Mark Davoren, Author at North West End UK

Simon Boccanegra – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

13May

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Simon Boccanegra – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Director PJ Harris’ dramatic concert staging of Verdi’s 1881 version of Simon Boccanegra for Opera North is an absolute joy, a true sensory delight for the ear and eye. A Prologue establishes that Boccanegra (Roland Wood), a plebeian, is about to become the first elected Doge of Genoa. But he loves – and has secretly had a child with – Maria, the daughter of his political rival and sworn enemy, Jacopo Fiesco (Vazgen Gazaryan), a patrician. When Maria dies, the baby disappears. Fast forward 25 years and Fiasco is in hiding under the alias Andrea Grimaldi and plotting his revenge against Boccanegra who is still in power. He has become guardian to an orphan girl named Amelia (Sara Cortolezzis) who it later transpires is his missing granddaughter. She wants to marry Gabriele Adorno (Andr...

Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci – St George’s Hall, Liverpool

13May

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci – St George’s Hall, Liverpool

North Wales Opera Studio’s welcome return to Liverpool to perform a one-act verismo pairing became a little disjointed as director Anne Williams-King was unable to take full advantage of the venue’s performance space. Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci or, more familiarly, Cav and Pag is an archetypal one-act opera pairing, and it’s hard to imagine two more closely matched pieces even though it was not the result of any concerted strategy on the part of the two composers, Mascagni and Leoncavallo. Composed just two years apart, these two dramas of jealousy, passion, and murder, show obvious similarities as early exponents of Italian Opera’s Verismo movement towards greater theatrical reality involving supposedly realistic settings and the dramas of ordinary people as an...

Ní Liomsa an Teach Álainn Seo (This Is Not My Beautiful House) – Shakespeare North Playhouse

10May

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Ní Liomsa an Teach Álainn Seo (This Is Not My Beautiful House) – Shakespeare North Playhouse

Described as a story of myth, legend, and identity, whilst Anna Ní Dhúill's play is certainly ambitious in exploring what it means to be non-binary, it ultimately comes up short. Cult Collective’s show revolves around an unnamed artist (Seoirsín Bashford) as they wait in their studio for their partner to come home so that they can reveal their secret and finally come out as non-binary. As they wait, they begin to delve into their recent obsession with an old Irish legend about a bull that caused an all-island war many centuries before. When the bull comes alive, a battle of monologues begins, as they fiercely debate whether it is better to live as your true self and potentially be alone for it, or to exist only in other people’s expectations and remain a legend. Whilst the pre...

Gideon: A Play with Music – Hallé at St Michael’s

12Apr

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Gideon: A Play with Music – Hallé at St Michael’s

This important play, developed by Modalways and written by Daniel Mawson, hits all the right notes under the diligent direction of Sue Dunderdale as we follow the life of a magnetic musician and his family as they face an impossible choice. World War I ends in November 1918 and the world is on the brink of new opportunities. A year later, Gideon Klein (Max Gallagher) is born into a musical Jewish family in Moravia, and displaying a musical talent from an early age, his sister, Lisa (Rosie Hilal), a fantastic pianist in her own right, encourages her parents to let him move to Prague with her when he is twelve. They are eventually joined by their mother, Ilona (Rebecca Scroggs), in spite of her guilt at leaving her sick husband behind. When Gideon’s opportunities are dashed by the rise...

11Apr

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Ladies’ Day – Thingwall Community Hall

Charlotte Holguin delights in her directorial debut with this revival of Amanda Whittington’s highly entertaining and humorous play which tells the story of four fish filleters from Hessle whose lives may be about to change for ever as work becomes play to provide the perfect backdrop for a tale of fractured lives, thwarted ambitions, secrets, hidden heartache, and enduring friendships We meet our ladies suitably bedecked on the fish-packing line: Pearl (Angela McComb) is about to leave – not retiring mind - to spend more time with her husband; Jan (Lorna Pout) is a single mother whose only child is about to leave for University; Shelley (Laura Powell) is a reality TV wannabee; and Linda (Jasmine Oates), the youngest, is cowed from a domineering mother. Cornered into a send-off, and wit...

3Apr

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

REVIEWS

Turandot – Royal Opera House

In spite of the date, it was sadly no joke that due to technical issues with the transmission, we lost the majority of the opening act and just when everything was set for the final act to unfold, further issues saw us stutter through the opening of Nessun Dorma before a freeze and then a jump to the next scene. All of this combined with the fact that the wrong programme information was sent out gives great cause for concern when opera is striving to reinforce its audience and its future with a selected live performance transmitted globally – on this occasion to over one thousand cinemas in twenty-two countries. None of this is the fault of the creatives and cast and having seen the 2023 revival, that serves as a useful point of reference for me to review this 2025 revival in spite of t...

21Mar

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Raven – Liverpool Playhouse Studio

The raven is often associated with loss and ill-omen and there’s plenty of that in Abigail McKenzie’s debut play as, inspired by her own lived experiences with addiction, homelessness, children’s services, and domestic abuse, the piece delves into themes of addiction, isolation, and the far-reaching consequences on maternal relationships. Staged on a raised platform with the audience on three sides, Raven presents the challenges of a mother, Elis (McKenzie), trying to reconnect with her young daughter who has been taken into care, with an unravelling back story hinting as to how she has got to this position. The play touches upon a range of sensitive and challenging issues, which most audience members will not have direct experience of, so as an adject, I must note that I have worked...

Klezmer: Old and New – Manchester Jewish Museum

13Mar

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Klezmer: Old and New – Manchester Jewish Museum

Out with the old and in with the new? Well, sometimes it’s actually better to bring together the best of them which in this case resulted in a wonderful evening of klezmer, performed by Susi Evans and Szilvia Csaranko – a klezmer clarinet and accordion duo – with support from the Michael Kahan Kapelye, in the beautiful surround of this former Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. Evans and Csaranko perform tunes from old manuscripts, collected in Jewish villages in Ukraine between 1912-1914 and only recently rediscovered in Kyiv. With no defined chords, these are melodies played by generations of klezmer musicians at Jewish weddings and other celebrations, contemporaneous with the likes of Beethoven and undoubtedly influencing the operatic opus of Offenbach and Verdi, and these informed the...

9Mar

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

A Work in Progress – Unity Theatre

Following a successful scratch night performance, Ladderman Collective literally take their work in progress to its next developmental level as part of the Up Next Festival at Unity Theatre. Coming in at about an hour, director Mason Guthrie navigates us through five acts that follow the trials and tribulations of problematic MP Phillip Braxton (Aidan Rivers) and his personal assistant, Alison (Natasha Jobst) as he looks to resurrect his political career following an earlier embarrassing altercation on a television programme. There were consequences too for the television host, Robert Jones (Tom Browning), who can now only work on a regional radio programme. With an impending general election, the opportunity to get his revenge on his political nemesis looms large and he begins plott...

7Mar

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Wild Swimming – Hope Street Theatre

Directors Dan Meigh and Connor Wray delightfully plunge us into the lives of a young couple whose relationship is firmly in the ‘can’t live with you, can’t live without you’ stage, with their production of Marek Horn’s somewhat timeless two-hander that plays fast and loose with time. Whilst men are from Mars and women are from Venus, Nell (Amy Thompson-Hope) and Oscar (Harry Clark) opt to meet on a beach in 1595 – or is it 1610 – and to which they will return like the tide over the next four hundred years to debate feminism, privilege, literature, sex, and, of course, swimming. Watery metaphors abound for these two very diverse characters; she is witty and acerbic with a sharp tongue whilst he dreams of being a poet and adventurer from the safety of his beach towel, yet the opening k...