Treasure Island Review - Octagon Theatre, Bolton Christmas 2019 (Press Review)

Last night we were guests of Octagon Theatre, Bolton, to review this year's Christmas production - Treasure Island. With a big cast, lots of pirates, mutiny and treasure, this is a big show and they pulled it off beautifully.

The Octagon Theatre building is in the final stages of it's redevelopment, so the performance is at their temporary venue, Bolton Wanderers Football Ground at University Of Bolton Stadium. They've been there a while, but it's the first time we'd visited them there.

The venue is massive, and there is lots of free parking in Car Park A. It's a couple of minutes walk over to the main door, and when we arrived was lashing it down, so wear your big coat.

Inside is also not the warmest place as it's a huge open space with curtains to separate the bar/lobby area from the audience. It does warm up quite quickly once everyone is inside and seated, but dress warm for comfort.

The stage is MASSIVE! It is incredibly impressive and Bolton Octagon have made excellent use of all of that space, with a huge set. It leaves you under no doubt that what you are about to watch is a proper professional performance.

Gulliver's Travels - Bolton Octagon Theatre Review at Queen's Park (until 27th Aug)

Last night we were guests of Bolton Octagon to review their brand new show - Gulliver's Travels. They are unable to use their building while it's being refurbished and this performance was taking place outdoors at Queen's Park. We had no idea how this was going to work. My 8 and 9 year old boys were very excited to see how a giant Gulliver was going to be portrayed in the park. I have to say that so was I...

It was excellent. Probably the cleverest and most ambitious project we'll see this year, with a huge cast and amazing backdrop, and executed beautifully.

Gulliver's Travels is, of course, the fantastical story of Gulliver, a brilliant storyteller who is shipwrecked and finds himself visiting several strange lands on his quest for home. This is the second of Bolton Octagon's 'Out and About' productions that we've seen - we also reviewed Summer Holiday earlier this year.

Summer Holiday Review for Octagon Theatre, Bolton

Last night we were treated to nostalgia and laughs in beach bucketloads as we were guests of Bolton's Octagon Theatre to review their brand new show - Summer Holiday. This is an ambitious and very different performance, which starts at Bolton Interchange and ends in the theatre - and you get there in style, by double-decker bus...

We loved it. I haven't laughed and grinned so much in ages. The show went incredibly well from our perspective, despite including 6 genuine Bolton Vision double-decker busses, 4 different locations, 11 different musical instruments, 10 actors and a broken down mini at the bottom of the Bolton Town Hall steps. Hats off to everyone involved - thank you for a great evening.

For anyone who didn't watch Cliff Richard and crew in Summer Holiday every Summer as a child, this is the tale of a group of bus drivers who have the idea to transform a bus into a mobile hotel and take people over to the south of France. Set in 1963 when most people hadn't been abroad on holiday, this was incredibly exotic and daring.

Summer Holiday: Octagon Theatre Bolton and ON A BUS! 31 May-23 June

In a couple of weeks time we'll be heading off to sunny Bolton Interchange for the start of a very different theatrical performance, when we review Summer Holiday.

Rehearsals are well underway and I think the cast with their pretend bus made of chairs is such a wholesome and grin-inducing image it would have been mean not to share...

Showing from Thu 31 May - Sat 23 June, the audience start at the interchange and then get onto an actual bus for the first part of the performance, before travelling to the Octagon Theatre for the second half of the show. I've been on the East Lancs Railway for their Halloween and Christmas specials, but that's the closest I've ever come to anything like this...

A Christmas Carol Theatre Review at Bolton Octagon

I love A Christmas Carol. It is easily in my top 5 favourite books and I've read it many times. I also love Bolton Octagon Theatre, so I had high hopes for last night's performance and I really wasn't disappointed.

Bolton Octagon is theatre in the round and this was a fairly traditional performance, with Charles Dickens' lines making me smile each time I knew they were coming and then heard them spoken aloud. The performance is family-friendly and nothing is too scary. My 7 and 9 year old boys were quite disappointed actually when Jacob Marley did not drop his jaw. The humour in the book is expanded and Scrooge especially was hilarious, making the whole audience laugh and giggle many times.

A Christmas Carol is of course the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, originally written by Charles Dickens in 1843 and portrayed and retold in their own style thousands (if not millions) of times since by everyone from The Muppets and Bill Murray to.... in fact, just everyone.