Paul Clarke, Author at North West End UK

Donald and Benoit will be enchanting Sound Stage audiences this Christmas

9Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Donald and Benoit will be enchanting Sound Stage audiences this Christmas

This Christmas Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Prime Theatre present a Sound Stage festive premiere of audio play Donald and Benoit, based on a children’s book created by legendary Scottish writer John Patrick Byrne, and adapted by the award-winning lighting designer Jeanine Byrne. For the uninitiated Sound Stage is an innovative audio-digital venture offering audiences a unique and engrossing online theatre experience of new plays from the best in British theatre. They are works that in the future Pitlochry hope to convert for the stage. Jeanine Byrne is best known for her lighting design, but her second cancer diagnosis means she dedicates all her spare energy to making work, including this family friendly adaptation of Benoit and Donald, which is available on Sound Stage from 17-19...

Beauty and the Beast – Leeds City Varieties

3Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Beauty and the Beast – Leeds City Varieties

I say it every year - oh yes, I do - that the success of any panto depends on how good their Dame is and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto has one of the best purveyors of that quintessentially British mix of laughs and seasonal smut in Simon Nock. This is his fourth year at this historic city centre home of light entertainment and his Dame Bessie Bigbreaths - see what they did there - is a glorious mix of spraying out corny laughs for the children and some very near the knuckle gags for the not so young kids. He gets away with it - oh yes, he does - because he has charm to burn and times a gag well, combined with a wonderfully expressive raise of the eyebrow when the Dame has gone too far. This is the tenth year of the Rock ‘n’ Roll franchise in Leeds who have become the masters of integratin...

1Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Grease – Leeds Grand Theatre

It’s great that this production carries on the classic movie’s proud tradition of having twentysomethings playing teenagers about to leave Rydell High School for the real world. It’s a bit odd the thick American accents the relatively inexperienced cast deploy seem to be from Brooklyn rather than the tough working-class area of Chicago the original theatre production was set in. The voice coach should have dialled it down a bit which would have helped with the sometimes wayward diction. It’s probably fair to say most of the audience were looking for a scene by scene recreation of the beloved movie, and to that extent they do get well staged versions of all songs they had grown up loving. But the producers claim to have retained the darker elements of the rawer early 1970s scrip...

From Japan to Leeds Playhouse – Jonathan Munby

28Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

From Japan to Leeds Playhouse – Jonathan Munby

Peter Pan is one of our culture’s most enduring characters but a new festive production at Leeds Playhouse takes a fresh look at the boy who refuses to grow up. This time round in Wendy & Pan the endless child’s traditional sparring partner Wendy Darling takes centre stage in Ella Hickson’s adaption of JM Barrie’s classic, but you can still expect to see the dastardly Captain Hook, The Lost Boys, a pirate ship and a crocodile in the Playhouse’s festive spectacular. This production comes straight from a successful run in Tokyo during the Olympics, featuring input from Japanese creatives, and boasts a big cast who will fight and fly their way round the huge Quarry theatre. Jonathan Munby is co-directing Wendy and Peter, and in the first of a two part look at this show tells our ...

Dianne Pilkington flies into Leeds Grand with Bedknobs and Broomsticks

28Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Dianne Pilkington flies into Leeds Grand with Bedknobs and Broomsticks

When families settle down for a festive film one of the perineal favourites is BedKnobs and Broomsticks starring musical legends Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson. It’s a magical and often surreal tale of a trainee witch Eglantine Price who takes under her wing three orphans evacuated from the London blitz who fly an enchanted bed in a quest to find a spell helped by a dodgy professor of magic. The movie features some memorable songs from the pen of the Sherman Brothers and its cutting-edge animation combined with live action won the Disney team an Oscar for best Special Effects. Now it has been turned into a stage show with some new songs that comes to Leeds Grand from December 8th and plays into the new year. Dianne Pilkington plays the trainee witch on the show’s first UK tou...

Donald and Benoit are at Pitlochry Festival Theatre this Christmas

26Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Donald and Benoit are at Pitlochry Festival Theatre this Christmas

Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Prime Theatre are staging new audio play Donald and Benoit as their Christmas treat. This whimsical and musical tale for children tells the tale an unlikely friendship between a man and a cat that has been brought to vivid life by playwright John Patrick Byrne and adapted by award winning theatre maker Jeanine Byrne. Benoit lives a life of mundane ordinariness in his Scottish seaside town, but he is feeling very lonely with no mother and his father lost at sea. Enter Donald, a small and mischievous kitten, to cheer him up. Sound Stage is a new audio-digital venture, designed by theatre makers and leading technologists, giving audiences a unique and engrossing online theatre experience of new plays from the best in British theatre which in the future ...

Nana-Kofi Kufour talks about his debut play My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored

18Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Nana-Kofi Kufour talks about his debut play My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored

Black people in this country are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched and that is what happens to Reece in Nana-Kofi Kurfour’s debut play. In My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored the teenager appeals to his black teacher Gillian for help but she refuses leading to a tense standoff in their classroom the next day. No one can accuse this new writer of picking an easy topic for this tense two hander, but it’s a subject that impacts on all of us in modern Britain one way or another. It’s no surprise it’s being produced by Leeds based radical theatre company Red Ladder, who have a long history of taking on subjects no-one else wants to touch. As My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored gets its World Premiere at Leeds Playhouse our Yorkshire editor Paul Clarke caught up Nana...

17Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Me, Myself and Micha – Leeds Playhouse

When Brazilian dancer and choreographer Ana Silverio realised she was pregnant she began to make detailed notes to make a piece out of her nine month journey. Silverio who had worked across Europe initially thought this was going to be performed by three dancers after presenting an initial 10 minute work in progress during a scratch session as part of the Playhouse’s Furnace Festival she realised it was a solo show. Furnace is the engine room that supports new and more established artists like Silverio with space to create new work, as well allowing them to tap into the Playhouse’s vast reservoir of creative and technical expertise. Usually for Furnace which was cancelled last year due to the virus this is staged as a fully realised forty-minute piece that begins with a beauti...

Leeds Playhouse’s Rio Matchett talks about the return of their Furnace Festival after a two year break

8Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Leeds Playhouse’s Rio Matchett talks about the return of their Furnace Festival after a two year break

There is always a joy in watching fully formed work, but there is equal satisfaction being able to watch artists develop new pieces, which is where a safe space like the Furnace Festival at Leeds Playhouse comes in. Artists often talk about learning as much from failing as what works so Furnace offers them a year-round development programme which the Playhouse says is their development engine offering a place to play and learn as pieces come to life. The Playhouse use their Furnace brand to describe all of the work they do to generate and create new performance work that supports the local creative community Usually that work is showcased in an annual live programme where artists present their work in all sorts of stages of development but last year was cancelled for obvious reaso...

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Leeds Grand

4Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Leeds Grand

The performing arts often attracts outsiders looking for a safe haven, so it is hardly surprising many musicals are about the plucky outsider finding their true selves against what seem like insurmountable odds. That’s true of this big-hearted musical that started life just down the road in Sheffield, before becoming a West End hit, and is loosely based on the real story of working class gay teenager Jamie Campbell who decided that only did he want to be a drag artist when he left school, but he was going to his prom in a dress. Here our Jamie New, supported by Muslim best mate Pritti, wants to do the same despite the school bullies, but is up against a bigoted teacher determined he will turn up to the big night in ’normal’ attire, provoking an unexpected response from his schoolmate...