Paul Downham, Author at North West End UK

Lucy Dusgate joins Leeds Dance Partnership

7Jan

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Lucy Dusgate joins Leeds Dance Partnership

Lucy Dusgate has been appointed the new Partnership Director of Leeds Dance Partnership taking over from Shirley Lundstram who is now Head of Programme – Heritage at Cause 4. An experienced cultural producer, Lucy crosses the Pennines from her most recent role as Art Programmer / Producer at The Lowry in Salford. She has extensive experience in delivering diverse and strategic programmes of art; developing cultural policy; consortium partnerships; fundraising; embedded learning; co-commissions and large audience engagement across culture and public realm locations. Her past work includes two commissions with Leeds based Phoenix Dance Theatre, two Motionhouse Outdoor performances as well as work with individual artists including Darren Pickard, Dickson Mbi and Mac Daniel Palima. ...

4Jan

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

HOTLINE, a new play by telephone

Call HOTLINE, an interactive performance and quest to find peace and tranquillity on earth. Commissioned by Tron Theatre and devised by Produced Moon, Meghan Tyler and Nima Séne, HOTLINE is a new play inspired by the legendary conversation from the White House to the moon between Richard Nixon, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. HOTLINE is accessed by individuals dialling in from their phones, and like a game, lets them choose how the story continues. HOTLINE will be a playful and fun, post-dramatic adaptation of the first phone call to the moon with a mission to bring ‘peace and tranquillity to the earth’. Using the intimacy of a phone call, HOTLINE is a new kind of theatre for a world in the midst of a pandemic where isolation is imposed, and theatres are closed. Tron Theatre audit...

Relive your Twenties at @thespaceUK in January

4Jan

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Relive your Twenties at @thespaceUK in January

Follow 21 year-old Hope, as she moves out of her childhood home in Cheshire to the bright lights of London. Relive your Twenties with a show that promises laughs as well as a refreshingly honest depiction of what it means to be 21 in 2021. Join us as we visit a dinosaur themed bar, a nightclub and some very grubby toilets. Charlotte Anne-Tilley’s apt comedy will leave you feeling nostalgic for those mixed up years when you were still working things out. From the team that brought you Adolescent in 2018, comes another female-centred comedy that gets to the heart of what it means to be a young northern woman. After a memorable debut at Manchester’s Up The North Festival, this multi-person version of Twenties is returning for Online@theSpaceUK before visiting Edinburgh Fringe this summe...

Sleepwalking, by Kenneth Wilson at theSpaceUK

4Jan

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NEWS

Sleepwalking, by Kenneth Wilson at theSpaceUK

Kenneth Wilson’s new show for @theSpaceUK 2021 races from James Bond to weepy Irish lament (and Bach again). The music of his cello provokes a poetical commentary, sometimes a lashing-out, to make you wake up and take notice. Spoiler: contains a few rude words. Kenneth’s cello soars and sings, and then swaggers and shouts. In between it cascades, and laments. It seems there’s nothing that can’t be said on the cello. And then there’s his poetry – from his Lonely Heart (“psychosomatic, paranoic, hyperventilatic”) to the man “In the room of women”, and the shot birds that land “thudly in the grass”. You won’t sleep through this one. Kenneth Wilson has performed in the UK, in Europe and in South America. As well as his own show at the E...

Bard Overboard presents: A Global Pandemic Holiday Special

4Jan

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Bard Overboard presents: A Global Pandemic Holiday Special

"Wonder World Cruises has a heart-warming corporate message for you in these trying times. Now they just have to convince the actors and crew members trapped aboard their quarantined vessel to film it. Watch the mayhem unfold in their final Zoom rehearsal before going on air." This is a special online performance from the cast of Bard Overboard, an ensemble farce debuting this August at Fringe 2021. Bard Overboard follows a group of minimally talented actors working on a themed family cruise ship who learn that a powerful Hollywood agent is onboard and embark on a doomed journey to impress him with a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Bard Overboard is a collaboration between the Extra Credit Ensemble, a group founded by actors and directors at Columbia Univers...

2Jan

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South West

Dick Whittington – Bristol Hippodrome

What better way to say goodbye to a torrid 2020 and begin 2021, than being able to watch a spectacular theatrical treat, (albeit virtually), and that is just what Dick Whittington is! ‘The Shows Must Go On’ YouTube channel has been a real godsend during 2020, keeping audiences entertained from the comfort of their own living rooms, whilst raising much needed funds for important theatre charities. Dick Whittington, which was performed December 2014 to January 2015 is streamed by ‘The Shows Must Go On’ and presented by First Family Entertainment and is raising much need funds for the Inner-city arts charity. You can go to https://inner-cityarts.org to find out more about this charity and you can also donate to this charity on the website. This Glitzy, Glamourous, festive family treat w...

31Dec

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NEWS

Woyzeck – Hope Street Theatre

‘A rollercoaster journey from the heights of black comedy to the depths of Freudian despair.’ With the challenge of picking only one show, I shall stick with the first one I saw as a full preview performance on 2nd January and which, rarely for me, I returned to see again when it played at Hope Street Theatre in Liverpool in the last week of January. Step forward Old Fruit Jar Productions and their debut production, a take on Jack Thorne’s 2017 adaptation of Georg Büchner’s classic play, Woyzeck, with this its first performance since its inaugural West End run by kind permission of the writer himself. It was a delight to see this new young company grabbing the opportunity to do something different and tackle real issues – class divide; poverty; exploitation; mental health – that ...

31Dec

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London

Uncle Vanya – BBC iPlayer

An evocative play about family resentments and tensions in a changing world. Adapted by Conor McPherson, Directed by Ian Rickson The theatre production for this Chekhov play was halted in March this year due to COVID-19 but the production was filmed in London’s Harold Pinter Theatre, released in cinemas and is now available on the BBC. What we see is an accomplished filming of a theatre production rather than a film/TV adaptation, as all the action takes place in one room and there is a distinct lack of intrusive camera work. The play is adapted by Conor McPherson and directed by Ian Rickson and with a strong cast they have managed to create an event very similar to visiting a theatre for a classic play. The set is wonderfully dark and rustic in its faded grandeur. There is a good...

29Dec

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London

Pirates of Penzance – Palace Theatre

Of all Gilbert and Sullivan's works, Pirates of Penzance is probably the best known and one of their most popular, having been a hit since it first opened in New York in December 1879. Since then, it has been interpreted and re-interpreted - and Sasha Regan 's award-winning production is one of the very best. The "men playing women" trope has, of course, been around for many centuries, in Shakespeare and in panto. It depends on the talent of the actors to make the conceit work. And work it does, the all-male cast adding an additional layer of whimsy to what is already a marvellously funny operetta. The story hinges on its subtitle "The Slave Of Duty". After a miscommunication leads young Frederic to be indentured to the dastardly Pirates of Penzance, he delights in his freed...

25Dec

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NEWS, NWE UK Live

A Christmas Message

To say 2020 has been a tough year for the arts is an understatement. Here at North West End UK we have been resolute in our desire to maintain our support for this amazing industry. We have continued to review throughout the pandemic covering online productions before returning, briefly to theatres when the relevant tier restrictions allowed. We also launched North West End UK LIVE in the Summer to promote the talent we have within our own team. Producing monologues written and performed by our reviewers. The most popular has been the Home Schooling series featuring our very own Yazmin Walker. To celebrate this very different Christmas period Mark Davoren has written an alternative Christmas message and we were thrilled that the Altrincham Garrick Playhouse allowed us to film on t...