• News

    (Not) Getting smaller

    Well, the reviews for Smaller are in (theatre of course doesn’t even exist outside of London, according to the media) – and it’s not good news. People don’t like it. The kindest has been three stars out of five; the cruelest one star. The FT gave it two stars but savaged it, starting with the line: “As dismal evenings in the theatre go, Smaller is not offensive – merely slow, obvious and banal.” The general feeling is that the writer – TV soap author Carmel Morgan – has extended a particularly traumatic episode into a full play. It left quite a few critics depressed – “remorselessly bleak” said The Telegraph. And yet, as ever, everyone praises Kathy Burke as director. It…

  • News

    Small, er, correction

    Kathy’s latest play, Smaller, is not being staged at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith from 28 March to 6 May, as was previous stated on this site. It is in fact at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. Their booking number is 0870 145 1165, or you can buy tickets online here. Since it was the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith that was good enough to point this out, it seems only fair to alert readers that the Lyric will be staging a 21st century version of Homer’s classic tale The Odyssey, complete with live music and puppetry, between now and 1 April; and then “music pandemonium” The Wolves in the Walls from 12 to 29…

  • News

    Plenty Moyet to come

    You can’t accuse Kathy Burke of being afraid of hard work. The God of Hell finished earlier this month, and she’s already signed up for another directing stint. Smaller, written by TV writer Carmel Morgan (Coronation St, Brookside, Shameless), will star comic legend Dawn French alongside songstress and friend Alison Moyet, and will open in Milton Keynes on 20 February. From then it will go to Brighton, Birmingham and then settle in for a six-week run at the Lyric Theatre in London (on Shaftesbury Avenue). All details and links below. Smaller is a musical play and tells the story of Bernice Clulow (Dawn French), a teacher and the life and soul of the staff room,…