Paul Clarke, Author at North West End UK

18Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Birdsong – Leeds Playhouse

There’s been plenty of novels about the First World War, but Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong was one of the best, blending a love story and the cost of that conflict’s carnage, so it was a natural for a stage adaptation. It’s now over a decade since Rachel Wagstaff’s first adaptation of Birdsong, and all the Tommies who fought in the so called war to end all wars are now dead. Ironically the world still seems intent on blowing itself up, so Wagstaff’s reworked revival with a stark new set by Richard Kent was a timely reminder that war is a terrible business that solves nothing. This three act - and rare two interval - version opened with callow Englishman Stephen Wraysford visiting France to view a struggling factory whereupon he fell helplessly in love with the owner’s wife Isabelle. De...

Lindsay Rodden talks about her new play Jennie Lee for Mikron Theatre

9Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Lindsay Rodden talks about her new play Jennie Lee for Mikron Theatre

Thousands of people have changed their lives through the Open University thanks to the vision of radical Labour MP Jennie Lee. Her life story is now Huddersfield based Mikron Theatre’s latest production, written by Lindsay Rodden, with original songs and integrated audio description charting the extraordinary life of a pioneering Scottish politician. She was also the first Minister for the Arts, but many people will never have heard of her work that enabled so many to better themselves through the Open University, which only came into being through her sheer doggedness. Lee was also married to NHS founder Nye Bevan, but her achievements make so her so much more than a footnote in someone else’s past. In the classic Mikron tradition four actors/musicians will tour Jennie Lee...

16Aug

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Aladdin – Bradford Alhambra

This classic tale of a poor Arabian boy given three wishes by a Genie in a bottle so he could woo a princess was perfect for an Oscar winning Disney animation, and let’s be honest an obvious choice for a stage production. It’s not surprising this high energy show had been seen by 15 million people worldwide as it cunningly melded 1950s musical tropes with a knowing and often funny book by Chad Beguelin, where the Princess was a feminist, and the old order came under threat. But if you didn’t want any subtle subtexts, then you could just wallow in a warm heated show full of extravagant sets, and some big numbers. The tone was set from One Jump Ahead as Kerry Spark’s streetwise Aladdin jumped around a street market as a big ensemble danced around him. After a slightly shaky start...

16Jul

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Paranormal Activity – Leeds Playhouse

All of us have a personal deep, dark fear – mine is enclosed spaces – we’d run a million miles from, but it says something about human nature that most of us volunteer to be scared half to death watching horror movies. When the Courtyard theatre went totally dark there was a deep sense of both excitement and unease as we waited for this theatrical adaptation of the classic horror movie Paranormal Activity. There are two types of horror – splatter or psychological – and life long fan of the macabre Levi Holloway’s adaptation was most definitely on the creepy side, messing with our minds rather than splashing us with blood. Fans of the wildly successful Paranormal Activity franchise will enjoy this, but there’s plenty for people who never saw them at the flicks to enjoy as Holloway had...

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Bradford Alhambra

3Jul

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Bradford Alhambra

When I was at school in the less enlightened 1970s the mere hint of being different would have earned you a beating, so turning up to an end of year disco in a dress would have been inviting real trouble. So when in our more liberal times Sheffield teenager Jamie New announces he wants to wear a dress to his prom you’d think no-one would care. Sadly, as in most musicals, the road to true self expression is never an easy one as he battles to overcome prejudice and his own insecurities to achieve his dream. Openly gay Jamie doesn’t want to be a forklift driver that his career teacher thinks is his destiny, instead he wants to be a drag queen like the real life character who Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom MaCrae based their lively musical on. It helps that Jamie has the support of his sing...

Frankie Goes To Bollywood – Bradford Alhambra

19Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Frankie Goes To Bollywood – Bradford Alhambra

One of the joys of theatre is it can transport to worlds that you have no experience of in real life, and Frankie Goes To Bollywood takes us into heart of a flamboyant billion dollar movie industry that puts millions of bums on seats in India and entertains diaspora South-Asians around the world including the UK. Every year Bollywood filmmakers based in Mumbai churn out hundreds of films taking people away from their daily grind to a glitzy world where they can forget their troubles for a few hours. That was the inspiration for the book by RIFCO Theatre Company’s Artistic director Pravesh Kumar - who has worked in Bollywood - that he says is an ode to those movies, but also a call to action for an industry still rife with sexism. Like so many Bollywood movies it is a fantasy where na...

Why I Stuck A Flare Up My Arse For England – The Lowry

9Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

North West

Why I Stuck A Flare Up My Arse For England – The Lowry

There is something faintly absurd about spending loads of money to watch 22 players kick a football round a pitch, and I speak from experience going all the way to Istanbul to watch my team do exactly that. So, I know what footballing passion is all about, but like all fans I was bemused by the bizarre photo of an England fan who stuck a lighted red flare up his backside before the last Euros final at Wembley. Alex Hill was also inspired by the lengths some thick fans will go to try and give the national team a boost, so he created his own totally fictional character Bum-flare Man to look at what happens when football becomes the only thing you have in your life In reality Bum-flare is actually called Billy, and like so many of the tiresome morons who follow England home and away he ...

8Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

My Fair Lady – Leeds Playhouse

For many My Fair Lady is the ultimate big screen version of a musical, but famously the vocals of one of the leading actors was overdubbed and the other talked his way through the whole thing. This Leeds Playhouse co-production with Opera North offers a return to the original hit musical that featured a young Julie Andrews, and here both leads are great singers who do full justice to Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s classic score packed with showstoppers. My Fair Lady is based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion that took its inspiration from a Greek myth where a sculptor fell in love with one of his creations. Lerner’s book turns it into a fable where an arrogant phonetician Henry Higgins takes on a bet he can turn any woman into a lady, so he plucks Cockney flower seller Eliza ...

Northern Ballet: Beauty & The Beast – Leeds Grand Theatre

5Jun

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Yorkshire & Humber

Northern Ballet: Beauty & The Beast – Leeds Grand Theatre

There have been countless versions of Beauty & The Beast over the years in film and the theatre, but David Nixon’s version for Northern Ballet is a million miles away from the saccharine Disney version delving deep into the darker elements of this love story that has its origins in Ancient Greece. Northern Ballet’s former artistic director looks to Cocteau’s classic 1946 movie for his inspiration, which offers the dancers a much more challenging understanding of how if we fail to look beyond exteriors we will miss things like love, compassion and the inner demons that make us all human. Although this is a far more subtle reading of this fable it retains all the key elements as a vain prince who is cursed by his narcissism to become a beast until he can find true love when someone...

Elizabeth Newman talks about Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s 2024 Summer season

28May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Elizabeth Newman talks about Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s 2024 Summer season

Under Artistic Director Elizabeth Newman’s astute leadership Pitlochry Festival Theatre has not only undergone a massive refurbishment but delivered a range of challenging and popular pieces of work for their loyal Perthshire audience. This year’s summer season in their Main Auditorium includes a revival of the 80s classic Footloose, and their version of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. There’s also a world première of Frances Poet’s new stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and the welcome return of the theatre’s award-winning production of Shirley Valentine that really pulled in the crowds last time they staged it. In The Studio space there are premières of Harry Mould’s new play The Brenda Line, and a production of Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed. Outside i...