Tim Wright

Ultimately, A Child of Science offers a vivid portrayal of the intersection between scientific pursuit and human longing. It’s a testament to the extraordinary efforts behind ordinary miracles. And how the path to creating life can be as intricate and moving as the lives it aims to bring into the world.

It’s hard to tell the entire story of The Drifters. Not least because the group became a revolving door of something like 60 different members over the decades. And therein lies the problem for The Drifters Girl – it tries to take on the whole story, mainly from the perspective of their trailblazing African American manager Faye Treadwell.

It’s tough to keep a musical juggernaut like Les Misérables going. It’s even tougher to keep it feeling fresh, night after night for well over 35 years. Where others have faltered, Les Misérables has kept marching on to its own revolutionary drum beat. 

Football is not a subject often tackled in the theatre. The Red Lion though is set a world away from the riches of the professional game. Here we find the kit man, the manager and a talented, young prospect – all in the changing room of the semi-pro non-league game.

'Doctors must not carry their ghosts,' advises Johann Klein to his impatient assistant Dr Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th-century obstetrics doctor. But Semmelweis is troubled: he feels it is only by carrying those ghosts that progress can be made.

The industry has long grappled with a simple question: how do you get non-habitual theatregoers into the theatre? COVID-19 may be a serious threat to the arts, but it's going to accelerate a long overdue change. So, enter stage left, theatre at home.

If you speak to someone who says they don't like musicals, chances are, when you mention The Book of Mormon you'll be greeted with more enthusiasm than scepticism.  So what is it about this show that manages to transcend the traditional musical theatre perceptions? The subject matter? Hearing the c-word sung to high heaven? The sight of a goose-stepping Hitler with devil horns in a dream sequence? 

When on song, panto can be monumentally brilliant. An unpretentious form of theatre that can delight old and young alike. It's a shame then that this latest effort from panto behemoth Qdos is so tone deaf it makes your toes curl.

The feeling you don't conform to the mould that society expects, is a feeling familiar to most of us in our lives at some point or another. Perhaps that is what makes Funny Girl endure and continue to pack out theatres.

Occasionally, when musicals head out on tour, the grandeur and the spectacle that exists to thrill audiences in London seems to get lost somewhere around the M25. Thankfully, that's not the case with Disney's The Lion King.

At first glance, Enid Blyton's Malory Towers seems an odd choice for the second outing of Emma Rice's Wise Children theatre company. A genteel tale of a privileged girl's boarding school in Cornwall with mild peril and even milder themes doesn't seem like classic Rice.

Bristol Comedy Garden has truly blossomed. Its little shoots have grown and grown to the point that the garden is now hosting almost an embarrassment of riches. Each line up feels carefully curated, giving newer or lesser known comics a spot alongside household names. The packed tent makes it clear audiences have taken the event to their hearts.  

'Bring it down, bring it all down' is the anarchic cry from Macheath in Kneehigh's take on The Beggar's Opera. John Gray's original is given the full Kneehigh treatment- the original is not a constraint but a jumping off point. Perhaps the slide in the middle of Michael Vale's set is the physical manifestation of Kneehigh's ever playful nature.

It's 1964 and Cassius Clay has just beaten the odds to become Heavyweight Champion of the World. But, instead of celebrating on the town, he's in a hotel room star NFL running back Jim Brown, soul icon Sam Cooke and Muslim minister and activist Malcolm X.

Children are just revolting aren't they? They're snivelling maggots that need discipline, discipline and more discipline. Agatha Trunchbull's teaching mantra may not fill most with hope but in the context of Matilda the Musical it brings sheer delight. This is a musical that will have maggots of all ages squirming with joy.  

'It's your pub' says Winston, about the Three Kings Barber shop in London. The African barbers at the shop don't drink, so the barber shop has become the hub of the community. It's the place to watch the football, recount stories and tell jokes.

It's a sensible time to be tackling Timberlake Wertenbaker's modern classic Our Country's Good. The role of theatre in society is ripe for the examination, as cuts bite arts institutions and school curriculums alike. The question is, what is there to be gained by putting on a play?

It's fitting that the once industrial space of the Tobacco Factory is now the dystopian setting for the latest outing of the Factory Company - a gender-bending A Midsummer Night's Dream.

There's something undeniably irrepressible about Kinky Boots - it's a fully sequined, unabashed romp through a true (ish) story of a shoe factory threatened with closure until a radical idea to start producing oh so fabulous boots for drag queens appears.

'Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people' writes Angela Carter in her 1992 book Wise Children and that is the starting point for Emma Rice's furiously fast adaptation in this, the first outing for her newly formed theatre company of the same name.