Paul Downham, Author at North West End UK

Box of Tricks and Sky Studios launch inaugural Screen/Play Award

10Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Box of Tricks and Sky Studios launch inaugural Screen/Play Award

Box of Tricks and Sky Studios’ Innovation Hub based in Leeds have teamed up to announce the launch of the Screen/Play Award to discover exceptional writers from the North of England. The project is focussed on finding talent from communities currently underrepresented on stage and screen offering two writers with no TV writing experience a bursary to write a new play for Box of Tricks, and to open doors to the world of screenwriting by forging a development partnership with Sky Studios throughout 2021. The award is open to Northern writers, aged over 18, with no professional TV experience, from the following communities: D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent writers, LGBTQ+ writers, writers of colour, first generation migrant writers and writers from a low socioeconomic background.&nbs...

10Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Blackpool Grand Announces PANTOMONIUM

Blackpool Grand Theatre has announced that with the generous support of producer Martin Dodd of UK Productions, panto legend, BBC Radio Lancashire presenter, and Britain’s Got Talent ‘finalist’ Steve Royle, and special guest West End and TV’s Tom Lister a condensed and COVID-safe pantomime fundraiser will ensure Christmas isn’t cancelled this year at Blackpool’s Grand! The Christmas production Pantomonium! will run with strict COVID safeguards for a limited time and for a limited period – a sell-out is guaranteed! Created by Jon Monie (winner of Best Script at The Great British Pantomime Awards 2019 for ‘Beauty & the Beast’), Pantomonium! is a specially written, one-act pantomime about pantomime. When the beloved panto character, Fairy Tales, is kidnapped by the villainous Kil...

The Death Of A Hunter – The Finborough Theatre on Scenesaver

9Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

The Death Of A Hunter – The Finborough Theatre on Scenesaver

We know the name Ernest Hemingway from his successful novels, ‘A Farewell To Arms’, ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’, ‘The Sun Also Rises’. We also know that he committed suicide in 1961, but the reasons behind his suicide were vailed in uncertainty. This play written in 1977 by controversial German playwright Rolf Hochhuth, known for his plays ‘The Representative’, ‘The Deputy’ and ‘Soldiers’, attempts to examine the last hours before Hemingway’s death to gain a greater understanding of what was going through his mind in those last hours. The Finborough Theatre has a knack for delving into theatrical pieces that have remained undiscovered or have rarely been performed. The theatre have resurrected other plays written by Hochhuth including ‘Sommer 14 – A Dance of Death’, ‘Sol...

9Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

Lone Women – Tmesis Theatre

Lockdown has produced some inventive gems from resourceful artists, often operating in physical isolation and on a shoestring, & these five short films by women based in the North from Tmesis & First Take are treasured fragments, quietly & poetically reminding us of our fragility and humanity in the face of individual, personal struggles and uncertainty. All the pieces are performed as physical theatre pieces with character voice-over monologues and delicately composed scores by Meike Holzmann. Award winning scriptwriter Lizzie Nunnery’s film, It Hurts, deals with the plight of the parent in lockdown, trying to soften the crisis & protect her child from her own needs, frustrations and psychological suffering; a simple mishap, however, brings everything into focus. Poe...

Così fan Tutte – Royal Opera House (2019)

9Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

Così fan Tutte – Royal Opera House (2019)

Jan Philipp Gloger’s production from 2019 starts not at the beginning of the show but rather at the end with a curtain call for a traditional period-piece – perhaps Così – being played out during the overture, after which the four young lovers emerge from the audience into a world of theatrical fantasy orchestrated by Don Alfonso (Johannes Martin Kränzle), who proceeds to put the two young couples – Ferrando (Daniel Behle) and Dorabella (Angela Brower), and Guglielmo (Alessio Arduini) and Fiordiligi (Corinne Winters) – through their respective paces with the assistance of an oft-disguised Despina (Sabina Puértolas). With an emphasis on the artificiality of the plot and the need for strong theatrics to pull it off, we are taken on a time-travelling whistle-stop tour of sets that include ...

RashDash are back with a world premiere at HOME Manchester

9Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

RashDash are back with a world premiere at HOME Manchester

RashDash return to live action with a world premiere live performance of their Part concept album, part documentary Don’t Go Back To Sleep: The Lockdown Album The album’s 11 songs takes the words of people in the middle of a pandemic and turns them into song in this new production which opens on Wednesday 21st October and runs to Saturday 24th October, 18 participants from across 12 countries have added their voices to the album, including a mother in Milan, a professor in Britain, a student in China and a doctor in Sweden. RashDash sampled these interviews and wove the text into songs that hope to shine a light on the personal and political, the anxieties, realisations, and moments of joy when we find ourselves confined to our own homes. The trio say this show is pop, punk,...

9Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

Seeds – No Stone Theatre

No Stone Theatre were developing a play looking at the legacy of Nikolai Vavilov when everything was stalled by the Covid-19 pandemic. So instead the focus was shifted to create an audio drama podcast drama series, the first of which has been released this week. The subsequent seven episodes will be released weekly on a Wednesday. Nicolai Vavilov (1887-1943) was a Russian botanist, agronomist and geneticist He was very concerned over the inability of much of the world to escape famine and worked to improve wheat and other cereal crops in the hope of sustaining the world population. He started the world's first seedbank in Leningrad as part of his ambition to create an easily maintained food source. Unfortunately, he fell foul of Stalin and was arrested and imprisoned in Saratov, dying t...

8Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Alty Fringe Announce Its All Star Festival Programme

Live Theatre returns to Manchester next month with a new Covid-Secure live arts event staged at the Altrincham Garrick Playhouse over 2 weeks. Alty Fringe will showcase the amazing talent from our region and beyond, with everything from live theatre, children’s shows, comedy, and live music. The festival was originally being staged from Monday 23rd to Sunday 29th November, however an extra week has now been added and will now end on Saturday 6th December with even more shows to be confirmed. Event Organiser Max Eden has been working with the Altrincham Garrick Playhouse to bring live theatre and the arts back safely to the community, by staging the ‘Fringe Style’ series of events. putting in place several Covid safety measures which include - reduced socially distanced capacity in th...

Casting Announced for North West End UK Live at The Garrick

7Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS, NWE UK Live

Casting Announced for North West End UK Live at The Garrick

North West End UK are thrilled to announce casting for our one night only concert which concludes the first week of the inaugural Alty Festival taking place at the Altrincham Garrick Playhouse on the 29th November 2020. Since our creation North West End UK has championed amateur theatre on the same platform as their professional counterparts, and this concert cements our belief that both genres are equal in every way. We have brought together three sensational multi award winning vocalists for a very special evening of musical theatre. Featuring some of the most memorable show tunes from productions including Ghost, Miss Saigon, Annie, Jekyll & Hyde, Matilda, We Will Rock You, Waitress and SIX, Bethany Heywood (Wedding Singer – PAP Productions), Sophie Lord (Little Shop of Ho...

6Oct

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Yorkshire & Humber

Connecting Voices – Leeds Playhouse

There’s no doubt that after seven months away most theatre lovers were so desperate for any live experience they’d watch pretty much anything – good, bad or indifferent. But that low benchmark was never going to be good enough for Leeds Playhouse and Opera North who have teamed up to create Connecting Voices as their comeback socially distanced mini-season of four very different short pieces. These two powerhouses have carefully crafted stripped down pieces almost devoid of any staging focusing instead on both the safety of the creatives, and the small audiences safely dotted around the Playhouse’s different spaces. It is a smorrebrod of styles that can be enjoyed in one sitting over a few hours that begins with Francis Poulenc’s short opera La Voix Humaine based on Cocteau’s play...