Paul Clarke, Author at North West End UK

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...

21May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Here You Come Again – Leeds Playhouse

‘What would Dolly do?’ That’s the premise for the UK version of a musical comedy based on some of the greatest songs from country music’s undoubted queen Dolly Parton and one of the all-time great songwriters in any genre. Asking that question is fortysomething Kevin marooned in his parent’s attic during lockdown after splitting up with his boyfriend and his furlough pay is coming to an end. His boyhood room is a shrine to Dolly and as if by magic - or his subconscious - the relentlessly upbeat country and gay icon pops up to help her flamboyant, but secretly floundering, superfan find his way. This is not only a love letter to a big hearted philanthropist who has distributed 150 million free books to kids because her beloved daddy couldn’t read, but to a hall of fame songwriter w...

1May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Come From Away – Leeds Grand Theatre

Wandering through Broadway’s theatreland my youngest daughter and I were looking for a show to see so she suggested that Come From Away had fantastic word of mouth on TikTok. We popped into the box office scoring great stalls seats for 80 bucks, and she was spot on with her pick as this warm-hearted show about the best and worst of humanity went straight into my top five musicals. A musical about the aftermath of 9/11 seems an unlikely hit, but it’s based on a true story set thousands of miles away from the twin towers in a small Canadian town called Gander that was home to an airfield once used to refuel jets before they set off across the Atlantic. Super jets made the landing strip almost obsolete, but as airspaces were shut down after the terror attack 38 airplanes carrying 7000 diso...

19Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Wicked – Bradford Alhambra

If you’ve ever wondered how those red shoes came to be sticking out from under Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz this prequel to that classic movie will give you the answer. It goes back to before Dorothy crash landed in the land of Oz ruled by a mysterious wizard to reveal the backstory of Elphaba – better known to us The Wicked Witch of the West - and her nemesis Glinda the Good. Based on Gregory Maguire’s revisionist novel ‘Wicked – The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of West’ rather than L. Frank Baum’s original text we firstly meet Elphaba and Glinda as they start life at Shiz University as sworn enemies. The brilliant twist in this version is that Elphaba's skin is green thanks to an accident of birth so is the outsider and blonde rich brat Glinda is her exact opposite. Bu...