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The Tempest (Nottingham Playhouse and Lakeside Arts Centre) @ Lakeside Arts Centre Car Park

Storms were scheduled for the matinee of Nottingham Playhouse and Lakeside Arts Centre’s outdoor Tempest, a co-production aimed at reintroducing family audiences to outdoor theatre as part of both venues’ reopening strategy; however, the sun shone brightly throughout. Martin Berry’s 80-minute production (also The Bardathon’s first bit of in-person Shakespeare for well over a year) …

The Tempest (Bilimankhwe International Theatre) @ Lakeside Arts Centre

Bilimankhwe’s latest project, The Tempest, is a potentially fascinating concept. Bringing together European and African artists, director Kate Stafford cast actors from Malawi and Zimbabwe as Ariel and Caliban, and a multi-racial British cast as the colonising Europeans, building into the production from the start a series of power relationships with the potential to comment …

Doctor Faustus (Lakeside/Nottingham New Theatre) @ Lakeside Arts Centre

Following last year’s Lysistrata, Nottingham New Theatre continues its collaboration with Lakeside Arts Centre on student productions with a professional spin. Martin Berry’s production, with an all-student cast and professional design and creative team, showcased the spectacular potential of the Lakeside space with a version of Marlowe’s Faustus that situated its protagonist at the centre …

The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Two Gents Productions) @ Lakeside Arts Centre

Follow-up to Two Gentlemen of Verona; or, Vakomana Vaviri ve Zimbabwe (Two Gents Productions) @ North Wall Oxford from The Bardathon It’s been two and a half years since I last saw Two Gents Productions perform their debut show, and a lot has changed in the meantime. I won’t offer a full fresh review here …

Much Ado About Nothing (Mappa Mundi/Theatr Mwldan) @ Lakeside Arts Centre

Writing about web page http://www.mappa-mundi.org.uk/current-shows Expectations were set high by Welsh company Mappa Mundi’s self-description of its work: "gloriously irreverent, populist and accessible." A fun-loving Much Ado is always to be welcomed, and the setting – Britain between the wars, a culture where women have been taking on traditional men’s roles – offered an interesting …