Zoe Cooper Archives - North West End UK

Northanger Abbey – Octagon Theatre, Bolton

6Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Northanger Abbey – Octagon Theatre, Bolton

The first months of 2024 have brought a plethora of fresh writing to our region and following hot on the heels of new works by Jim Cartwright, Emma Rice and Phoebe Eclair-Powell comes an absolute gem by a little known writer from Hampshire called Jane Austen… Of course, we know that Northanger Abbey was published over two centuries ago, and Austen is so famous that she adorns every ten pound note in England, but this radical and stylised adaptation from Zoe Cooper allows us to see the story as almost freshly minted, the result is a startlingly fresh and inventive take on the mores of Regency England. Subverting Austen’s own omniscient narrator, we hear the story from the perspective of Cath (Rebecca Banatvala), reenacting her life and recent adventures with Iz (AK Golding) and Hen (Sam...

Northanger Abbey – Orange Tree Theatre

Northanger Abbey? I hardly know ‘er! Zoe Cooper’s transformative adaptation of Austen’s offbeat gothic satire reinvents the much-neglected classic, leaning into its absurd humor, and imbuing it with a novel gravitas. Eschewing the modernizing impulse that so often muddies queer retellings of canonical works, this adaptation remains firmly rooted in the time and place of its origin and weaves a compelling original story out of each of the book’s special strands. This play packs a punch but doesn’t quite hit the spot. Designer Hannah Sibai’s work makes a most pleasing first impression. The cozy in-the-round Orange Tree Theatre is decked out in all hot pink and bedazzled with no less than seven chandeliers. A light aroma of fog pervades the space, hinting at the gothic vibes to come in th...

Outside – Orange Tree Theatre

This is the companion piece to Orange Tree Theatre’s Inside which featured three new short plays from emerging and established writers and Outside follows the same format with three more short plays livestreamed from the Orange Tree Theatre auditorium. The three plays have a distinct link in so much that they look at personal connection during difficult times and how healing can sometimes take place through mutual understanding and the ability to forgive Two Billion Beats by Sonali Bhattacharyya features two schoolgirl sisters one of whom is in detention. It’s a slim story but the dialogue between the two sisters (Asha played by Zainab Hasan & Bettina played by Ashna Rabheru) crackled along at a fair pace. It was unfortunate that the performance suffered from some so...