North West Archives - Page 113 of 115

21Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Swan Song – Liverpool Theatre Festival

Award-winning writer Jonathan Harvey’s clever monologue was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and Hampstead Theatre in 1997. Reimagined by Harvey for the Liverpool Theatre Festival, and under the direction of BAFTA award-winning director Noreen Kershaw, it stars Andrew Lancel as English teacher Dave Titswell in a world that is changing both inside and outside of his treasured classroom. Delivered over five segued acts, we humorously contemplate Dave’s lessons in life, garnered from his twenty five years in the teaching profession, as he is faced with the conundrum of whether he has now reached the end of the line or if a school trip to the Lakes will change things for the better. With liberal doses of good humour throughout, what we discover on the way as we navigate his overzealo...

Judy and Liza – Liverpool Theatre Festival

19Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Judy and Liza – Liverpool Theatre Festival

The glamour and glitz of Vaudeville brought joy in a derelict church in Liverpool on an Autumn evening. Judy and Liza is a musical homage and biopic of these giants of the big screen and stage Judy Garland, played by Helen Sheals (Mrs Wigan from Downton Abbey) and Liza Minnelli played by Emma Dears (West End singer/actress who also created the show). The show explores through songs, memories and anecdotes, the talents and turbulence of this mother and daughter relationship as they leaf through the family photo album. There is such a richness of songs between the two that the difficulty was which numbers to leave out. It starts with Garland’s childhood. She was born the youngest of three daughters to Frank and Ethel Gumm, who had their own movie theatre and were keen to introduce ...

Music of The Night – Liverpool Theatre Festival

18Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Music of The Night – Liverpool Theatre Festival

Last night I was back again to the Liverpool theatre festival at St Luke’s Church for another show entitled Music of the Night. A show full of some of the greatest musical numbers of all time. The show was sung by to performers Roy Locke who has starred in Phantom of the Opera in Australia and Germany. Joining him was Olivia Brereton who was in the recent Les Misérables tour and has played Christine in Phantom on the West End. From the off the singing was out of this world and in a cloudless night sky it was the perfect setting for this show. We learned about their careers and why they choose the songs. However, I found the set up of the show frustrating. They played music before the show to set the mood but half of the songs they played we heard again with them singing. I’m all...

The Very Best Of Tommy Cooper (Just like that!) – Liverpool Theatre Festival

15Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS, North West

The Very Best Of Tommy Cooper (Just like that!) – Liverpool Theatre Festival

I backed a horse today at 20 to 1… it came in at 20 past 4 As a child I remember sitting with the family and on came this man in a fez he was funny and very silly his name was Tommy Cooper. I remember thinking I’d love to see this man live but sadly he passed away. So, when I saw that the Liverpool Theatre Festival had a Tommy Copper show, I jumped at the chance to go. Daniel Taylor a local Liverpudlian actor best known for his tenure as Sammy Johnstone in Blood brothers in both the tour and West End show was playing the Magician. Upon entering the St Luke’s Church venue, I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I can tell you is that I didn’t expect what I saw. Daniel Taylor was the living embodiment of the late great Tommy Cooper. His voice, tone, mannerisms were nailed to a tee....

Deathly Confessions – Liverpool Theatre Festival

15Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Deathly Confessions – Liverpool Theatre Festival

Amidst a global pandemic we laugh about death in these four darkly comic monologues. On an unseasonably warm September evening Liverpool Theatre Festival hosted this performance written by Emma Culshaw and David Paul in St Luke’s Church, the socially distanced venue for the festival, which is an iconic roofless, bombed out church building which has become a centre for arts and performance. There was a cautious audience keen to welcome back live theatre, the stage was sparse with wooden boxes and very little in the way of costume, lighting or audio effects, so it was the ability of the actors that was to keep the audience enthralled. First up was Thomas Galashan as a guilt-ridden ex-soldier revisiting the site of a war time tragedy. Telling his tale whilst swigging from a hip flask a...

Laughterhouse Comedy – Liverpool Theatre Festival

13Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Laughterhouse Comedy – Liverpool Theatre Festival

Theatre is alive once again here in Liverpool, the Bombed-out Church is hosting the Liverpool Theatre Festival by Bill Elms Associates. Offering theatre from plays to comedy and even music. Its fair to say its been a rather odd few months with the Corona Virus but last night felt like theatre has never been away. Each pod was socially distanced, and it was seat service when it came to ordering drinks. Before entering your temperature is taken and hands are sanitised. The staff of the festival were on the ball when it came to safety. Last night’s entertainment was a comedy night from Laughterhouse Comedy. Opening the night was Compere Chris Cairns whose fast-witted humour had the audience laughing as soon as he started speaking. His humours and quick-fire nature started the night right. ...

9Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Rose – Hope Mill Theatre

Rose is sitting shiva, participating in the Jewish tradition of mourning someone who has died and sharing stories about their life. And this particular death turns out to be tangled up with her story in a way that is really quite unexpected. As she sits, she shares snapshots from her own life that sometimes seem a little disconnected, as she wanders through the images in her memory, trying to separate the things that actually happened to her from the movies she has seen over the years and the stories she has been told; recognising that there are some things that she just doesn’t want to remember. Rose begins by talking about growing up in a Jewish village in Ukraine, her relationship with her parents and siblings, and the civil war and its consequences. She talks about following her br...

7Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Buxton Opera House

Buxton Opera House is in The Square, Buxton, Derbyshire, England. It is a 902-seat opera house that hosts the annual Buxton Festival and, from 1994 to 2013, the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, among others, as well as pantomime at Christmas, musicals and other entertainments year-round. Hosting live performances until 1927, the theatre then was used mostly as a cinema until 1976. In 1979, it was refurbished and reopened as a venue for live performance. History It was built in 1903 and designed by Frank Matcham, one of Britain's finest theatre architects. He also designed a number of famous London theatres, including the London Palladium (1910) and the London Coliseum (1904). The Opera House ran as a successful theatre, receiving touring companies until 1927, when...

7Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Grand Theatre, Blackpool

The Blackpool Grand was designed by Victorian theatre architect Frank Matcham and was opened in 1894 after a construction period of seven months, at a cost of £20,000 between December 1893 and July 1894. The project was conceived and financed by local theatre manager Thomas Sergenson who had been using the site of the Grand for several years to stage a circus. He had also transformed the fortunes of other local theatres. Matcham's brief was to build Sergenson the "prettiest theatre in the land". The Grand was Matcham's first theatre to use an innovative 'cantilever' design to support the tiers, thereby reducing the need for the usual pillars and so allowing clear views of the stage from all parts of the auditorium. Sergenson's successful directorship of the ...

7Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Empire Theatre, Liverpool

Liverpool Empire Theatre is a theatre located on the corner of Lime Street and London Road in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, United Kingdom. The playhouse, which opened in 1925, is the second one to be built on the site. It has the largest two-tier auditorium in Britain and can seat 2,348 people. During its time it has hosted many types of entertainment, including variety shows, musicals, operas, pop concerts, and plays. The Beatles appeared in the theatre in their early days. The theatre has hosted two Royal Command Performances and in 2007, a Royal Variety Performance to mark Liverpool's being designated a European City of Culture the following year. It is sited in the William Brown Street Conservation Area. History The site's first theatre, which was at that time was Liverpo...