STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
Kes
Leeds Playhouse
A VICTIM of social circumstance and impoverished education, Billy Casper remains an anti-hero for young people from deprived backgrounds.
Robert Alan Evans’s adaptation of Billy Hines’s 1968 working-class novel seeks to distance itself from Ken Loach’s iconic film by presenting a tightly wound, impressionistic play.
Staged with just two actors, Lucas Button’s 15-year-old Billy is joined on one life-changing day by his older self. Jack Lord plays this version and all the other adult characters, from his own single mother through to the sadistic PE teacher Mr Gryce — who describes himself as being “born wi’a tracksuit on!”
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Ceremony, Eddington, The Life of Chuck, and The Thursday Murder Club


