Tracy Ryan, Author at North West End UK

16Jul

By Tracy RyanNo Comments

North West

Blackbird – Liverpool’s Royal Court

David Harrower’s controversial, award-winning 2005 play about historical sexual abuse has been revived by Southport-based company, Roots Theatre – and enabled by hundreds of supporters through crowdfunding – and it still packs a punch; if anything, the passage of time has increased its potency. Fifteen years after their relationship, 20-something Una appears at Ray’s place of work, tracking him down to challenge him about their relationship and why he abandoned her: the shock is that Una was 12 at the time & and Ray 40. The real-time, one act drama is fraught with tension, dynamism & repressed fury as the damaged characters reminisce and reveal their pain - not simply of abuse but of abandonment, betrayal and jealousy, which caused The New York Times to say when the play was ...

27Jun

By Tracy RyanNo Comments

North West

Offered Up – Royal Court Studio

How do you look anew at the issues thrown up by the now overwrought and at times morally exhausting #MeToo movement? Well, why not in a play set in the English Civil War? This first full-length work by local writer Joe Matthew-Morris not only deals with a huge variety of weighty issues - including sexual politics, abuse, trauma, the independence of women, class and politics, the weight of parental expectation, war and poverty - but is impressively almost uncategorizable genre-wise. (A fellow writer said it was a cross between Sleuth and Tarantino). It’s also well-nigh impossible to flesh out the plot without bringing major spoilers and story twists into play - but, here goes… It’s 1645 and inn keeper Willmas is grieving the loss of his wife, while trying to raise his teenage daughter Ro...

Farmaggedon: ‘Resurrection 2021’ – Farmer Ted’s Farm Park

14Oct

By Tracy RyanNo Comments

North West

Farmaggedon: ‘Resurrection 2021’ – Farmer Ted’s Farm Park

After 14 seasons, the award-winning interactive horror theme park Farmaggedon (the slightly twisted but ever-entertaining brainchild of Mark Edwards) is back with new experiences, additional creatures of the night, extra fairground & a ramped up Carnivalesque atmosphere. I confess that I have nothing to compare this experience to - being a middle-aged woman and a new attendee - but as a lover of horror films for over 40 years, my interest was piqued; the other hundreds of waiting participants were clearly stoked & giddy as they moved through animal pens on their way in, growing more nervous or excitable the closer they got to the entrance The first thing you notice are the cast of grotesques: a hideously botoxed-deformed and massive boob-enhanced nurse trips around menacingly...

9Oct

By Tracy RyanNo Comments

North West

Good Grief – Unity Theatre

A leg protrudes from a jagged gravestone adorned with neon pink ‘RIP’ lettering; a sort of Tracey Emin meets Anthony Gormley start to a frenetic, pumped-up and kinetic sixty minutes of clowning, slapstick, techno & recorded interview excerpts from Liverpool-based company Ugly Bucket, Using minimal props and costume accoutrements, the best gift this youthful and award winning physical theatre company possess is a seeming electric current running through them; five bodies juddering, jumping, gyrating & jerking into life, but each with their own style and skill set – as they perform their terminally ill friend & mentor’s wish, a play about death for his memorial. The show could have been macabre, intrusive and even offensive, but in Ugly Bucket’s hands, the show is energised...

8Sep

By Tracy RyanNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Groan Ups – Sheffield Lyceum

After meeting at Drama school 13 years ago the in suppressible Mischief Theatre members have continued to have us rolling in the aisles with their next instalment Groan Ups. Following on from the successful West End located The Play that goes Wrong, and the Penn and Teller collaboration Magic Goes Wrong; the seasonal Peter Pan Goes Wrong and the standalone The Comedy about a Bank Robbery, the work ethic of Mischief is admirable. Groan Ups takes a slightly different persona to the former being more an observational comedy and does not rely on physical comedy as it’s lynch. It has real moments of nostalgic pathos as it follows the lives of five friends at three intervals in their lives from primary school to the obligatory school reunion. All taking place within a classroom the set reduce...

31Jul

By Tracy RyanNo Comments

North West

Sleepover – Unity Theatre

This is my first sleepover. I am 54 and sitting on a bed in Kelly house, reading Just Seventeen and drinking Malibu, while four teenage female friends laugh, gossip, talk crushes & nipple hair, improvise dance routines & do a bit of karaoke – as well as snog some of their posters. This is All Things Considered’s delightful, nostalgia-fest, a 90-minute interactive celebration of friendship, sisterhood & all things teenage girl in the 1990s – a heady time where New Kids on the Block, White Musk perfume & Regal ciggies reigned. The audience (13 women & one privileged young bloke) are escorted to beds encircling the action on arrival by the cast; we’re immediately engaged in conversation & faced with a torrent of excitable questions - and from there things become eve...

The Storm Shepherd – All Things Considered

5May

By Tracy RyanNo Comments

REVIEWS

The Storm Shepherd – All Things Considered

For eight years All Things Considered has been quietly but powerfully ploughing their own unique, socially engaged theatre furrow in Liverpool - encouraging conversations between people through intimate, participatory and immersive performance, and exploring topics from male suicide to parenthood and poverty. Their new play, The Storm Shepherd, is an extremely up close & personal, absorbing audio-kinetic/sensory/tactile and interactive experience for adults and children. And it’s brilliant! Written by ATC stalwart Stuart Crowther, The Storm Shepherd takes place in audience homes, ears and imaginations, as participants are issued with an online audio link, plus a physical storytelling pack through the post. (The initial glee I experienced unboxing the beautifully compact and colourfu...