Category Archives: Reviews

The dizzying optic of All The Little Animals I Have Eaten, a new Karen Hines satire at Shadow. A review

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca You won’t have seen anything quite like All The Small Animals I Have Eaten, the play that’s now running in the Shadow Theatre season. And because it’s by Karen Hines, a brilliant original of a satirist, … Continue reading →

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The screwball elixir: high spirits and rom-com gold. Pride and Prejudice at the Citadel, a review

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Dust off the Regency, and what will you find? Fun fun fun, my friends.  It is a measure of the comic high spirits of the version of Pride and Prejudice currently cavorting its way up, down, … Continue reading →

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‘I sing my sorrow and I paint my joy’. Joni Mitchell: Songs of a Prairie Girl at Theatre Network, a review

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “I’m not a weeper, I’m a snarler,” Joni Mitchell in old age tells us in the “theatrical collage” in her honour at Theatre Network. “I put the weeping in the songs…. I sing my sorrow, and … Continue reading →

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From the mean streets of New Jersey, a jukebox musical with two dozen hits and a real story. Jersey Boys at the Citadel, a review

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The history of the jukebox musical is riddled with synthetic duds (like robbing a cash machine, and finding Monopoly money). The stand-outs that rise above are few and far between. Jersey Boys is one. Judging by … Continue reading →

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A knock-out production of The Royale at the Citadel, a review

Posted on February 10, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s got a powerful, bruising story to tell, lifted from early 20th century history, where boxing, celebrity and racial hatred in America deliver a maximum sucker punch.  But it’s the theatrical right hook on which that … Continue reading →

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Now we know what we’ve been missing: fun. Ronnie Burkett’s Daisy Theatre is back at Theatre Network with Little Willy

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It was one of those nights out in the theatre that make you know what you’ve been missing. Fun. Surprise. A feeling you’d have to call wonder — when you wake up the next morning and … Continue reading →

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The feel-anxious comedy of First Date, at the Mayfield. A review

Posted on February 4, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Are you ever gonna find The One?” wonders the rousing opening number of First Date, the funny, sweetly unassuming little romantic comedy musical that opened Friday at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre. A chorus tots up rather … Continue reading →

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Collecting souls: where’s the job satisfaction? After Faust, the opening show in RISER Edmonton’s 2023 series. A review

Posted on February 3, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It sounds like an OK gig. And you can argue that aspirational clients, like Dr. Faustus, get what they deserve when they sign away their souls for unlimited knowledge, power, worldly pleasure, and the 24/7 services … Continue reading →

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Unsung: Tales From The Front Line, living portraits of the health care people who risked everything to keep us safe. A review

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca What just happened here? That leading question is the raison d’être of the “performance installation” currently running at Workshop West. In the ongoing COVID pandemic,  frontline healthcare workers have risked everything to do their jobs keeping … Continue reading →

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Deaf, and an expert in the absurdities of the world: Chris Dodd’s Deafy at the Citadel, a review

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca In Deafy, currently running in the Citadel’s Rice Theatre, we meet a man with a fine-tuned sense of the absurdities of the world. In his wry way he’s an expert in negotiating obstacles both large and … Continue reading →

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