Jackstage

 🌟 Camp Phoenix 🌟 8 February 2024  I  7:30pm  I  Lincoln Arts Centre  I  AD - PR Invite ★★★★★ After four years, the wildly innovative Zest Theatre make a triumphant return to the stage with their nationwide tour of Camp Phoenix, utilising the talents of local youth companies and professional performers. Having been very lucky to conduct an interview with some cast and crew (via Instagram), I had a approximate idea on the show's style. However totally removing any form of bias, nothing could have prepared me for the sheer honesty and sincerity this show displays. Such warm willingness to be open about life's challenges sent tons of goosebumps from beginning to end, and nearly even making me cry towards the finale! Everyone involved really captures the essence of what it means to be a young person in current climates; messages and morals that everyone can identify with. Camp Phoenix follows Zia as they enter a residential with newfound campmates, providing a vast range of chara

 🌟 Sister Act 🌟 1 February 2024  I  7:30pm  I  Curve Theatre, Leicester  I  AD - PR Invite ★★★★★ Sister Act: A Divine Musical Comedy opens its new UK tour stretch beginning at Leicester's Curve Theatre. I am beyond thrilled and thankful to have received an invite to review such a culturally monumental show! Made famous by the 1992 film, the stage adaptation features many original songs (Alan Menken), and they are funky and energetic bops! Even from the moment you enter the auditorium, you're greeted with a disco ball and 70s tunes to enhance the disco vibes. You'll have to strap me down to stop me from dancing! We follow music diva Deloris Van Cartier as her career hits a rut, after witnessing her boyfriend commit a heinous murder. Instructed to join the local convent, Delores transforms into Sister Mary Clarence... A woman of many profanities and extremely bright personality is bound to stand out! Landi Oshinowo is hilarious with this non-belonging, especially the confus

 🌟 The Woman In Black 🌟 31 January 2024  I  7:30pm  I  Grand Opera House, York ★★★★★ This landmark third visit to Eel Marsh house, home to the deceased Mrs. Jennet Humfrye, marks my 100th visit to the theatre, and also the 50th post to my Jackstage blog. Susan Hill's The Woman In Black consistently manages to enthral me almost five years after my previous visits. I have never been the bravest when it comes to the genre of horror, and the show still succeeds in setting my pulse racing, palms sweating and tensed up in my seat. It is extremely rare to see such thrilling shocks on stage, mostly due to the fact that it is so hard to perfect the suspense. Yet The Woman In Black is unquestionably a classic feat of how exactly you stage fear in its rawest form. One of my main concerns about this play touring is how well it would translate away from its home at London's Fortune Theatre. Though it really finds a way to embody York's Grand Opera House, a small and rickety old venue