Paul Downham, Author at North West End UK

Winners announced for the inaugural Box of Tricks & Sky Studios Screen/Play Award

5Feb

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Winners announced for the inaugural Box of Tricks & Sky Studios Screen/Play Award

Conway McDermott and Sarah Tarbit beat off competition from nearly 350 entries from underrepresented talent from across the North of England to win the Box of Tricks and Sky Studios inaugural Screen/Play Award. Both will be awarded £10,250 to write a 70-minute stage play, and a 20-minute screenplay inspired by a single central idea to be developed with support from the two partners throughout 2021. Conway McDermott is a trans non-binary writer from Liverpool. They describe their work as genre fiction, using fantasy, history, sci-fi and mysticism to “create a fuller landscape of worlds and stories for weird working-class queers to inhabit”. For Screen/Play, Conway will develop The Priestess, a trans coming of age story that crashes into a psychosexual horror full of dark humour. ...

Curve to stream The Color Purple online in association with Birmingham Hippodrome

4Feb

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Curve to stream The Color Purple online in association with Birmingham Hippodrome

Once again, Birmingham Hippodrome is proud to be collaborating with Curve to bring audiences an unmissable musical theatre event. Following the success of its recent five-star production of Sunset Boulevard – at Home, Curve will stream The Color Purple online between Tuesday 16th February and Sunday 7th March in association with Birmingham Hippodrome. Whilst the planned run of live performances is now sadly cancelled due to the uncertainty around national restrictions, Curve will safely bring together the 2019 award-winning company to stream the production for audiences to watch online. The Color Purple – at Home will be a fully reimagined concert version of the 2019 production, co-produced by Curve and Birmingham Hippodrome. The 2019 production of The Color Purple, the firs...

Northern Ballet announce new digital season

4Feb

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NEWS

Northern Ballet announce new digital season

Northern Ballet is launching a new dance digital season that includes What Used To, No Longer Is, an original dance film by Olivier Award-winning Mthuthuzeli November. The Leeds based company will also première two more original films, Northern Lights and Have Your Cake, both by Northern Ballet’s Artistic Director of Digital and Choreographer in Residence Kenneth Tindall. The season also includes Cathy Marston’s hit version of Victoria, which will be released on-demand, and as an added extra there’s an excerpt of Kenneth Tindall’s States of Mind, part of the BBC and Sadler’s Wells’ Dancing Nation. “Northern Ballet has turned a challenging situation into an incredibly creative and inspired time,” says Kenneth Tindall. “While we have not been to hold live performances due to Cov...

Always on my Mind – The Living Record Festival

4Feb

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REVIEWS

Always on my Mind – The Living Record Festival

Always on my Mind is a short snapshot of life in lockdown written by Liam Alexandru and directed by Theodore Gray. Based on Alexandru’s 2016 play of the same name, this impressively compact piece captures the spirit of today’s world while telling the story of two very real and complex characters. Stacey (Lucy Syed) and Curtis (Charles Lomas) have been apart for six months and Stacey has reluctantly agreed to a video call. Their breakup was messy and both of them are still upset about it, particularly Stacey. The video call is of course awkward as the characters exchange mundane pleasantries about life in quarantine. We hear the characters’ thoughts through inner monologues presented by the same actors in the background, and old feelings are quickly aggravated as tensions rise leading...

Alright, Girl? by Maria Ferguson – The Living Record Festival

3Feb

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REVIEWS

Alright, Girl? by Maria Ferguson – The Living Record Festival

Alright, Girl? is a soundscaped binaural recording of a poetry collection by the same name written by Maria Ferguson and published by Burning Eye Books. The writings are a reflection of the author’s working class heritage whilst growing up in vastly changing urban landscape of the United Kingdom. The text, originally published in August 2019, is performed by Maria in an hour-long listening experience for The Living Record Festival. With sound design by Chris Drohan, who combines Maria’s intimate spoken word rendition of her writing with a subtle score that adds warmth and tactility to the words, this piece takes the audience through Maria’s lived experiences with class, gender and belonging. The text itself is deeply enjoyable to read; I often found myself hitting the rewind butt...

31Jan

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REVIEWS

Behind The Beyond – Online@The Space UK

At a time when a night at the theatre means sitting in front of our TV, laptop or phone, Edinburgh venue ‘The Space UK’ have stepped up to the plate for the second time to give us Season 2 of their online fringe theatre festival. Created by BMV Theatre Productions and adapted by Brian Cano during a 2020 lockdown, ‘Beyond The Beyond’ has been filmed for Zoom by the actors in their own home, and then edited to create a piece of theatre which exams the 19th Century ‘problem play’. ‘Behind The Beyond’ the play, delves into Stephen Leacock’s book ‘Behind the Beyond: And Other Contributions To Human Knowledge’ written in 1913, to give a satirical glance at this genre of play. The problem plays of the 19th Century gave playwrights the ammunition to use the stage to exam social issu...

31Jan

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REVIEWS

Musical Horrors – The Theatre Channel

This series of productions was put together in October 2020 and consists of a number of episodes divided into different themes. Following on from the introductory “Welcome to the Café” itself, episode 2 is subtitled “Musical Horrors” and consists of songs from some of the world’s best shows with a bit of a horror theme, including Young Frankenstein, Beetlejuice, Into the Woods and of course the Rocky Horror Show. The line-up of talent in this production was nothing short of spectacular with a cast made up of well-known performers from the world of musical theatre, ably augmented by the resident “Café Four” (Alyn Hawke, Emily Langham, Sadie-Jean Shirley and Alex Woodward) whose energy and enthusiasm perfectly complimented the lead singers. As there was only a small number of songs in this p...

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change – London Coliseum (Online)

29Jan

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London

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change – London Coliseum (Online)

Recorded during one of the toughest times for the theatre community, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change is the perfect tonic we need in these tough times. Filmed on the stage at the London Coliseum and brought to us by Lambert Jackson Productions, the cast of four, Brenda Edwards, Alice Fearn, Simon Lipkin and Oliver Tompsett bring this hilarious and poignant show to our screen. It follows the highs and lows of first dates, loves, marriage, babies, in-laws and growing old together. Lipkin was brought in last minute due to the sad indisposition of Trevor Dion Nicholas. Lipkin has played the role before, rehearsed into the show for the afternoon and then immediately began filming. The show opens taking us through the beautiful interior of the theatre with eerie vocalisations and voice...

28Jan

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REVIEWS

‘On Record’ – Living Record Festival

It’s no secret that 2021 is going to be the year when audio dramas make a grand return. Given that theatres in the UK are likely to be shut until the early days of summer and the growing screen fatigue we seem to be collectively experiencing, theatre-makers are actively exploring performances that invite the audience member to engage their aural imagination, or simply put – to hear is to see is to believe. On Record, a 35-minute audio drama written by Cameron Essam & Ella Dorman-Gajic and produced for the ongoing The Living Record Festival, concerns the inner workings of a woman’s mind who struggles with her grasp on reality, grappling with personal demons of her own while helping another woman escape from theirs. With voice performances by Jesse Bateson, Louise Cornelia, Ella Dorma...

Pantomime will finally appear at The Malthouse Theatre in Canterbury this Christmas

27Jan

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NEWS

Pantomime will finally appear at The Malthouse Theatre in Canterbury this Christmas

Canterbury’s newest arts venue, The Malthouse Theatre, will play host to a dazzling pantomime this Christmas with a glittering new production of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST which will play for a strictly limited run from 10th – 24th December 2021. Boasting stunning sets and costumes, side splitting comedy and catchy songs, the production will be written by legendary pantomime dame Paul Tate, who will also star as Mona Lot, and will be directed by Joseph Hodges, with choreography by Jay Gardner, lighting design by Seb Blaber and Sound Design by Phil Wilson. Full casting is to be announced imminently. Tickets are on sale now from the online box office at www.malthousetheatre.co.uk with group and school bookings also available. Don’t miss this BEAUTY of a pantomime to kick off your f...