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Theatre makers Slung Low promise free books to local kids

26Oct

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Theatre makers Slung Low promise free books to local kids

Theatre company Slung Low have never taken the conventional route and before the pandemic they took a big risk in taking over a struggling South Leeds working men’s club to better engage with their local community. The Holbeck has become a place where Slung Low produce their own work, run a free community college and as the virus struck they staged outdoor events in their car park. But as Leeds battles COVID their artistic director Alan Lane decided his team needed to do more. They have pledged to give every child in the area a free copy of a picture book ‘Emergency Story Penguin’ which they created based on one of their touring shows. Kids at those shows were told that every theatre had an emergency story unit in it, and they needed to join Slung Low on a journey to save stori...

Festive Cheer with Sleeping Beauty at The Dukes

20Oct

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Festive Cheer with Sleeping Beauty at The Dukes

Families can enjoy some festive cheer at The Dukes this Christmas as the Lancaster venue have announced a brand new, socially distanced production of Sleeping Beauty. Performed in the Round from December 11th – 31st, this inventive and exciting new take on the classic tale is co-written and co-directed by Sarah Punshon and Daniel Bye. Sleeping Beauty also reunites the creative talents of the teams behind The Dukes’ recent successful Christmas productions of Aladdin, Peter Pan and last year’s Cinderella. Audiences are invited to join two fairy godmothers as they tell the tale of Rose, a bold and daring young girl whose journey into the unknown depths of the forest puts her face-to-face with hidden castles, magic spells and a wicked, wicked fairy. Will Rose be able to break th...

Brian Conley will star as Ebenezer Scrooge

19Oct

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Brian Conley will star as Ebenezer Scrooge

Alan Menken, Lynn Ahrens and Mike Ockrent’s acclaimed musical of A Christmas Carol to play limited season at Dominion Theatre with Performances begin Monday 7th December 2020. Brian Conley will star as Ebenezer Scrooge this Christmas, as an exciting new, musical staged concert of Alan Menken, Lynn Ahrens and Mike Ockrent's A Christmas Carol will play a strictly limited season at the Dominion Theatre in London. Performances run from Monday 7th December 2020 to Saturday 2nd January 2021. The musical brings Dickens’ timeless fable to glorious life: Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean-spirited miser, does not believe in the power of Christmas. But on a Christmas Eve filled with memorable characters, spectacular songs, ghostly apparitions and journeys to the past, present and future, Scrooge acknowl...

One-Man Comedy By Jonathan Harvey To Tour Starring Andrew Lancel

19Oct

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One-Man Comedy By Jonathan Harvey To Tour Starring Andrew Lancel

Following its critically acclaimed sell-out premiere at Liverpool Theatre Festival in September, Swan Song, a revised comedy by acclaimed playwright Jonathan Harvey, will commence a short tour this year playing at venues opening to socially distanced audiences. Swan Song, a one-man play starring TV and stage actor Andrew Lancel, is directed by BAFTA award-winning director Noreen Kershaw and produced by Bill Elms. The play will open at Liverpool’s Unity Theatre for four performances over two nights, this will be the first live indoor performance at the theatre since closing in March. The show then moves on to Dukes Lancaster, Alty Fringe at the Garrick Playhouse in Altrincham, The Cresset in Peterborough and the Belgrade in Coventry. More dates are to be confirmed soon. Swan Song w...

Barrie Rutter performs a charity gig for Slung Low

19Oct

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Barrie Rutter performs a charity gig for Slung Low

There are very few actors who you recognise just by their surname but Barrie Rutter is one of them. Rutter founded Halifax based Northern Broadsides as a vehicle for actors from across the north to perform Shakespeare classics and new work in their own accents working in non-traditional spaces. Rutter's socially distanced appearance at the Holbeck Working Men's Club on Saturday 7th November is his first performance since recovering from throat cancer as he talks about his life on the boards and performs excerpts from plays in his infamously unapologetic northern dialect. After being given a part in a school play because his teacher said the Hull fishmonger's son had ‘the gob for it' and he discovered a love of performing. He went onto the National Youth Theatre the...

Red Ladder are back with My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored

19Oct

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Red Ladder are back with My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored

Radical theatre company Red Ladder are back with a new touring production My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored. It’s the debut work by 29-year-old Ghanian-English writer Nana-Kofi Kufuor interrogating black identity and posing a big question for our troubled times: if you see something you do not agree with, do you intervene? What happens if you’re a teacher, and the issue is with your student? What happens if you're outside of work, and see them stopped and searched and manhandled by the police? Do you run over and stop the act, or do you watch, and wait to find out all the facts? That’s the dilemma for Gillian Akwasi, a black twenty-something teacher who watches while her student, Reece Ofori, is roughly accosted by the police. The next day, he confronts her before locking them...

18Oct

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Imaginarium – Dazed New World Festival

This imaginatively named theatre is part of the Dazed New World Festival, put together by Applecarts Arts, based in East London. The festival will explore other themes of social injustice and mental health. A festival that aims to explore some of the more difficult conversations we’re having with narratives that challenge you to think out of the box and try to make sense of the current climate which is giving live theatre some of the biggest difficulties it ever has. It’s live streamed on Vimeo, and apart from a series of instructions received preshow there’s no indication of what to expect from tonight’s performance. Although it does say your bedroom will be transformed into a new playground which sounds very enticing. The creatives behind Imaginarium are Out of the Blue Thea...

A Christmas Carol announced at the Liverpool Playhouse this winter

18Oct

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A Christmas Carol announced at the Liverpool Playhouse this winter

Christmas is coming…and the Liverpool Playhouse is set to stage a festive treat for Liverpool audiences this winter, with an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ festive classic A Christmas Carol from 4th – 24th December. A small cast of actors will perform in Patrick Barlow’s (The 39 Steps) witty and joyous adaptation of the 19th century story, directed by Gemma Bodinetz in her final production as Artistic Director of the theatres. Featuring carols and songs, the production is a warm, witty and inventive gift for Liverpool audiences. Making the short trip down from the Everyman, Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto favourite Adam Keast swaps his flares for a nightcap and the Everyman stage for the Playhouse stage, to play Ebenezer Scrooge. Adam will perform alongside other local actors, maintaining social...

Tamsin Greig joins the stars performing Talking Heads in Yorkshire

18Oct

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Tamsin Greig joins the stars performing Talking Heads in Yorkshire

Tamsin Greig is the latest big name to perform one of Alan Bennett’s classic Talking Heads monologues in Leeds and Sheffield. Tamsin will perform the dark Nights in the Gardens of Spain, directed by Marianne Elliott, joining Imelda Staunton and Maxine Peake who also be performing their monologies at Leeds Playhouse and Sheffield Crucible. “I’m thrilled to be invited to perform Alan Bennett’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain at Sheffield Crucible and Leeds Playhouse after a very happy run at the Bridge Theatre,” says Tamsin Greig. Photographer: Zac Nicholson “It’s wonderful to be able to support and enjoy regional theatres especially during these extraordinary times for live performance venues. And how fantastic to perform these Bennett words in their region of origin.” In line...

Slung Low launches scheme to give every kid in their area a free book

18Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

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Slung Low launches scheme to give every kid in their area a free book

Theatre innovators Slung Low run a members club/performance space in the Leeds area of Holbeck and have launched a scheme to give every local child in Holbeck a free book. The company is renowned for both its theatre work and the work it does with its local community in South Leeds. During the pandemic they have been operating a food bank, co-ordinating a cultural community college, and managing the country’s oldest working men’s club. A part of their community work three of the Slung Low team spent a week at Holbeck’s Ingram Road Primary School reading their new book Emergency Story Penguin to the pupils ending the sessions by giving all 340 of them a copy. Emergency Story Penguin follows Lady Grace Thompson and her crew on an adventure around the secret underground tunnels t...