Paul Clarke, Author at North West End UK

12Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Consumed – Leeds Playhouse

Anyone who grew up in a large Irish family like I did knows only too well that every family gathering has the potential to kick off, but thankfully I’ve never experienced anything as grim as this birthday party from hell. Four generations of a Northern Irish family have come together for potty mouthed matriarch Julia’s 90th birthday lunch, presided over by her daughter Gilly who constantly seems on the edge of a mental meltdown. Gilly’s daughter Jenny has flown over from London with her woke daughter Murieannn who was born in England, but all four women have intergenerational trauma that comes out as they really take the gloves off. And there’s another ghost hanging over this feast that offers a delicious twist as the women batter each other emotionally as all their skeletons come...

3Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Calamity Jane – Alhambra Bradford

When the town drunk picks out the notes of the Deadwood Stage on a banjo in front of the curtain, and the audience without thinking starts singing along, you can see why Calamity Jane has been such a successful old school musical revival Most of the people here when they think of Calamity Jane would be immediately thinking of Doris Day’s rollocking performance in the classic 1953 movie. This warm hearted and often very funny show offers a more folky version as a team of actor/musicians stroll and dance around Matthew Wright’s Golden Garter saloon set playing all the show’s familiar numbers. Rootin’ tootin’ tomboy Calamity Jane lives up to her name causing mayhem everywhere she goes in gold rush town Deadwood shooting her mouth off and telling tall stories much to the disgust of Wild ...

20Aug

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

War Horse – Leeds Grand Theatre

For most of us in this country our first exposure to puppets are Mr and Mrs Punch going at it hammer and tongs on a seafront, but War Horse is a reminder that puppetry is an art form that challenges both the practitioners and the audience. There is something incredibly special watching a team of puppeteers moving in perfect synchronicity asking us to believe we are watching a thoroughbred horse in full flow. All theatre is to an extent a suspension of disbelief, but puppetry makes special demands of any audience’s imagination as we are constantly asked to make the inanimate real in our minds. Michael Morpurgo who wrote the novel said the producers ‘must be mad’ to try and stage a story about a horse who is transported from the idyllic Devon countryside to the horrors of the Great War...

Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) – Leeds Grand Theatre

28May

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Yorkshire & Humber

Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) – Leeds Grand Theatre

I have to confess I’ve always found Regency novels like Pride & Prejudice excruciatingly boring but this tongue in cheek romp through Jane Austen’s masterpiece is the exact opposite. The vague premise of the show is that we see the antics of the Bennet family, and assorted posh folk in Meryton, from the perspective of the servants. Isobel McArthur who loosely adapted the novel uses that device to allow five incredibly hardworking and funny women the chance to play all the characters as they hurtle on and off stage. This show is in the best traditions of British farce, which probably has some Austen superfans clutching their pearls in disgust, especially as our Bennet girls are a bit potty mouthed. However, if you’re not a tiresome snob then it’s a chance to enjoy a ribald trip th...

15May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Boys From the Blackstuff – Leeds Grand

‘Gizza a job. Go on, gizza job. I can do that.’ That desolate plea for help from a broken Yosser Hughes helped make Boys From the Blackstuff one of a series of epochal TV series that marked out the newly created Channel 4 as the nation’s social conscience as our industrial heartlands were decimated by Thatcherism. Scouser Alan Bleasdale used all five episodes of his 1982 BAFTA winning masterpiece to follow a bunch of unemployed former asphalt layers - gentle Chrissie, young buck Loggo, wise George, sensible Dixie and Yosser who is prone to headbutting people – who are desperately trying to keep their heads above water working on building sites while claiming the dole as Liverpool’s industries die around them. Bleasdale used these desperate and often broken men as a metaphor for the m...

Cruel Intentions The ‘90s Musical – Leeds Grand

8May

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Yorkshire & Humber

Cruel Intentions The ‘90s Musical – Leeds Grand

Christopher Hampton’s gloriously camp screenplay for Dangerous Liaisons featuring two bored French aristocrats playing twisted sexual games proved to be far too tempting for Hollywood studio bosses. They repacked it as nineties hit Cruel Intentions but this time featuring New York high school kids set to a banging soundtrack of hits from that decade. As every movie ever seems to be getting the musical treatment these days it was only a matter of time before it hit the stage, and although shortened versions of those nineties bangers do punctuate the action it’s not a classic jukebox musical in the obvious ways that Mamma Mia! or We Will Rock You are. That’s because it’s based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ classic novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, so the plot isn’t badly written drivel, an...

30Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

An Inspector Calls – Bradford Alhambra

Only yards away from this historic theatre is a statue of local boy made good J B Priestley so it’s fitting that it’s a full house for this revival of his spooky masterpiece. Still a GCSE text An Inspector Calls was revived by Stephen Daldry for the National Theatre and since then Priestley’s combination of the supernatural and socialism has become a staple of the touring circuit. Posh industrialists the Birlings are having an engagement party for their self-absorbed daughter in their mansion at the turn of the last century when a mysterious police inspector arrives to ask them questions about the suicide of a young local woman. Piece by piece Inspector Goole reveals the complicity in the death of these smug people, whose only concern is for themselves, but is their inquisitor all th...

10Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Shirley Valentine – Leeds Playhouse

If King Lear remains the biggest challenge for actors of a certain vintage, then the 15000 word solo monologue that is Shirley Valentine represents a similar mountain to climb for an actress. Unlike playing the mad king this is one woman setting off on a two hour monologue, whilst also being asked to cook eggs and chips from scratch in front of a live audience. Playing frustrated housewife Shirley who finally breaks free of her shackles requires strong technique and iron nerve as there is nobody to pull you out of the mire if it goes wrong, and thankfully Mina Anwar has both. Willy Russell’s greatest creation is a lonely eighties and frustrated Liverpool housewife who is reduced to having a running conversation with her kitchen wall before she bins her dim sexist husband. She heads o...

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Leeds Grand

28Mar

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Yorkshire & Humber

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Leeds Grand

As a critic if you keep going long enough then yet another touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will come along. It would be easy to be snooty about Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s debut collaboration, but this family friendly musical is still a lot of fun - if a little dated - and critically has some great tunes. Unlike some of Lloyd Webber’s later bombastic scores this is more pop rock, that was of its time like other seventies hits Godspell or Hair, with the added spice of Rice’s always witty words. It's a short for a musical reworking of Joseph’s story in the Bible where he is sold into slavery by his 11 jealous brothers, before hooking up with the Egyptian Pharaoh to work out what the ruler's dreams meant thus saving his nation from disaster. ...

17Mar

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Animal Farm – Leeds Playhouse

People can be beasts so what better way to explore the mysteries of the human psyche than through a bunch of animals who rise up to take over a farm. George Orwell’s Animal Farm was on one level an allegory as anthropomorphic animals banish their brutal human masters to create their own society, but underneath the metaphors it remains a pin sharp examination of human nature. The novella was inspired by Orwell’s experiences in the Spanish Civil War when Stalinist zealots undermined the leftist Popular Front letting Franco’s Fascists take power and serves as a salient reminder that it takes only one monster to smash democracy. Animal Farm is celebrating its 8oth anniversary just as populism rears its ugly head across the world, so there has rarely been a more important time for it to b...