Paul Wilcox, Author at North West End UK

A Taste of Honey – Royal Exchange Theatre

21Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

A Taste of Honey – Royal Exchange Theatre

In 1958, a 19-year-old Salford girl called Shelagh Delaney went to watch 'Variation on a Theme' by Terence Rattigan at Manchester’s Opera House. Incensed at the portrayal of homosexual relationships in the play, she came out of the theatre thinking she could do something far better, inside two weeks she had written 'A Taste of Honey'. This raw and powerful story of poverty, race and sexuality quickly became a crucial part of the 'British New Wave’ and later supplied Morrissey with half the lyrics on the debut Smiths album. The beating heart of this play is the relationship between Helen (Jill Halfpenny) and her teenage daughter Jo (Rowan Robinson), they are first seen arriving in squalid lodgings in a Salford backstreet with little money and even less hope. Helen is described by Dela...

Unravelling the Ribbon – Altrincham Garrick Playhouse

20Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Unravelling the Ribbon – Altrincham Garrick Playhouse

At a time when life in the real world presents significant strain, spending an evening at the theatre is seen by many people as an opportunity to escape the stress of their everyday lives. Therefore, ‘Unravelling the Ribbon’, a play dealing with a diagnosis of cancer and its effects on the lives of three women may seem a difficult subject with which to tempt people away from the comfort of hearth and home. However, should they choose to do so they will be rewarded with a production that both tugs at the heartstrings and tickles the funny bone despite its dark premise. Director Lou Kershaw takes the helm for the first time in the tiny Lauriston Studio and brings an intimacy borne of personal experience to the story of Rose (Caroline Giles), Lola (Alex Saint) and Lyndsey (Holly O’Malley) ...

17Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

American Buffalo – King’s Arms, Salford

As a reviewer, five star shows appear in many guises; last night I sat in the cavernous surroundings of Manchester Opera House with 1,919 other hardy souls watching Sir Ian McKellen give a bravura performance as Falstaff in a four hour adaptation of Henry IV. Now, less than 24 hours later a sold out audience of just 35 are privileged to witness a very different, but equally compelling production in entirely different surroundings. Lisa Connor combines the job of Director of the Greater Manchester Fringe with her role as owner of The Kings Arms in Salford, in the latter capacity she has pulled off something of a coup by tempting legendary Director David Thacker to stage a production of David Mamet’s ‘American Buffalo’ in the tiny theatre that nestles above this backstreet Salford boozer....

Northanger Abbey – Octagon Theatre, Bolton

6Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Northanger Abbey – Octagon Theatre, Bolton

The first months of 2024 have brought a plethora of fresh writing to our region and following hot on the heels of new works by Jim Cartwright, Emma Rice and Phoebe Eclair-Powell comes an absolute gem by a little known writer from Hampshire called Jane Austen… Of course, we know that Northanger Abbey was published over two centuries ago, and Austen is so famous that she adorns every ten pound note in England, but this radical and stylised adaptation from Zoe Cooper allows us to see the story as almost freshly minted, the result is a startlingly fresh and inventive take on the mores of Regency England. Subverting Austen’s own omniscient narrator, we hear the story from the perspective of Cath (Rebecca Banatvala), reenacting her life and recent adventures with Iz (AK Golding) and Hen (Sam ...

Vanya – National Theatre Live – Altrincham Garrick Playhouse

4Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Vanya – National Theatre Live – Altrincham Garrick Playhouse

The latest offering from National Theatre Live screened this evening at Altrincham Garrick Playhouse, and whilst ‘Vanya’ featured an acting performance from Andrew Scott that garnered deserved plaudits during its West End run last year, I found the overall production something to be admired rather than loved. Scott, director Sam Yates and designer Rosanna Vize share equal billing as co-creators alongside writer Simon Stephens, who relocates Chekhov’s tragicomedy to a 20th-century Irish farm, preserving the plaintive sadness of the 1897 original story whilst seeking to shed new light onto the characters through Scott’s inventive interpretation. He plays everyone, differentiating men and women, young and old, with subtle changes of vocal register and body language. His performance is w...

Shed: Exploded View – Royal Exchange Theatre

16Feb

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Shed: Exploded View – Royal Exchange Theatre

Back in 2019, in those halcyon pre pandemic days, Phoebe Eclair-Powell won the biannual Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting and with it the opportunity to develop ‘Shed: Exploded View’ for production at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. Now, after an enforced hiatus of nearly four years, we finally get to see the startling and thought provoking theatre she produced, a piece of writing that will both challenge and engage its audience. The play follows the lives of three couples over a thirty year period from the mid-nineties to the present day as they negotiate the vicissitudes of married life, from the early promise of new love to the dark reality of a relationship breakdown, all the troughs and peaks are explored. We meet Frank (Jason Hughes) and Naomi (Lizzie Watts) in 1994, honeymooning ...

15Feb

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

The Gap – Hope Mill Theatre

The small (but perfectly formed) Hope Mill Theatre in Ancoats has firmly established itself over the last decade as the place to see innovative and exciting musical theatre productions, their ability to produce consistently excellent shows during this time has seen this Mancunian gem showered with deserved praise and awards galore. That success looks set to continue into 2024 for owners William Whelton and Joe Houston, as in something of a theatrical coup they have secured the premiere of a new Jim Cartwright play ‘The Gap’, featuring bravura performances from two very familiar faces from stage and screen. Matthew Kelly and Denise Welch may be known to a large percentage of the population for their presenting roles on television shows such as ‘Loose Women’ and ‘Stars In Their Eyes’, but...

14Feb

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Bluebeard – HOME, Manchester

Lighter nights and the promise of Spring is in the air as I sit in Tony Wilson Place outside HOME, Manchester’s gorgeous arts venue, which is finally delivering on its promise of new and interesting devised work as well as the best in challenging theatre from the UK and beyond. ‘Bluebeard’, the new offering from Wise Children, the company formed by Emma Rice in 2018, certainly falls into the latter category and offers an evening of music, magic and bizarre humour with a hard-hitting message wrapped in sumptuous theatrical style. We are led into this world by Mother Superior (Katy Owen), resplendent in the eponymous beard of the title, relating the cautionary tale of Treasure (Patrycja Kujawska) and her two daughters Trouble (Stephanie Hockley) and Lucky (Robyn Sinclair) as they become i...

Brief Encounter – Royal Exchange Theatre

8Dec

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Brief Encounter – Royal Exchange Theatre

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No 2 is undoubtedly one of the most famous pieces of music in cinematic history, the dark strains being synonymous with the 1945 David Lean directed 'Brief Encounter', its tone of repression and guilt defining a certain very English attitude to love and sex in the immediate post war period. The film was based on Noel Coward's pre war one-act play 'Still Life', and this festive season the Royal Exchange Theatre has turned this melancholy tale of squandered opportunity into a quirky and witty musical using songs exclusively from Coward's extensive back catalogue. The resulting Christmas confection is a soft fondant of nostalgic memory wrapped round a bittersweet centre. The central love story is the paper thin tale of Laura (Hannah Azuonye), an upper middle c...

7Dec

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Life Of Pi – The Lowry

As December arrives the theatre world is taken over by that curiously British institution, The Pantomime. With all its familiar tropes and traditions, it provides much needed distraction for excitable children who have consumed too much sugar over the festive period, as well as harassed parents sorely in need of a family themed distraction. For those who do not delight in such earthy offerings, over the next month the Lyric Theatre will be playing host to the UK and Ireland tour of ' Life of Pi', the West End and Broadway smash hit, providing a cerebral alternative to the tales of beanstalks, slippers and lamps that are available elsewhere. Based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel and adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabati, 'Life Of Pi' tells the extraordinary story of 17-year...