Louise Kershaw, Author at North West End UK

31Oct

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

KIN – HOME, Manchester

Steph (Kerry Wilson-Parry) and Kay (Roberta Kerr) are sisters in law. They are not close, are very different women and have been relatively estranged for years. Following the funeral of Bob/Robert - Steph’s brother and Kay’s husband, they find themselves in Kay’s middle class, middle England drawing room where both tensions and whisky flow and where family secrets emerge and shocking revelations are made. Presented in a naturalist style, designer Rachel Dennis recreates the tastefully bland home of the smugly comfortable. If you like a dado rail and a decanter clad drinks cabinet you’ll be happy as the proverbial pig. Wilson-Parry is engaging and vibrant as Steph, Bob’s younger sister. Having been born and raised into an aristocratic family, surrounded by nannies and privilege ...

24Oct

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Nowhere – HOME Mcr

Where do you go when the unbearable becomes persistent? This is just one of the initial questions asked by Khalid Abdalla in his profound and beautiful piece of theatre, Nowhere, currently playing at HOME, Manchester. It’s a question that, given the current situation in the Middle East, slaps you in the face and makes you pay attention to what is about to be said. What follows is a personal history of multi-generational activism; friendship, love and loss; personal and political protest; family legacy and our personal history. It is Abdalla’s own history that inspires this journey. The son and grandson of political prisoners, it is his involvement in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the subsequent counter-revolution that shapes his journey. It is the stories of his forefathers and of...

12Sep

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

I Bought a Flip Phone – HOME Mcr

Have you every stopped to wonder what would happen to you if you dumped your smart phone? No more WhatsApp groups, no social media, no googling, no maps. Just a phone for calls and text and nothing else. This is the question Panos Kandunias asks in his one man show which tells the story of Charlie, an almost 27-year-old gay man who has become sick of shuffling and buys himself a flip phone in an attempt to address his 5 hour a day addiction to his now ditched smart device. I Bought a Flip Phone is a passionate exploration of modern digital burnout and the perpetual feeling that life is on hold. It is the very engaging story of a young man searching for deeper and more personal connections with his fellow humans. The staging is sparse. An empty stage with a simple bench and table a...

Margaret Thatcher: Queen of Soho – Lowry Theatre

11Sep

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Margaret Thatcher: Queen of Soho – Lowry Theatre

Currently playing in the Lowry’s Quays Theatre and following four sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe is the ‘smash hit drag extravaganza’ Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho. This big gay odyssey about LGBT rights and the Section 28 amendment to the Local Government Act of 1988 is pretty much a whistle stop tour of the 1980s and the homophobic battle within the Conservative Party to push the legislation through. Our hero in this battle, the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; our villain, the then MP for Birmingham Edgbaston. Jill Knight. As battle commenced, pantomime style and accompanied by the hi energy hits of the time, a punk Peter Tatchell, the ghost of Winston Churchill, the kids from Grange Hill, The A Team and the Weather Girls, the joyous chaos that followed kept the ...

14Jul

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Dear Eliza – The King’s Arms, Salford

Barbara Diesel’s Dear Eliza, currently touring UK fringe festivals, is a powerful and raw piece of theatre that explores the fear of the effects of mental ill health upon friendship and delves into the conversations that most people find too difficult, too upsetting, too challenging to have. This one woman show presents as a live video recording of responses to letters from one friend to another. Except the letters were never sent; never received. The letters are found hidden away following the suicide of the sender. The impact on Eliza, the recipient, is recorded in response; ironically, never to be received by its intended beneficiary and cleverly pulling the audience into that role. The structure of the piece allows a linear narrative which depicts the friendship between the two y...

To Watch A Man Eat – Shakespeare North Playhouse

11Jul

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

To Watch A Man Eat – Shakespeare North Playhouse

One of the things I love about reviewing theatre is the wide variety of productions you get to see, and the many evenings spent engaged with the artistic endeavour of others. Rarely is it boring, usually it’s very engaging and occasionally, if you are lucky, something blows you away and you think ‘I am so glad I got to see that’. Last night, as part of the Heading North Fringe Festival at Shakespeare North Playhouse, the latter was my experience. Full Frontal Theatre’s To Watch A Man Eat is a powerful, dynamic, mesmerizingly brutal piece of theatre which explores desire, control and ambition in a sharply funny and intelligently observed narrative. Presented throughout as direct narration to audience we initially meet Micky (George Usher) who recounts the story of serial monogamist Je...

6Jul

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Natter – The Edge, Chorlton

My first trip out reviewing shows taking part in the Greater Manchester Fringe 2024 found me at The Edge in Chorlton to see Queerdog Theatre’s Natter. Set in 1980’s Salford, we follow the story of friends and confidantes, Helen and Linda, as they regularly meet up to watch TV, drink tea with biscuits, put the world to rights and share each other’s worries and woes. Presented very much in the vein of Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough’s classic Lancashire matriarchs, they sit head scarfed and heavily busted in front of the telly enjoying Countdown, Neighbours, The Bill and Bullseye, to name but a few. They gossip, they judge, they bathe in denial, initially avoiding the elephant in the room, the subject of Linda’s gay son, then march through with the herd as they tackle the intri...

Di, Viv and Rose – Altrincham Garrick Studio

5Jun

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Di, Viv and Rose – Altrincham Garrick Studio

Opening tonight at Altrincham’s Garrick Studio, the final play of their all-female season, Amelia Bullmore’s Di Viv and Rose explores the theme of female friendship; those relationships found in the formative years of a woman’s life when she meets those women who become her sisters in life, the family that she choses and with whom she grows and develops. Di, Viv and Rose meet in their first term at university, thrown together in a hall of residence and then bonding into housemates as they experience their first taste of independence, follow dreams, have crushes, share secrets and desires and study for their degrees. It follows them through many highs and lows and into womanhood, motherhood, careers and explores their loves and their losses. Eleanor Herdson (Di), Georgina Brame ...

10May

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Tender – HOME Mcr

Supported by Arts Council, England and Derby Theatre, Tender emerged as the new production for Phosphoros Theatre, a London based company running theatre projects for refugees aged 16-25. Featuring young performers from Iraq, Eritrea, Chad, Albania and Ethiopia the work began development in 2021 and is playing at Home, Manchester this week. Given the changes to the Illegal Migration Act and the very recent passing of the disturbing Rwanda Bill it is a timely opportunity to highlight the stories of the young refugees that find themselves between a rock and a hard place with no safety net, no right to work and understandable deep concerns about how they build a future for themselves. Phosphoros Theatre have invited young refugees and artists from around the UK to contribute material...

2May

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Sweat – Royal Exchange Theatre

Set in 2000 and 2008, both ends of the Bush Presidency, Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Sweat depicts life in Reading, Pennsylvania - a working class industrial town in the heart of America’s Northeast and Midwest Rust Belt. In this pre-Trump era we meet the locals who spend their down time and hard earned wages in a local bar and we follow their lives as they, the labour force, the working class community, are disenfranchised so significantly that the resulting anger led to reliable ‘blue’ states turning politically red and the Trump era began. When entering the unique theatre in Manchester’s Royal Exchange my initial thoughts always head towards design. What have they done with the space? I am always excited to go into one of the most thrilling theatre spaces in the U...