Paul Clarke, Author at North West End UK

The Not So Ugly Sisters – Leeds Playhouse

4Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Not So Ugly Sisters – Leeds Playhouse

The producers of Wicked have made a fortune retelling a classic story and now Wrongsemble are subverting a much loved children’s tale for younger theatre goers. They have great fun through song, dance, some corny gags and lots of physical comedy challenging what we think we know about Cinderella’s so called ugly sisters. Dolly and Barb are rattling round their hairdressing salon watching their baby sister getting married to Prince Smarming, and they’ve not been invited due to endless tabloid battering portraying them as the panto villains of this royal love story. Sound familiar? The demonising has left them with a phone that only rings for blow dry cancellations, so they take the time to tell their version of the classic story. The energy and inventiveness of this pacey two hande...

Strong cast announced for Piaf at Leeds Playhouse

4Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Strong cast announced for Piaf at Leeds Playhouse

A year later than originally intended Leeds Playhouse has announced a strong cast for Piaf telling the extraordinary life story of the world-renowned chanteuse. Tony-nominated and Olivier Award-winning actress Jenna Russell will play the troubled French singing legend, with Sally Ann Triplett now confirmed alongside her in the role of Toine, who was Piaf’s close friend and trusted confidante. Russell and Triplett are friends themselves but have not performed together since the original West End production of Sondheim’s Follies 30 years ago. Olivier Award-nominated actress Laura Pitt-Pulford will play Marlene Dietrich and Garry Robson takes the role of Louis Leplee, the nightclub owner who discovered Piaf. Louis Gaunt will play P...

Another fixture for The Damned United at York Theatre Royal

1Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Another fixture for The Damned United at York Theatre Royal

With Leeds United riding high in the Premier League it’s the perfect time for another tour of The Damned United charting Brian Clough’s disastrous 44-day period as manager at Elland Road, which plays at York Theatre Royal on 16 June. It’s 1974 and Brian Clough, the enfant terrible of British football, wants to revive his managerial career by winning the European Cup with his new team Leeds United. It’s a team full of seasoned international he has openly despised for years who loved their old boss Don Revie, and they all loathe the brash newcomer. Anders Lustgarden’s adaptation of David Peace’s novel takes audiences inside the tortured mind of ‘Old Big ‘ed’ battling his own demons and a team he can’t tame. The Damned United is performed by Luke D...

Ballet legend David Nixon steps down from leading Northern Ballet

30May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Ballet legend David Nixon steps down from leading Northern Ballet

Northern Ballet have announced their longest serving Artistic Director David Nixon will step down in December 2021 after twenty years leading the Leeds based company. Under the Canadian-born Nixon they have created 29 full-length ballets with 23 one-act works added to their repertoire, as well as 14 original full-length musical compositions. As an innovative choreographer and designer Nixon has created 13 original full-length ballets for Northern Ballet, including Wuthering Heights, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Great Gatsby and The Little Mermaid, and has restaged and adapted a further six productions. But more than that Nixon turned a company based in the North into a national and international force building a world class company that always nurtured and pushed new talent to e...

Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters have their say at Leeds Playhouse

28May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters have their say at Leeds Playhouse

Fairy tales are always ripe for retellings of the original story and this time it is Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters who get to tell their side of the story at Leeds Playhouse. The Not So Ugly Sisters, created by Leeds-based theatre company Wrongsemble in co-production with Leeds Playhouse and Red Ladder Theatre Company, is a family friendly show where there are always two sides to every story. Dolly is resting on her broom counting the passers-by outside the salon window, while her sister Barb watches the phone that never rings. It’s the morning of Cindy and Prince Smarming’s big royal wedding – but Dolly and Barb are not invited – and Hell hath no fury like a hairdresser scorned. Photography by Anthony Jones Leeds actors Daisy Ann Fletcher and Lucy Rafton star as the h...

Decades: 1970s/1980s/2000s – Leeds Playhouse

26May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Decades: 1970s/1980s/2000s – Leeds Playhouse

To kick off their delayed 50th birthday celebrations the Playhouse team commissioned both experienced and newer creatives to create short monologues boldly trying to meld the history of Leeds and events across the north over six decades since they opened their doors.. They are offering all six as the King Lear of monologues, or two lots of three like tonight’s offering spanning three decades. There may be some obscure artistic reasoning behind this but it seems odd to run them out of sequence as doing so might have added to their power. As a veteran of the eighties Leeds anarchist and squat scene it must have tempting for Alice Nutter to offer a sugar-coated version of that scene, but typically in Nicer Than Orange Squash she offers an often funny indictment of the hypocrisy an...

Decades: Stories From The City 1990s/2010s/2020s – Leeds Playhouse

21May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Decades: Stories From The City 1990s/2010s/2020s – Leeds Playhouse

There is always a hum in any theatre before the lights go down, but tonight as creatives and an audience make that unique communion after months apart it feels like the air of expectation is off the scale as we uncomfortably sit in our masks. Typically, the Playhouse have not made it easy for themselves by offering returning theatre lovers six monologues that attempt to meld events from the seventies right through to lockdown with a potted social history of Leeds For me monologues are biggest of all challenge for the writers, performers and this audience who are just relived to be sat in a dark space at last. It is like stand up with a script as there is no place to go if goes wrong, no-one to bounce off and if the writing is even marginally off it can be torture for all concer...

Casting announced for world premiere of David Greig’s new play Adventures with the Painted People

21May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Casting announced for world premiere of David Greig’s new play Adventures with the Painted People

Pitlochry Festival Theatre have announced Nicholas Karimi and Kirsty Stuart will star in the world stage premiere of David Greig’s new play, Adventures with the Painted People. Greig’s first play since 2013’s The Events will open at Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 10th June to 4th July as part of their outdoor Summer Season. Karimi plays Lucius who is a cultured Roman officer, captured by the Picts and about to be sacrificed. Stuart is Eithne, a wise Pictish woman, who wants to record her people's history in writing, a skill they do not yet have. She makes a deal where she will rescue Lucius in exchange for him teaching her to write. So, they must flee - not by road, the Romans have not built those yet - but down river. Performed in the theatre’s outdoor amphit...

Amanda Huxtable talks about directing Decades which reopens Leeds Playhouse

13May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Amanda Huxtable talks about directing Decades which reopens Leeds Playhouse

Leeds Playhouse kick off their 50th anniversary celebrations and reopen the doors with six short monologues written by a mix of new and experienced writers. Decades: Stories From The City takes a particular decade from across the Playhouse’s lifespan covering the 1970s to the 2020s, tracing how their home city has changed over that time. As this is their first set of shows after lockdown the Playhouse have also recruited a strong cast of directors, including Leeds Playhouse’s Artistic Director James Brining who is joined in the rehearsal spaces by Associate Director Amy Leach and RTYDS Resident Assistant Director Sameena Hussain, Evie Manning of Common Wealth Theatre and Theatre State’s Tess Seddon. The hugely experienced Amanda Huxtable directs Leanna Benjamin’s The Unknown...

Casting announced for Decades: Stories from the city at Leeds Playhouse

10May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Casting announced for Decades: Stories from the city at Leeds Playhouse

Leeds Playhouse has announced the six actors who will perform in their Decades: Stories from the city season as they reopen their doors for their 50th anniversary celebrations. They will perform short monologues by a heavyweight group of writers including Poet Laureate Simon Armitage who will be joined by Leanna Benjamin, Kamal Kaan, Alice Nutter, Maxine Peake and Stan Owens. All the writers have strong connections to the Playhouse, so have each taken a particular decade from across the Playhouse’s lifespan covering the 1970s to the 2020s tracing the city’s changes over that time. Isobel Coward will star in Alice Nutter’s Nicer Than Orange Squash, Eva Scott is in Maxine Peake’s Don’t You Know It’s Going To Be Alright and Cassie Layton performs Kamal K...