Michelle Knight, Author at North West End UK

23Aug

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

Scotland

Larry Dean: Dodger – Assembly Hall

Dean is a comedian writer and actor and is fast becoming a familiar face on the TV circuit. With appearances at Live at The Apollo hosting and performing, Mock the Week, House of Games plus a stand-up slot on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show. He is no stranger to an audience welcoming everyone in by shaking their hands as they enter the venue. Dean is in full swing delivering his show Dodger at The Monkey Barrel and the Assembly main hall. Larry Dean is up close and personal with his storytelling, being very candid about his diagnosis of Autism and his nans dementia struggles; plus the new ‘Brummie boyfriend’ of which he has the audience laughing out loud at how he explains the accent “feels slow and sleepy” a drawl as he wilts down to the ground. He uses his facial expressions ...

The Wedding Singer – The Bridewell Theatre

25Jul

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

The Wedding Singer – The Bridewell Theatre

The Wedding Singer is from the book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy revived for the musical stage by Stuart James. Its 1985 in New Jersey, it is retro and audiences will be familiar with the film version. It features the story of Robbie Joe McWilliam a wedding singer, and with his band he forms part of the ‘experience’ many couples look forward to, the happiest day of their life, their wedding. However, his own relationship is not that straight forward, his true love Linda Heather Daniel leaves him jilted at the altar. Robbie meets Julia Abbie Minnock a waitress who consoles him and supports him to get through his rejection and encourages him to overcome his struggles with love. Julia on the other hand is set to be married to Glen, Toby Chapman a hard talking Wall Street sales shark wh...

24Jul

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

FANGIRLS – Lyric Theatre Hammersmith

Welcome to the world of Boy Band mania, FANGIRLS is set within a time when girls dream about love romance and yes their pop idols. “Its journey started in 2015 when Zayn Malik leaves One Direction” and Yve Blake is inspired to capture this moment in a book describing the feelings of young girls in a crazy tumultuous time in their lives, as young teenagers. Now it is a musical premiering in London and has hit the scene with a bang. This vibrant cast bring to life the tunes, the funny and the serious side to ‘growing up’ as young teens, idolising ‘pop icons’ peer relationships and the need to feel love, being pivotal milestones. In between the mayhem and madness is a message that ‘young people’s feelings’ should not be underestimated. This production...

13Jun

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Babies: The Musical – The Other Palace

After a rise in teenage pregnancies a school sex education department felt compelled to act and educate their year 11 students by rolling out a 5-day project in which the students were given their own baby to ‘parent’. Let the mayhem begin. Babies is a new (born) rock fuelled musical featuring nine, year 11 classmates who whilst living through their own personal life challenges, of being teenagers and self-discovery dealing with interrelations not only with their families lives but with each other had the task of being responsible for someone else, a baby! The story follows each character and their personal journey and tribulations of comparisons, judgements and relationships. It is funny, energetic and uplifting peppered with real serious moments of challenges they face day to day. Rig...

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – New Wimbledon Theatre

22May

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – New Wimbledon Theatre

The show opened in a blast of action, the headlights of racing cars zooming along, celebrating winners and fearing the losers, moving swiftly to a scene of an old disused car abandoned in Coggins yard. The children, Jemima played by Gracie Cochrane and Jeremy, Roshan Thomson were true to the likeness of the original children in Flemings’ book and it was not long before Truly Scrumptious played by Ellie Nunn and Caractacus Potts Adam Garcia appeared, to the delight of the audience. The puppeteers controlled the dogs seamlessly and interacted well with the actors providing an air of artistic flare, especially during the scenes of mayhem in Lord Scrumptious sweet factory. Grandpa Potts played by Liam Fox together with Ellie and Adam’s performances were true to the original screenplay cast whi...

6Apr

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Love Steps – Omnibus Theatre

The writer, poet and producer Anastasia Osei-Kuffour makes her playwriting debut in Love Steps: The story of Anna a young, gifted and Black girl navigating a world in turmoil searching for the one thing missing in her life, love. The set is simplistic with only shadow effects of their silhouettes, flashed up words to reflect the mood, offering no hiding place for this two person play. Anna played out by Sharon Rose set the perfect scene of her successful professional life with prose poetry and dance. She had everything a Black girl would want except in this life, devoid of a man’s love and affection, marriage and children. She would ponder, analyse control and create a checklist of the perfect man. When will happen, and how, who will it be are ...

2Mar

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Scarlett Sunday – Omnibus Theatre

Obsession and dark secrets of the infamous artist Ray Blackwood and what lay behind the enigma of a painting named Scarlett Sunday. Following the death of Blackwood, it was now left to his daughter Ava played by Camilla Aiko an introverted girl still living in the family home with her demons. This play was simplistic in its form and told the story of Yasmin, played by Sorcha Kennedy an excitable rather intense arts author curious to find out more about Blackwood, the man who inspired her career in the arts, a man she had feelings for and was hungry in pursuit to get the exclusive scoop on his unseen masterpiece Scarlet Sunday. The set is staged first in a coffee shop for their first meeting which sees both characters sparring with each other over childhood memories, the arts and a plan ...

24Feb

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Othello – Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

Director Ola Ince rendition of Shakespeare’s dark tragedy The authentic Shakespearean Othello ‘Moorish’ features as a top ranking detective police officer in the London metropolitan force, which offers up the notion that this is not your ordinary version of Othello. The opening scene introduces the characters Othello Ken Nwosu’s and Poppy Gilbert as his wife, Desdemona entwined in love a marriage vows. Shakespearean enthusiasts will recognise the familiar characters of the devious hateful Iago portrayed by Ralph Davis and Cassio played by Oli Higginson. References to police dialogue and officers switching from uniformed police, in body armour merges at times quite clumsily with the Shakespearean text, which at times feels wrong but as the sequence of events un...

Candace Bushnell True Tales of Sex Success and Sex and The City – London Palladium

9Feb

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Candace Bushnell True Tales of Sex Success and Sex and The City – London Palladium

Candace Bushnell now 65yrs old, the creator, entrepreneurial business woman and writer of the infamous Sex in the City books has come to the London Palladium to tell all, the real truth! She sets the scene in pink, from the apartment her retreat to her garnitures ‘shoes’ and the mini bar where she regularly sips on ‘cosmos’ cosmopolitan cocktails creating a true feel of Sex and the City life. Familiar names Mr Big, Carrie, Sam, Miranda, Charlotte all feature as she exposes the real truth behind the storylines with an audience participation game called ‘Reel or not Reel’. Candace explains why she chose the pseudonym Carrie Bradshaw, why she wrote her books about her single friends and their lives in New York; and what was happening at the time when the HBO series took off on the telev...

The Most Precious of Goods – Marylebone Theatre

24Jan

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

The Most Precious of Goods – Marylebone Theatre

The staging is set in a leaf filled forest woodland, the feeling is sombre the audience full of anticipation of what this story has to unfold about the atrocities, war crimes on humanity, the deliberate genocide during World War 2, the German invasion. The story initially focusses on a young Jewish family, who are new parents of newborn twins, full of zest for life and feeling blessed with their two children, a boy a girl. It was spring, 1942 their life full of opportunity until, they were freshly extricated from their home in France and put on a train to somewhere! Unknowing of what was to come and what they would endure the family with others, cramped into small spaces, no food or water would share their anguish and realisations during this gruelling journey, as to their destinatio...