Paul Downham, Author at North West End UK

21Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Octagon Bolton announces reopening date

After two years the multi-million pounds rebuild at Bolton's Octagon is over and they reopen their doors on Friday 4th December. But theatre goers will have to wait a bit longer to sit in the new auditorium as they are only opening their spanking new Kitchen & Bar, a friendly space for casual eating, drinking and socialising. They will also be hosting some creative workshops, along with a series of festival events. The delay to the building caused by the pandemic, and the lack of a date from the government of when it will be safe for audiences to return without social distancing, means the Octagon have taken the difficult decision to postpone their previously announced productions. Their intriguing new musical version of Charles Dickens’ festive classic A Christmas Carol...

The Drifters Girl – rescheduled dates in 2021

21Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

The Drifters Girl – rescheduled dates in 2021

Michael Harrison and David Ian announce rescheduled dates for The Drifters Girl, a brand new musical starring Beverley Knight, which tells the remarkable story of one of the world’s greatest vocal groups The Drifters and the woman who made them. The Drifters Girl, to be directed by Jonathan Church (Singin’ In The Rain), will now make its World Premiere at Newcastle Theatre Royal next year on Saturday 9th October 2021, before transferring to the Garrick Theatre in London for a strictly limited season of 20 weeks, with performances beginning on Thursday 4th November 2021. Ticket holders do not need to do anything; the point of purchase will be in touch with all existing ticket holders soon. Beverley Knight stars as Faye Treadwell, the legendary manager of The Drifters, who, alongsid...

‘Blue Peter’ legend Peter Duncan launches Panto Online

21Aug

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NEWS

‘Blue Peter’ legend Peter Duncan launches Panto Online

Giant Blunderbore is in a terrible rage. He shouts from above threatening to eat any villager who won’t pay their rent. Poor Dame Trott has to sell her precious cow ‘Buttercup’ and sends her son Jack to the cow market. All he comes back with is a worthless bag of beans. Jill, the grumpy Squire’s daughter is kidnapped by the Giants dogsbody Fleshcreepy and taken to the castle in the clouds. Will Jack be the hero, climb the beanstalk, rescue his girlfriend and save the world from the human chomping ogre. Only the magical Garden Fairy knows the answer to that…. Join in and enjoy this new online planet-saving pantomime packed with songs, laughter and great spectacle. ‘Blue Peter’ legend Peter Duncan - a critically acclaimed Panto Dame, Writer and Director, is planning his biggest and bes...

Squad Goals to have world premiere at Dagenham and Redbridge FC

21Aug

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NEWS

Squad Goals to have world premiere at Dagenham and Redbridge FC

Squad Goals is a brand-new immersive show from Caspa Productions, opening for its world premiere at Dagenham & Redbridge Football Ground. Where better than to launch a show about football than in a football stadium as a socially distanced outdoor experience! This lively and inspiring play tells of the lives, ambitions and relationships among a diverse group of young female school leavers who are inspired by the success of England’s lionesses and form a 5-a-side squad in their hometown, Dagenham. Squad Goals follows the challenges they face as they struggle to be taken seriously in a world seemingly designed to stop them reaching their potential. Writer and co-director Michelle Payne comments Growing up in Essex, football was really important to me, I wanted to create show tha...

Emma Rice’s theatre company Wise Children bring digital tour of Romantics Anonymous to Liverpool

21Aug

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NEWS

Emma Rice’s theatre company Wise Children bring digital tour of Romantics Anonymous to Liverpool

A live performance of Wise Children, Bristol Old Vic and Plush Theatre Productions’ acclaimed Romantics Anonymous will be performed live and broadcast directly to Liverpool audiences on Tuesday 22nd September. In an act of industry solidarity, partner theatres across the world will sell tickets for director Emma Rice’s acclaimed musical on different nights of the week, with the Everyman & Playhouse joining eight other venues from the North of England for the Tuesday evening performance. Each night will be tailored to audiences at those different theatres, with a sprinkle of local flavour added before the stream begins. The musical, which will be performed live in Bristol Old Vic, is part of a five-day digital ‘tour’ involving 34 different theatres from 22nd – 26th September. ...

21Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

Defying GraviTT – Online@theSpace

One of the best things about fringe festivals is that you get to experience a range of shows that cannot quite be boxed into one category. One day it might be jugglers or the circus, the next a political rant or an intense two-hander about the restaurant provision for vegans. As shows have gone online during the current pandemic, they have attained an additional status from performers isolated from others by necessity, not always from choice. Boundaries have increasingly become blurred as creators experiment. In Defying GraviTT, The Fabulous TT aka Tish Tindall brings her wry observational skills and musical prowess to a one-person show which considers lockdown from the perspective of “a menopausal madwoman”. Part video diary, part song cycle, part cabaret, Tindall’s piece has ton...

The Plague Thing – Putney Theatre Company Online

21Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

The Plague Thing – Putney Theatre Company Online

Putney Theatre Company are an amateur company who encourage a feeling of community. The theatre company was originally two separate companies Group 64 which is their youth theatre section and Putney Players (previously Putney Amateur Dramatics Society) but they merged in 1999 to enable them to pool resources and work together. In this short vignette lasting 6 minutes, we hear from Enid (Carol Hudson) who lives in a care home and new lockdown rules have been introduced due to the pandemic. She is no longer able to go the community lounge, but must stay in her room, even for meals. As she states, “This is it – my room, my life!” Enid has dementia and her eyesight is not what it was, so she struggles to even watch TV. Just from this short statement we b...

Watching Rosie – Original Theatre Online

19Aug

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REVIEWS

Watching Rosie – Original Theatre Online

Original Theatre Company have led the way in producing high quality online productions during the pandemic. They swung into action quickly with the streaming of The Habit of Art, the Croft and Birdsong, all extremely well-presented plays and were very well received. Now Original Theatre Company have joined with writer Louise Coulthard who has adapted her play Watching Rosie for the digital audience. Rosie (Louise Coulthard) is used to seeing her granny most days, but because of the pandemic she has been resigned to communicating digitally. Her granny Alice (Miriam Margolyes) is suffering with dementia and Rosie is worried about her being on her own, Alice’s husband Arthur died some years ago and she misses him terribly. Alice worries about her granddaughter as sh...

18Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

At the Ghostlight: Online@theSpaceUK

Blue Fire Theatre have had two shows in planning for some time, focusing on household names of theatre past. In Kemp’s Jig, the spotlight falls on Will Kemp (c1560-1603), jester and low comedian for William Shakespeare’s company. In Marie Lloyd Saved My Life, we meet the Victorian music hall male impersonator Nelly Power (1854-1887). These shows would have opened at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, but instead the characters meet, backstage, in a short piece entitled At the Ghostlight. A chatty piece in which these two ghosts of the footlights meet in a deserted backstage area in a theatre, At the Ghostlight may be short at just under twelve minutes, but in J.J. Leppink’s thoughtful and funny script, it brings together two performers hundreds of years apart into a contemporary space to t...

The Murder(ed) Musketeers – The Space UK Online Festival

18Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

The Murder(ed) Musketeers – The Space UK Online Festival

As the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was not able to go ahead this year, venue ‘The Space UK’ have devised a replacement online festival to allow the artists who were due to perform at this year’s festival a chance to show off their production and to earn money via donations. Theatre company Highly Suspect, are more than just a theatre company, they also specialize in staging murder mystery events and given the fun injected into this production, I am sure their murder mystery evenings are equally packed with jolly japes. Before you begin to watch, it is a good idea to wander over to their website, as during the play, you will be asked to view the evidence to help in your quest to solve the crime which is saved on their website, it is a good idea to have access to this before you start.&n...