Sitting In The Cheap Seats

Jim Lichtscheidl and Mark Rylance. Photo Credit Teddy Woolf When mass media batters you relentlessly with depressing news it’s important to have some counter-points to cheer yourself up. For some it might be sport or showbiz gossip – for us, unsurprisingly, new theatre news never fails to excite. Here’s some of our favourite info from the past week!

While we can lay claim to a lot of things here at  Sitting In The Cheap Seats  we’ve not, as yet, mastered the act of being in two places at once. As such it was a case of divide and conquer on Friday night as Matt headed to London to see The Fix (review here ) while  Emma van Kooperen   braved the massed Pokemon trainers of Chichester to head to the  Minerva Theatre , Here’s her report…

credit: Darren Bell There are times when theatre can seem almost too prescient, where a show can offer a glimpse into a possible future that seems a little too real. There are moments in Michael Strassen ’s production of The Fix that make you wonder just how much we are manipulated by the public view of politicians, and just how much they are all hiding.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona in it’s natural outdoor setting Shakespeare’s early plays are often problematic, with the bawdier comedies such as The Comedy of Errors the faults are hidden within some gloriously silly slapstick, but in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona (quite possibly the first play in Will’s canon) the flaws are writ large. Nonetheless Shakespeare’s Globe ’s gloriously silly touring production makes for a largely enjoyable evening.