Lou Steggals, Author at North West End UK

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Epstein Theatre

15Jun

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Epstein Theatre

There’s a bittersweet note to tonight’s performance, in the beautiful surroundings of the Epstein, knowing that the theatre will shortly be shuttering its doors permanently having failed to secure vital funding. Indeed, Bentley Operatic Society has performed here for around 100 years and, like our titular character, are therefore about to find themselves in temporary exile whilst they find a new home. Based on tonight’s performance of Joseph though, any theatre will be lucky to have them. The society have recently moved away from their previous offerings of Gilbert & Sullivan and other operettas to include mainstream musical theatre shows, and in Joseph they have found a one that plays perfectly to their strengths. Despite its exotic ancient Egyptian setting, Joseph – based on th...

Rubbish Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare North Playhouse

11Jun

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Rubbish Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare North Playhouse

“The course of true love never did run smooth” goes the line and never has a stronger argument been made than tonight’s raucous take on one of the Bard’s most popular comedies. And never before have we been able to settle that age old debate – do camels live in the woods? In the sunny surroundings of the Sir Ken Dodd Performance Garden, and armed with a series of violently coloured wigs, water-pistols and wings that are most definitely not bedsheets, the Rubbish Shakespeare Theatre Company has brought its latest family-friendly production to the stage, channeling the sensibilities of pantomime, as our players mercilessly tease the audience throughout, whilst sprinting through the salient points of the well-loved tale. Just in case you weren’t paying attention during your English Lit ...

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction – Shakespeare North Playhouse

18May

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction – Shakespeare North Playhouse

For a play where its most significant feature is being ‘off the grid’, using self-generated power and a touch of candlelight, the Playhouse, styled as a mini-Globe with slightly better seating, seems like the perfect setting for it. Tonight’s show, written by Miranda Rose Hall, and directed by Nathan Powell is an incredibly clever and fresh concept. The play tours, but not the people - everyone involved is from the local area. The strip lighting and sound that encompasses the stage is produced from the efforts of four very hardy onstage cyclists, with a digital display that shows the wattage they are generating. It’s a highly creative and fascinating experiment in sustainable theatre. The conceit is that one of the play’s actors has suffered a family emergency – her mother is dyin...

5May

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Dirty Corset – Shakespeare North Playhouse

They say history has a way of repeating itself. Theatres may have been temporarily closed by covid in our lifetimes but, in 1642, it was the Puritan sensibilities that prompted a 20year ban on public acting. And so tonight, we are immersed into the end of that period, in the company of Bang Tidy Theatre, whose three performers are embracing the new style of Restoration theatre, a much more vulgar and libertine style than audiences were used to. Directed by Helen Tennison, it’s a chaotic, bawdy affair, melding 21st century and Restoration language (reminding all that spectacular swearing isn’t a modern invention). We meet Neil Hasbeen (Laurie Coldwell), Mary Moralless (Chloe Darke) and Isabinda McLovealot (Susannah Scott) seemingly happy to be back on stage with their play “A Lord Nam...

6Apr

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Shrek The Musical – Blackpool Grand

On a wet and windy night in Blackpool the quest for a fairytale happy ending has taken on extra meaning. Forced to postpone from 2020 (a cruel two weeks before opening night), Blackpool Operatic Players have clearly put everything into finally bringing Shrek The Musical to the stage. And, with an outstanding professional set and wardrobe, tonight is a vibrant, visual delight, faithfully translating the hit animation into live action success. Under the assured direction of Neil Townsend, cast and audience alike have a hugely enjoyable show loaded with slapstick, sarcasm and fart jokes to thrill kids and parents alike. And, at the heart of it, a riotous send-up of the classic ‘damsel in distress’ fairytale narrative. For those who have spent any of the past 22 years living under ...

30Mar

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

West Side Story – Hyde Festival Theatre

It’s always a brave company that takes on a production of West Side Story. The musical that re-imagined Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for the 20th Century, has been subject to two Oscar-winning film adaptations and a myriad of critically acclaimed revivals on Broadway and the West End. Then there’s Leonard Bernstein’s earworm-inducing score, the iconic choreography learned and copied by theatre brats of every stage school known to man, and the need to find triple-threat actors to successfully land the show’s biggest moments. It’s a musical that sets certain expectations before there’s so much as a click of fingers. Those holding tickets to Hyde Musical Society’s sold-out production can breathe a big sigh of relief. The society, under director Daniel Oliver-Grant, have once again don...

25Mar

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Bricks – 53Two

“May artists bare their souls in here” intones poet Tony Walsh, as he launches tonight’s collection of short plays with the first reading of his poem, “These Bricks, they speak…”. Under the brick railway arch that 53Two calls home, we are given six vignettes of the human condition, each 15minute snapshot ploughing headlong into hard-hitting themes of childhood abandonment, illicit encounters, sexual abuse, eating disorders and vengeance. It’s a tough ask for any writer, director or actor to deliver the realism, depth and nuance one might look for in tackling such heavy-duty subjects within the timeframe and for the most part, tonight is more a solid display of modern melodrama, inviting the audience to overlook the fact that we can only lightly skim the qualities of the characters be...

Around the World in 80 Days – Blackpool Grand

2Mar

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Around the World in 80 Days – Blackpool Grand

Shakespeare once famously compared the world to a theatre stage in As You Like It – tonight, theatre company Tilted Wig have turned things on their heads to make the stage a world. This energetic take on Jules Verne beloved tale of Phileas Fogg, the London gentleman who wagers his fortune and reputation on a bet that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80days or less, has been adapted and directed by Juliet Forster. Forster has added a new depth to the journey by weaving it around the real-life memoirs of Nelly Bly, a pioneering American journalist who took on Fogg’s fictional journey and bested his time by a week. And she cleverly takes time to address the more uncomfortable moments of oppressive patriarchy and colonialism within Verne’s novel, without glossing over or censoring them...

<strong>Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort of) – The Lowry</strong>

20Jan

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

**Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort of) – The Lowry**

Sending up classical literature is nothing new but there’s still nothing quite like the sight of one of its most iconic characters busting out an accordion whilst her mother has an asthma attack on the chaise longue. Welcome to the most irreverent interpretation of Austen you’re ever likely to witness. A madcap mix of petticoats and profanity that prompts everything from schoolgirl sniggers to flat out belly laughs, like a foul-mouthed French and Saunders spoof on steroids. Here, Austen’s familiar tale of the Bennett brood, with their overbearing mother desperate to marry them off lest they lose their fortune and home to a most disagreeable male relative, is told through the view of the servants of the Bennett home of Longbourne. They highlight with hilarious effect, not onl...

<strong>Goldilocks and the Three Bears – Epstein Theatre</strong>

14Dec

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Goldilocks and the Three Bears – Epstein Theatre

I think I’m in love with a pantomime villain. We’ll come to the snake-hipped Von Vippemall in a moment. Firstly, an acknowledgement that in an absolute ocean of Pantos, it can be very difficult to stand out from the crowd. But Regal Entertainment’s offering, directed by Chantelle Nolan, has not so much raised the bar as smashed it into orbit with the perfect blend of music, slapstick and a few fantastic circus acts to literally put a new spin on a well-known fairytale. The familiar plot of Goldilocks gets dispensed with in about two minutes flat so that we can focus on a far more interesting tale – Goldilocks (played by the charmingly bubbly Olivia Sloyan) is now a circus entrepreneur with her mother, Dame Gertie (Britain’s Got Talent favourite, Mama G, from Dame Nation) with the thr...