Hilary Seabrook - writer, podcaster, musician

Aiming to be the UK's first sustainable outside theatre, The Living Theatre in the tiny village of Whitewell is well on its way, with brilliant and professional actors, directors and backstage crew. This week, they're performing Macbeth  and the Sunday matinee performance managed to dodge torrential thunderstorms that brought pathetic fallacy to life in the hours running up to the start. The Living Theatre Founded in August 2020 - perhaps not the ideal time to begin any creative endeavour - The Living Theatre has clear aims: “To develop a professional working community theatre in a rural open space with access to industry experience for all whilst promoting mental well-being, community engagement and personal development.” The Living Theatre's production of Macbeth  (it couldn't have been more different to Friday's Present Laughter !) was dark and effective, with the two protagonists supported brilliantly by Duncan, Malcolm, Banquo, Macduff et al. This is a really ...

There is a wonderful programme that allows cinemas across the UK to screen productions from London as part of NTLive from the National Theatre. This week, I was entranced by Present Laughter by Noel Coward, originally performed at the Old Vic, another of our fine theatres. We're particularly fortunate in Hitchin to have several theatre spaces, including The Richard Whitmore studio (named after one of the UK's most esteemed newsreaders and journalists, who lives in Hitchin). Twice a month, it is taken over by Hitchin Films for screenings of some real treasures and often for NTLive events. Present Laughter is a delightful, farcical comedy with some very deep messages, hidden beneath the hilarity. The play revolves around the indiscretions and career of Garry Essendine (played here by Andrew Scott), an actor who is somewhat self-obsessed - his surname is an anagram of 'neediness'. I love Coward's play on words. Apparently, the ideas behind Present Laughter  were for...

Brilliant acting by the whole cast in the National Theatre's 2011 production that was screened as part of their NT Live programme.

The Bancroft Players' Queen Mother Theatre performance of The Importance of Being Earnest was just hilarious. A great evening out with Mum and Dad.

The award-winning 'Small Island' is a fabulous book and was even better brought to life by the National Theatre.     Seeing the play streamed to the Broadway Cinema just a few miles from home was a great pleasure.     Although I cried. A lot. If you have the chance to see the play, do.     If you can find time to read book, do that, too.

Shakespeare's ideas about gender are fascinating, especially given the 400 years or so that have passed since his plays were first performed.     The Taming of the Shrew  is one of his most difficult plays. It can be very uncomfortable to watch, as Petruchio 'tames' his wife, Katherine. This new production by the Royal Shakespeare Company manages to enhance the discomfort by flipping the genders as men become women and vice versa. Suddenly, you have a woman bullying a man into submission and that's hard to watch.     Director Justin Audibert does a brilliant job with a cast who take on the matriarchal world with ease. Alongside the performances, Ruth Chan's music adds to the tension to produce a stunning production.

The recent National Theatre production of All My Sons stars Sally Field and Bill Pullman and outstanding performances by the whole cast.     Streamed into Letchworth’s Broadway Cinema, this was a delightful evening. Thought-provoking and fascinating, this is a play about responsibility, family and truth. The denouement is shocking and yet somehow unsurprising. Miller builds the tension and the performances today make this as relevant as it must have been in the years after the Second World War.     Once again, NT Live delivers.

The Royal Shakespeare Company's As You Like It  was streamed live into The Broadway Cinema in Letchworth, bringing a lot of fun and more than the usual gender-swapping roles.     Shakespeare's separated lovers are reunited and all ends happily, with some of the expected twists and turns. What this production offers is gender switches that make for more confusion and fun. As ever, it was a joy to see great performances and stage effects beamed into a local cinema.

The National Theatre Live programme allows those of us in the provinces to enjoy West End theatre in our local cinema. Excellent seats at a reasonable cost and home before 10pm!     This month's delight was All About Eve , a stage adaptation by Ivo can Hove of a 1950 film adaptation of the original play by Mary Orr. Although you could see what was coming, the suspense was still gripping and the case extraordinary.     Both Gillian Anderson as Margo Channing and Lily James as Eve Harrington put on dynamic performances that made their characters evolve through the events on stage. By the time Tsio Habte put in an appearance as the new Eve - Phoebe - in the final scene, we knew all about Eve and her ilk.     There is something deeply satisfying about enjoying such outstanding performances within a few miles of home and my writing partner and I are booked in for all the screenings this season.     Next week, we're set for The RSC's As You...

There is so much joy in sitting in a comfortable cinema with good friends all around me, just a few minutes' drive from home, while watching outstanding theatre.     The National Theatre's policy of streaming some productions out to cinemas is inspired. It gives us all the chance to support local venues AND outstanding national arts bodies. It's not cheap, but it's not expensive, either.     So I come to be sitting in Letchworth's Broadway Cinema (sadly Hitchin's various cinemas were all closed down at various times in the last century), watching David Hare's latest play I'm Not Running .     The production itself was masterly, with actors, direction and stage design that kept the pace going and although most of us could guess what the final scene would be, there were twists and turns along the way. Flashbacks and changes in setting helped to add intrigue along the way.     Political theatre has always been a fascination of mine and David H...

The extraordinary Antony and Cleopatra was beamed from the National Theatre into Letchworth's  Broadway Cinema, which is fast becoming one of my favourite venues.     The performance was simply extraordinary. Antony and Cleopatra is a lengthy play with a convoluted plot but this production managed to keep the pace going with sublime acting, innovative staging and simply beautiful costumes.      Ralph Fiennes has always been a favourite actor - not least for his portrayal of the hideous SS officer Arnon Goth in Schindler's List - but his Antony was dwarfed by the stunning Sophie Okonedo's Cleopatra. She has more than proved her own acting credentials in the past (especially in Hotel Rwanda ) but she brought Cleopatra to life as a real, intelligent and powerful woman.      Okonedo stole the show and it was all the women who ruled this stage while the men blew hot and cold, fought and argued. With Cleopatra as a role model, both...

Telling the story of a stage production of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Thomas Hardy’s friendship  with its leading lady, the stage play A Pure Woman is a brilliant evocation of the era and the writer.     Throughout the play, Hardy is writing poetry, some of it love poems to his friend or mistress, a young woman six decades his junior and half the age of his second wife. The moment Florence Hardy discovers these poems on her husband’s desk is heartbreaking. There’s no evidence that the affair was anything more than inappropriate infatuation on Hardy’s part, but even the suspicion of it is sad.     The three actors told the story beautifully, shedding light on the man who created one of English literature’s finest novels.     Flawed authors are often as interesting as flawed characters. Tess’s flaws are largely imposed on her by others’ actions or inactions - Joan Durbeyfield has a lot to answer for, in failing to prepare her daughter for the pot...