm.
Rocky Road is named after a type of cake. There’s a character in this play who makes cakes and it’s fair to say they’re definitely on a rocky road so it really is a brilliant title. Of course, most people have been baking cakes through lockdown and watching Bake-Off so you probably know all this already, but it’s a new one for me.
By Cal
Link: https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/hymn-live-stream/17-feb-2021-20-feb-2021
Available until: There will be livestreams at 8pm every night until Saturday 20th February. There is also a 3pm matinée on 20th February and an extra performance on Sunday 21st at 5pm. There are a limited number of tickets available for each performance to ensure a high-quality stream.
You can form a connection with another person in the strangest places. Sometimes it is literally a matter of seconds. My (adoptive) gran once saw a poem she loved in a bus stop (I’m guessing it was on the wall). A man came into the bus stop. He looked at the poem and they shared a glance. No words were exchanged, but she knew he loved that poem, just like she did. She knew he’d recognised that she loved it too.
By Louise
Link: A
Christmas Carol | The Old Vic (oldvictheatre.com) £10, £20, £30, £40, £55,
£65 (pay what you can)
Available until: Livestreams available
Monday-Saturday until Thursday 24th December. Times vary.
There are a lot of productions of A
Christmas Carol which will be available online this month. I’ve only
watched this one so far so I can’t say which one is the best, and that probably
wouldn’t be fair, anyway. All I can say that if you want to choose just one,
this will be a good one to choose. I’m sure there will be other good
productions too, but this one is definitely good.
I think most people know the story of A
Christmas Carol, but in case you don’t, it’s based on a novel by Charles
Dickens and it’s about a man called Ebenezer Scrooge. He hates Christmas and
everything it stands for. All he cares about is money. But one night he has a
visitor who tells him there is still time for him to change. He will receive
three more visitors. They will help him decide what to do.
By Cal
Link: https://www.stream.theatre/season/3 £14
Available until: Livestreams on Monday
14th, Tuesday 15th, Wednesday 15th, Thursday
17th, Friday 18th, Saturday 19th and Saturday
20th December at 7.30pm, with matinées on Thursday and Saturday at
2.30pm.
The Ceremony is the first play written (or at least the
first to be performed) by Catherine Tyldesley, who is best-known for playing
Eva in Coronation Street and for her performance on Strictly Come
Dancing.
The play focuses on Donna, a
successful life coach who decides to hold a séance. The idea seems to be that her
guests can contact ghosts and lay their own ghosts to rest at the same time. To
begin with, it’s a comedy with fast dialogue and quips. Later, there are some
quite emotional moments as the characters reveal the source of their pain.
By Alan
Link: https://www.stream.theatre/season/2
Available until: Livestreams on Friday
11th, Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th December
at 7.30pm and Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th at 2.30pm.
There are a lot of really good
Christmas concerts on the internet. It is really nice that we get to see our
favourite West End actors in so many concerts especially as there are a lot of
events we are missing out on this year. It helps make everything feel a bit
more Christmassy and when the same performers appear in different concerts they
have always sung different songs so far.
This one has lots of different singers
in and lots of different types of Christmas songs. There is also some dancing,
Robin Windsor and Anya Garnis who used to be in Strictly dance to a
version of a carol.
By Emma
Link: https://wisechildren.ticketco.events/uk/en?_ga=2.199443112.724185000.1607024189-131572380.1607024189
Available until: Livestreams on Friday
4th December at 7pm, Saturday 5th December at 1.30pm and
7pm, and Friday 11th December at 7pm. The 11th December
performance also has audio-described and captioned versions of the play. You
can also buy a gift card for a friend so they can watch any livestream.
The Flying Lovers
of Vitebsk by Daniel Jamieson is about the
artist Marc Chagall and his wife, the writer Bella Chagall. The play tells the
story of their relationship and their love for one another but it is also about
all the terrible world events that go on around them.
By Louise
Link: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/performancepreparationacademy/pippin/e-rqeaab £22 adult, £17 concession, PPA graduate £12,
PPA student £5. + booking fee
Available until: Further livestreams
on Thursday 3rd, Friday 4th and Saturday 5th
December at 7pm and a matinée on Saturday 5th at 2.30pm
Age guidance: 12 (adult themes)
Pippin is a play within a play. A group of Players
put on the play, which is a historical story from the time of Charlemagne/Charles
I of France. At first, I wasn’t sure why there was a play within a play, but at
the end, I think I worked it out and it made sense. If I’m right, I’m sure
you’ll work it out too. If I’m wrong, that won’t surprise me at all.
By Cal
Link: https://hopemilltheatre.co.uk/events/rent-online £20
Available until: Shows Friday and
Saturday at 7.30pm and Sundays at 7pm. The final performance is Sunday 20th
December. The video is available from 7.15-11pm so you don’t need to watch it
live, but you do need to watch it on the same night.
Content warning: Drug-use, strong language & themes of adult content.
Parental guidance required for children under 15.
169 years ago, a man
called Henri Murger wrote a series of stories called Scènes de la
vie de bohème. This inspired not one but two composers to write an opera
called La bohème. Ruggero Leoncavallo’s 1897 opera is actually really
good, but it is Puccini’s 1896 opera that was embraced by the public – and
which inspired composer, lyricist and writer Jonathan Morgan to create a
musical based on La bohème but set in
Lower Manhattan in New York. Sadly he did not live to enjoy the success of the
musical, he died the night before the Off-Broadway premiere in 1996. But the
show has proved popular. There have been a number of UK productions including
three in the West End and one in a paper mill, as well as an eight-year run on
Broadway.
By Imogen
Link: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/show/fiver-the-concert/#schedule £15
Available until: There are livestreams
on Saturday 28th November at 3.15pm and 7.45pm. It seems to be
available for a while after the show too so you don’t have to watch it
completely live and you can pause it.
Fiver is a great show because the star is a member
of the audience! At the start of the show, Alex James Ellison invites an
audience member onstage and grinds against them till they give him a £5 note. I
wonder how successful that is. I mean he is so hot, some people might hold out
on him all night and only admit right at the end that they don’t even have a
fiver. I mean not many people do. It’s all plastic nowadays. Cash isn’t even
legal right now in some places.
By Aashiq
Link: https://www.stream.theatre/home
£18 +£3 booking fee
Available until: Further livestreams
on Friday 27th November at 7.30pm, Saturday 28th November
at 2.30pm and 7.30pm, and Sunday 29th November at 5pm.
The Last Five Years is a great musical
for lockdown. So great, it’s been done twice. A filmed version with Lauren
Samuels and Danny Becker, both filming their own section of the music. (And
they were wonderful. I absolutely adore Lauren and Danny. They could probably
sing one of Donald Trump’s speeches and I’d still love them. Well, probably. If
I put them on mute, anyway.) And now a filmed version of Southwark Playhouse’s
staged production, starring Molly Lynch and Oli Higginson.
By Imogen
Link: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/surrey/performance-preparation-academy/saturday-night-fever/e-gjqdde £22
adult, £17 concession, PPA graduate £12, PPA student £5. + booking fee
Available until: This production must
be watched live. There are livestreams Thursday-Saturday at 7pm and a Saturday
matinee at 2.30pm
In some ways this musical seems so
old-fashioned. The idea that if you get pregnant you have to marry the guy or
have an abortion. There’s nothing about adoption or being a single mum or
giving it to your parents to look after. There were only 2 options, abortion or
marriage. I do think it’s good it’s basically the girl’s decision, if she won’t
get an abortion then the marriage has to happen. But I’m glad we’ve moved on
from that.
By Aashiq
Link: https://www.stream.theatre/season/17
Available until: further livestreams Saturday 21st
November at 3pm (captioned) and 7.30pm.
Philip Ridley has released lots of brilliant monologues in
the The Beast Will Rise series on the Tramp youtube channel, but this is
my favourite of all. It’s a great story with great characters and I think there
is a lot in the story that most people can relate to, even if not everyone goes
to quite the same extremes.
