Paul Clarke, Author at North West End UK

Corrie legend Paula Lane takes a trip down Quality Street at Leeds Playhouse

11Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Corrie legend Paula Lane takes a trip down Quality Street at Leeds Playhouse

Coronation Street Paula Lane made her name playing tough nut with a soft centre Kylie Platt and takes the lead role of Phoebe Throssel as bittersweet musical Quality Street comes to Leeds Playhouse. The marvellously moreish show was created with a team of retired workers from the Halifax factory where Quality Street™ chocolates have been proudly made since 1936 as they wrap the action in their witty and outrageous observations. The story centres on the romantic entanglements of Phoebe Throssel who runs a school for unruly children on Quality Street, and ten years after a tearful goodbye an old flame returns from fighting Napoleon. But the look of disappointment on Captain Valentine’s face when he greets an older, less glamorous Phoebe, spurs our determined heroine into action....

Alan Bennett joins 1001 Stories at Leeds Playhouse

7Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Alan Bennett joins 1001 Stories at Leeds Playhouse

Local legend Alan Bennett makes a rare public appearance at Leeds Playhouse to join 1001 Stories that gives a voice to the pioneering generations who have lived life to the full and are still here to share their incredible stories. As part of this innovative two-week takeover from 24th April to May 4th, the multi award winning actor, author, playwright and screenwriter, best known for The Madness of King George, The History Boys and The Lady in the Van, will return to his home city just days before his 89th birthday on May 7th. 1001 Voices was originated by Leeds-based The Performance Ensemble, and developed with Leeds Playhouse, Leeds Older People’s Forum, Leeds Museums and Galleries and Leeds 2023 to give a voice to share incredible stories of love and family, of the everyday and t...

24Mar

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Lord of the Flies – Leeds Playhouse

If ever a classic 20th century novel was ripe for a reinvention, then it is Lord of the Flies and Amy Leach’s powerful reimagining set in the now offers new depth to a text beloved by generations of schoolchildren. William Goldman set loose a bunch of white posh school kids who crash on a desert island fleeing a conflict, but free of adult supervision they soon descend into a collective feral madness. We live in a different world seventy years on, so Leach has rightly brought together a young cast of boys, girls and children with disabilities from different backgrounds to interrogate how quickly societal norms can collapse, and how children target perceived weakness and otherness. The adaptation by Nigel Williams keeps all the familiar parts of the novel, like the conch that confers ...

Kiln Sparks offers a chance for backstage talent chance to work in-the-round at New Vic Theatre

20Mar

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Kiln Sparks offers a chance for backstage talent chance to work in-the-round at New Vic Theatre

Kiln Sparks is a new one-week course offering emerging and entry-level theatre personnel from under-represented groups to get experience working in-the-round at Staffordshire’s New Vic Theatre. The one-week residential course, in conjunction with New Earth Theatre and tiata fahodzi, is led by the New Vic’s Associate Director Vicki Dela Amedume MBE and is designed for entry level sound and lighting technicians. So, the programme could support company stage managers wishing to expand their knowledge of technical processes, emerging production managers who would like to expand their technical knowledge or emerging sound and lighting designers who have not yet worked in-the-round. The project aims to expand the industry’s knowledge base about making theatre in-the-round and diversify ...

New Vic Theatre revives cult classic The Killing of Sister George

12Mar

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NEWS

New Vic Theatre revives cult classic The Killing of Sister George

New Vic Theatre and physical theatre company Told By An Idiot have joined forces for a rare revival of sixties cult classic The Killing of Sister George. The Newcastle-Under-Lyme theatres in the round space is perfect for the acerbic comedy drama by Frank Marcus observing the life of June Buckeridge, who plays the role of kindly district nurse Sister George in fictitious radio soap opera 'Applehurst'. In reality June is a swaggering foul-mouthed loose cannon whose career and lifestyle is under threat. Set during the 1960s, the play explores the volatile relationship between June and her partner Alice, and the effect the demise of her fictional character has on her. Famously adapted into a dark cult film in 1968 starring Beryl Reid, the play incorporates wicked humour with m...

Amy Leach talks about a new version of Lord of the Flies at Leeds Playhouse

12Mar

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Amy Leach talks about a new version of Lord of the Flies at Leeds Playhouse

In the 70 years since the publication of Lords of the Flies it’s been a staple on the national curriculum as young readers have been entranced by schoolchildren going feral on a desert island. Leeds Playhouse's Deputy Artistic Director Amy Leach is directing a new version of William Goldman’s classic study of human nature as Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon and Roger battle to survive, or just stay alive. “We often think about Lord of the Flies as a reaction to the Second World War, but when I came back to the story as an adult, I realised it’s actually set against a background of nuclear war – a war of the future,” says Amy Leach. “It felt important to embrace that by setting it now, to find a new and interesting way to restage a classic story and make it connect with audiences in 2023....

Mikron Theatre are back for their 51st season with a new Poppy Hollman play

7Mar

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Mikron Theatre are back for their 51st season with a new Poppy Hollman play

Mikron Theatre are getting back on their touring barge for a 51st season with the premiere of Poppy Hollman's new play Twitchers, and there's original live music thrown in. Springwatch is coming to RSPB Shrikewing nature reserve, but as we meet raucous rooks, booming bitterns and plenty of tits we realise the birds of Shrikewing are its real stars. Can Jess take inspiration from the RSPB's tenacious female founders, and draw on its history of campaigning to save them, or can she find her own voice to raise a rallying cry for nature? The production's cast of actor-musicians will set sail on the company's unique vintage narrowboat taking the show to all sorts of non-traditional venues. This year's company who all act, sing and even set the stage up are Eddie Ahrens, Hannah Baker, Harve...

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...