Paul Downham, Author at North West End UK

The Late Christmas Show at online@thespaceuk Preview

10Jan

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

The Late Christmas Show at online@thespaceuk Preview

Christmas 2020. Santa has a persistent cough. Rudolph is self-isolating. Turkey’s on the no-fly list. But it will take more than a pandemic to stop the irrepressible Glummer Twins from celebrating the joys and absurdities of a socially distanced coronavirus Christmas. So David Harmer and Ray Globe (The Glummer Twins) have turned to the wizardry of modern technology to cobble together a virtual Christmas show. And unlike other Christmas shows this one is in January. But how do you recreate a double act experience whilst maintaining social distancing? After days of head scratching, they decided that the way forward would be to film themselves separately and then stick the two bits together. Genius. Throughout their enforced isolation (they’re both of a ‘certain age’) video clips ha...

10Jan

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

The Same Rain That Falls on Me Preview

It’s the hottest day of the year and Alice is travelling home to say an untimely goodbye. One that will leave a hole in her life forever. Written by Logan Jones and first performed at York Theatre Royal as part of the 2019 TakeOver Festival, The Same Rain That Falls on Me is about family, grief, and finding hope in the face of overwhelming uncertainty. Don’t miss this intimate and powerfully written piece directed by Jay Seldon and performed with ‘precision and grace’ (Unknown Magazine) balancing dark humour and touching pathos in equal measure. York DramaSoc have presented an eclectic mix of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe in recent years, including One Giant Leap for June by Rachel Flanagan, and dark drama Bad Dog by Royal Court Writers’ Group alumna Ashley Milne. Established in ...

10Jan

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

GirlPlay Online@theSpaceUK Preview

The Dublin Fringe Festival 2019 hit by Sarah Richardson returns as an audio piece under new direction by award-winning artist, Ciara Elizabeth Smyth (All Honey, SAUCE, We Can’t Have Monkeys in the House). GirlPlay comes to Online@theSpaceUK after winning Best Digital Adaptation at Stockholm Fringe Festival 2020. Richardson and Smyth have created a powerful audio piece that follows the journey of one woman’s ever-changing relationship with sex from ages 7 to 31. Join us for a poetic exploration of womanhood. About the Show Meet Lucy. She’s average, awkward and when it comes to sex, what she lacks in experience she makes up for in curiosity. But that’s all set to change. On a night of firsts, she opens the door to a world of relationships and sex that she had only ever dreamt abo...

Ingenie: Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland and the Golden Age of Hollywood – Online @theSpaceUK

10Jan

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

Ingenie: Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland and the Golden Age of Hollywood – Online @theSpaceUK

Melanie Gall’s Ingenue: Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland and the Golden Age of Hollywood, tells the true story of Durbin’s life growing up in Hollywood, her relationship with Judy Garland, which the world wanted so much to be filled with mutual hate, and why she gave it all up in favour of a life of obscurity in Paris. A one woman musical, the show opens with Durbin (Melanie Gall) sitting in her simply furnished Parisian home in a floral housecoat, singing to herself. She is surprised when a knock on the door results in the arrival of a journalist from the New York Times, who wants to interview her in the wake of Judy Garland’s death and get the dirt on their tempestuous relationship. Durbin maintains that her and Judy were in fact friends, and reluctantly agrees to tell their story as th...

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

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

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

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

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...