Robin/Red/Breast review – frights and folklore with a mesmerising Maxine Peake
Daisy Johnson adapts a 1970 TV play into a poetic and disturbing exploration of childbirth’s physical and emotional impact
March 2024
Work It Out review – keep fit drama delivers great results
The best theatre to stream this month
The best theatre to stream this month: Peaky Blinders, Prima Facie and more
July 2023
They review – Maxine Peake’s powerful delivery leaves us wanting more
The actor’s controlled inner outrage reels us in with this eerily prescient tale from 1977 of a dystopia in which art is criminalised
December 2022
Betty! A Sort of Musical review – Maxine Peake brings Boothroyd’s story to the stage
A slightly wonky meta structure involving a team of amdram actors muddles this show about the former MP but it has abundant charm
May 2022
The Breach review – a shocking and perplexing tale of abuse and power
Questions of consent, violation and trauma go unanswered in this stolid staging of Naomi Wallace’s oblique drama
September 2021
Drama school Lamda finds ‘serious relations breakdown’ under ex-head
London academy reports on inquiry into complaints about former director Sarah Frankcom
August 2021
Lamda boss to leave job amid ‘conduct and management style’ complaints
Sarah Frankcom to depart as director of UK’s leading drama school after less than two years in the role
April 2020
Lockdown culture
Stage presence: how drama schools adapted to the age of social distancing
Reinventing courses that rely on physical contact is a challenge, but digital training could be the perfect curtain-raiser into theatre’s brave new world
November 2019
The week in theatre: Light Falls; The Antipodes; Botticelli in the Fire – review
Sarah Frankcom signs off in Manchester with elegiac Simon Stephens and a little bit of Jarvis Cocker
October 2019
Light Falls review – Simon Stephens' guilt-ridden love letter to the north
Sarah Frankcom says her farewell as the Exchange’s artistic director with this moving testament to the power of family life
July 2019
Femme fatale: Maxine Peake in The Nico Project – in pictures
Manchester's Royal Exchange theatre names joint artistic directors
June 2019
Jarvis Cocker to compose music for Manchester Royal Exchange's new season
Cocker to collaborate on new Simon Stephens play, while Lucy Ellinson to play Macbeth and Neil Bartlett to stage 24-hour work on Remembrance Sunday
April 2019
The week in theatre: West Side Story; Little Miss Sunshine; Ghost Stories – review
Out go the finger clicks but the knife crime stays in Sarah Frankcom’s vital reworking of West Side Story. And Little Miss Sunshine sings for her supper
West Side Story review – exhilarating show sidesteps Broadway blueprint
Sarah Frankcom and Aletta Collins ditch Jerome Robbins’ choreography and keeps the stakes high in a superb production
No mean feat: how West Side Story's dance rumbles got reinvented
The Sharks-v-Jets classic is told with Jerome Robbins’ ‘perfect’ moves, admits Aletta Collins. How did she create new ones?
March 2019
Trump's favourite novel to premiere on UK stage in July
Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead will open at Manchester international festival
February 2019
New Lamda boss Sarah Frankcom: 'radical' solutions required for drama schools
Artistic director at Manchester’s Royal Exchange appointed to new role and celebrated by Benedict Cumberbatch for her passion for increasing diversity
October 2018
Death of a Salesman review – Don Warrington is the business
Sarah Frankcom gives Arthur Miller’s decline-and-fall drama an extra edge in this powerful production
