Reviews

Alan Bennett’s “uplifting, bittersweet comedy” perhaps best known as the film starring Helen Mirren, played to full houses at Old Mill Theatre, presented by Old Mill’s resident company.

With a name like this, it would have been foolish to believe the play would follow the norms. It didn’t. Basically a can of beans comes to life mysteriously to bring a couple together and that couple don’t even know each other’s names.  The other influencers are Commonsense, Caution, Impulsivity and Crystal Home and that covers the range of actions and emotions that we go through in life with some crystal thought to guide us. So the Beans Means Love was born from pain and suffering but ultimately the sense of humour we have.

Whoever said that crime doesn’t pay? In the case of Agatha Christie, the genre of murder mystery has been a literary gold-mine.

As an ironic observation of what was to come, one of the guests arriving at Soldier Island stated that something peculiar was taking place on their weekend away.

One by one the toy soldiers on the coffee table disappear as the corresponding character shuffled off their mortal coil, in this theatrical adaptation of what was recently voted as Christie’s most popular novel.

As co-director Elizabeth Browne points out, Othello is a challenging text which is “commonly studied and rarely performed” due to its sensitive and controversial content. Racism and domestic violence are at the core of this play. MUSC has openly addressed these aspects and depicted them for what they are: abhorrent. This is a very brave production that wishes to confront the ways in which jealousy, deception, and betrayal fuel these perfidious behaviours.