08 January 2015, The Tablet

Out of season


Anything Goes Crucible Theatre, Sheffield; UK Tour; The Christmas Truce Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-avon

 
In a branch of a well-known supermarket chain this week, adjoining shelves held the first Easter eggs of the year alongside savagely discounted packets of Christmas puddings, mince pies and stollen.As this tableau shows, the marketeers soon turn their attention to the next event, and these brutal economics also apply to theatre. One way round this problem is to choose a Christmas show that is jolly, family-friendly but seasonally non-specific, as Daniel Evans, impressive artistic director of Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, has done with Anything Goes – his revival of Cole Porter’s 1934 show, in which lovers and gangsters suffer legal and romantic misunderstandings during a trans-Atlantic cruise. After its mid-winter run in Sheffield, the production will tour Britain well i
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