Paul Clarke, Author at North West End UK

16Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Henry V – Leeds Playhouse

This is not a production for the purists as the traditional opening chorus is ditched in favour of a dying Henry IV handing over the crown to Prince Hal. It is typically challenging rethinking of the traditional text by dramaturg Cordelia Lynn who offers a smartly edited dark version that is a million miles away from the jingoish of Olivier’s technicolour movie version. That propaganda piece focused on Henry as a selfless warrior for a nation and empire in its greatest peril, but Lynn’s king is a conflicted man who reluctantly embraces the relentless brutality displayed by monarchs of that period, and familiar to Shakespeare’s audiences who had often fought in bloody campaigns. This is co-production with Headlong whose artistic director Holly Race Roughan places the uniformly excelle...

10Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Blow Down – Leeds Playhouse

It's certainly a first time experience watching a play billed as being about the demolition of massive cooling towers at a Yorkshire Power Station. Garry Lyons, who lived near the massive cooling towers at Ferrybridge Power Station that dominated the landscape around the M62 for 50 years, recorded over 25 hours of interviews with people who worked there - or made a life in their giant shadows. The result is a moving, and often very funny, verbatim play musing on what really happens when a community loses its industrial heartbeat. Act one focuses on the power station's heyday as Matthew Booth's almost stereotypical bluff Yorkshireman recalls the dangers and vast financial rewards of working in a close knit team at the plant. It is a dry and often poignant testimony of what happe...

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes to Leeds Playhouse

10Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes to Leeds Playhouse

It’s not often you see mature actors leading a play, and what makes The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel different is that the younger cast members are in supporting roles as a group of British retirees find themselves trying to make new lives in India. The two smash movies featured the cream of British acting Oscar winners having great fun as they help a mother and son save their rundown hotel and finding themselves along the way. The stage production is based on the book that inspired the movies, and also features some acting royalty in Paul Nicholas, Rula Lenska and Hayley Mills as the tour which has played to packed houses makes its way to Leeds Playhouse. Rekha John-Cheriyan is one of the younger cast members playing the feisty Mrs Kapoor who will do anything to save the hotel, and sh...

Garry Lyons talks about the unlikely inspiration for his new play, Blow Down, that comes to Leeds Playhouse

31Jan

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Garry Lyons talks about the unlikely inspiration for his new play, Blow Down, that comes to Leeds Playhouse

Giant concrete cooling towers just outside Leeds might seem an unlikely source for a play, but local playwright Garry Lyons decided he needed to tell the stories of those who lived and worked in their massive shadows. When the Ferrybridge Power Station towers were blown up after they were decommissioned thousands made the trip to see them come down. Lyons is an award-winning writer who has used extensive interviews with workers and locals to create a show about change, but also full of laughs examining what these concrete landmarks that could be seen for miles meant for his community. In what ways were the towers architecturally significant? The eight cooling towers were huge, nearly 400 feet high, with two 650ft chimney stacks alongside. When you came across them at night, ...

<strong>imitating the dog take on the Bard with a high-tech version of Macbeth</strong>

24Jan

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

imitating the dog take on the Bard with a high-tech version of Macbeth

imitating the dog built their reputation reinventing some of our biggest cultural moments, so it seemed inevitable that they would eventually turn their attention to Shakespeare. And not just any Shakespeare as they are taking on Macbeth, and this tragic tale of the terrible cost of the lust for power seems perfect for their unique blend of theatrical daring and high-tech trickery. Our Yorkshire Editor Paul Clarke caught with their Co-Artistic Director Andrew Quick during rehearsals to find out more about how they are reimagining a classic work. Any self-respecting theatre fan will have seen Macbeth at least once so why should they come along to your version? Hopefully they’ll have never seen anything like it before. Our version only has five actors in it, so we ha...

<strong>Cast announced for Of Mice and Men at Leeds Playhouse</strong>

24Jan

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Cast announced for Of Mice and Men at Leeds Playhouse

Tom McCall and William Young take on the roles of friends George and Lennie battling to survive in tough times in a new stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic novel Of Mice and Men at Leeds Playhouse. This version of the classic tale of doomed friendship is directed by Iqbal Khan, who was in charge of the impressive multi-genre Opening Ceremony for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, and the show is a co-production between the Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and Fiery Angel. “I'm ecstatic to be playing Lennie again,” says William Young. “I played him in Chapter, Cardiff in 2017 with August 012 Theatre Company. He reminds me of Roald Dahl's BFG. “I was born with a rare brain condition called Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum, which means I find it easy to ...

<strong>Blow Down tells the story of two iconic Yorkshire landmarks</strong>

10Jan

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Blow Down tells the story of two iconic Yorkshire landmarks

The demolition of the iconic cooling towers at Ferrybridge Power Station that impacted on the lives of the people who lived and worked beneath them is probably not an obvious choice for a play. When the towers were explosively demolished thousands turned up to watch them come down and Blow Down about their history is scripted by award-winning playwright Garry Lyons who lived near them based on stories collected from the local community in Ferrybridge and Knottingley. He’s written a funny, gritty and thought-provoking show with music about how losing a major landmark and employer impacts on a typical post-industrial Yorkshire town. From the towers’ raucous seventies heyday through recession and decline in the 2000s, Blow Down tells the story of the area through the experiences of peop...

<strong>The Nutcracker – Leeds Grand Theatre</strong>

21Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Nutcracker – Leeds Grand Theatre

Northern Ballet’s festive spectacular is their annual thank you to the city which they call home and has supported them to become a world class company. It’s also had the feel of an onstage office Xmas do where the dancers, creatives, musicians and technical teams really let rip in a production that is always epic in scale, and often gloriously over the top. The Nutcracker with its surreal, dreamy narrative, and Tchaikovsky’s familiar score, is the perfect vehicle as naïve young rich girl Clara is given an introduction into another world by a mysterious magician Drosselmeyer, who gives her a toy nutcracker that in classic fairy tale fashion turns into a handsome prince. Charles Cusick Smith’s massive sets from an opulent country house to a wonderfully realised winter fantasy...

<strong>Dick Whittington: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto – Leeds City Varieties</strong>

2Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Dick Whittington: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto – Leeds City Varieties

The festive period for theatre critics is an odd one as this week started with Gallic misery fest Les Misérables and finished with this classic example of what is a quintessentially British art form that has even survived into the digital age. Pantos work (oh yes, they do) because they are plain daft, and everyone in the family can enjoy them. Whole families are out tonight as pantos don’t get any sillier than the Rock ‘N’ Roll brand, which had been offering music and fun in this historic venue for over a decade. There is something undeniably surreal and utterly joyous watching a six-foot Brummer rat belting out Pretty Vacant for reasons that weren’t entirely clear. And let’s be honest Dick Whittington is a gift that keeps giving (oh yes, it is) for any decent panto writer. Pet...

<strong>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Musical – Leeds Playhouse</strong>

1Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Musical – Leeds Playhouse

Every festive season Leeds Playhouse tick off the work of a brilliant children’s writer and this time it’s the undisputed master of devilish delights Roald Dahl. It’s a doubly bold move taking on his most beloved book that had already spawned West End and Broadway versions of this production, two film versions, and Gene Wilder’s cinematic take on mysterious sweet factory owner Willy Wonka is rightly seen as the definitive version. Wonka launches a worldwide competition for five kids to visit his factory if they can find a golden ticket in one of his chocolate bars, and among the loathsome children who win is Charlie Bucket. He’s a decent kid full of ideas living in grinding poverty with his single mum, and four grandparents who share a bed in the attic. Once inside the factory ...