A new site feature!!!

I've decided that I want to update this blog a bit more often and as a way of doing that I want to bring in a few features over the next few weeks! I've decided that I am going to include my musical song of the week, complete with a youtube clip of said song. I will also try and update with a top five run down of all things theatre, from top five plays and musicals I've seen, to top 5 sad songs, top five actors and actresses etc..

I would very much like it if you (if you are reading this!!) to comment on these additionos - do you agree with my choices or not! What would be your top 5?!

Anyway for now, I'll leave you with my first musical song of the week! It's from the Broadway musical Jekyll and Hyde, and I think it is one of the best songs written for a male in theatre!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31i-5F__1tw

I've joined BOST!!!

After a suprisingly successful audition, yours truly will become a member of the Birkenhead Operatics Society Trust!!! They're one of the better amateur theatrical groups in the area and put on at least one big show a year so I'm very priveledged to become a part of their group!! For my audition I sang a song from Phantom of the Opera!! The link below will take you to youtube to tell you which one I performed!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HWNKDmlnnQ

Hamlet @ The Liverpool Lantern Theatre

This autumn's most anticipated Shakespeare may be Antony and Cleopatra, but it doesn't stop one of the Bards more popular pieces from packing a punch down at the Lantern Theatre.

Hamlet, Shakespeare's longest play, follows the story of a young prince who wishes to exact revenge on his murderous uncle Claudius. Many of the themes within the play, inclusing greed and sexual depravity, are just as relevant today as they were when the play was first written, over four hundred years ago.

This version, by Liverpool's Black Box Theatre Company, is part of a cultural exchange with Rome's Blue in the Face theatre group. They brought the last collaboration, The Juggler's Take, to the city in June this year.

The cast of nine are generally good. Keir Howard is a formidable Hamlet, handling the text well. The standout performance however, is from Ben Patterson, who portrays both Claudius, and the ghost of his brother, with chilling passion.

The modest set is utilised well. This production benefits from being performed in a theatre inside an old warehouse, which gives the feeling of actually being inside Elsinore. The combination of mood lighting and actors using the centre aisle adds atmosphere and heightens the feeling of claustrophobia.

One of the traits of Shakespeare's plays is that they can be set in any place, any time. This version, from the choice of costumes, appears to be set in the mid twentieth century, but it never becomes clear why.

Full to the brim of action and suspense, this is a production which is worth venturing out to see. Performed in a small theatre, which is a hideen gem in its own right, this Hamlet deserves to be seen on a larger scale.

7/10