FAITH HEALER
“The production – set on a single, bare village-hall stage – benefits from beautifully understated design, … and comes so close to perfection that audiences across the Highlands should flock to see it, as it comes briefly within touching distance of them.”
Joyce McMillan - The Scotsman - October 2019 ★★★★★
BE MY BABY
“Amanda Stoodley’s set and costume is superb, with a simplicity, bareness and versatility which suggests the institutional setting without dwarfing the performers.”
Mark Smith - British Theatre Guide - May 2019
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
“Amanda Stoodley’s set design makes excellent use of the available space, crafting an area for our ensemble to thrive and playfully inhabit as they tell their story. Stoodley’s costume designs also perfectly capture the essence of the narrative and convey the time period of the madcap play-world with style and attention to detail.”
Adam Bruce - OnStage Blog - April 2019
NORTH AND SOUTH
“In an instant, the colour scheme switches from spring green to industrial grey, and the trees on Amanda Stoodley’s set become toxic chimneys billowing smoke over the town of Milton, a stand-in for the Manchester of the industrial revolution. The petals filling the air are now fatal strands of cotton, ready to clog every mill worker’s lungs. The community cast has swollen to fill all corners of the stage, the embodiment of urban overpopulation. You’d think you were in a different play.”
Mark Fisher - The Guardian - September 2019 ★★★★
EUROPE
“Amanda Stoodley’s design is evocative, generating a powerful sense of place without being literal-minded… Design elements combine eerily well, transforming the space in the climactic moments of the drama.”
Mark Smith - British Theatre Guide - October 2018 ★★★★
THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL
“Amanda Stoodley’s simple yet stunning set and costume designs perfectly accommodate the adaptation’s narrative and its excellently drawn characters. Everything in this adaptation is purposeful, stylish and clearly defined, helping to enhance the production’s smart and economic feel. It feels both refreshing and atmospheric, providing both narrative clarity and enabling this neglected Brontë novel to draw its audience into a rich stream of cultural ideologies that have long since served as a reminder of how our society has developed. It’s raw and imbued with a true sense of vitality; a simply unmissable adaptation.”
Adam Bruce - Exeunt - April 2017
THE EFFECT
“Amanda Stoodley's clinical white-tiled designs lets the actors carry Prebble's argument and, in the process, it blossoms with nuance.”
Matt Trueman - Whatsonstage - July 2015 ★★★★★
“[Daniel] Evans and designer Amanda Stoodley have created a real sense of the intensity of the characters' experience and the audience feels enclosed in the same space with them - the stage and seating is clinically white, with computerised lighting and effects utilised at key points to give the sense of us collectively being inside the experiment.”
Ruth Deller - Broadway World - July 2015
HAMLET
‘Design In The Round’ - Read the interview.
Emily McMahon - Exeunt September 2014
THE NEW MAW BROON MONOLOGUES
“Amanda Stoodley’s set, a beautifully illuminated jigsaw of Broons cartoons, complete with an inverted tenement staircase hovering over the heads of the two Maws, is a delight.”
Mark Brown - Scottish Stage - November 2013
BLACK ROSES - THE KILLING OF SOPHIE LANCASTER
“Amanda Stoodley's set design is symbolic of the contrast between the present and the after-life. The characters never touch — although they reach out to — but are separated in different worlds as they try to make sense of the how and why. This play renders an emotional connection so deep that it moves the audience to tears.”
Sarah Bloomer - Whatsonstage - February 2012 ★★★★★
MANCHESTER LINES
“Since it lost its city-centre home and has been on the move, the Library has discovered a far greater sense of drama, particularly with its site-specific productions. Director Wils Wilson and designer Amanda Stoodley transform a soulless room in an office building, high above the city, into an installation-cum-performance space, a lost-property office crammed with stuffed foxes, abandoned scooters and crutches, lost lunchboxes and mislaid books, all presided over by the kindly Eugene. Don't hurry to take your seat, but study the artefacts on the way in; their significance gradually emerges as the story is told. The everyday and surreal sit side by side; as Eugene muses: "How did the false teeth get out of the mouth and on to the seat of the tram?"
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian - June 2012 ★★★★
TWO
“Once inside the theatre, mere trappings give way to something more interesting with designer Amanda Stoodley offering a wonderful, slightly surreal touch with a chandelier constructed of beer glasses, plus a grubby carpet and circular bar. Band of Gold plays on the jukebox, and you could almost convince yourself that you can smell the leftover dregs of Babycham and pints of mild.”
Lyn Gardner - The Guardian January 2012
“Cartwright is not known for his elaborate sets instead he remains very minimal. However designer Amanda Stoodley’s vision of the bar being at the very heart of the play and the use of the elegant and impressive chandelier above the pub is stunning. The chandelier is made entirely from wine glasses and glass tumblers and has to be seen to be believed.”
Manchester’s Finest - January 2012