North West Archives - Page 84 of 178

1Nov

By Angela KellyNo Comments

North West

2:22 A Ghost Story – The Lowry

Written by Danny Robins and directed by Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr, ‘2:22 A Ghost Story’ is an Olivier Award nominated thriller that first premiered in the West End in 2021. Having already captivated the West End, this gripping story is now on the move to impress more audiences across the country. Appropriately opening at the Lowry on the evening of Halloween only added to the audience’s anticipation. The story is essentially about the potential haunting of a new home. New mum ‘Jenny’ (Louisa Lytton) argues that the house is haunted and her husband, science obsessed ‘Sam’ (Nathaniel Curtis), vehemently disagrees. Over the night Jenny becomes more and more desperate to quash all of Sams ‘scientific theories’ as she is convinced there are strange ‘ghostly’ occurrences in the house. &...

The Woman Who Crossed the Road – Theatre Porto

31Oct

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

The Woman Who Crossed the Road – Theatre Porto

The uprising in Iran is just over a year old. Women are still demonstrating, refusing to wear their headscarves and shouting ‘Woman. Life. Freedom’. At the same time, the government is hitting back, often literally: in the past week, a sixteen-year-old girl died suffering from brain damage after an alleged altercation with morality police who had assaulted her for not wearing a hijab. Performed by Najmeh Shoara, born in Iran but forced to leave to keep herself safe and sane, she is in the UK for the first time to tell this story which, written and directed by Kevin Dyer, is based on the true stories of the many women forced to leave places and start over again. Whilst pre-dating the tragic death of Mahsa Amini in Iran in September 2022, it was updated to reflect its Iranian origins and ...

Brendan Son of Dublin – The Tung Auditorium

30Oct

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Brendan Son of Dublin – The Tung Auditorium

In the 100th anniversary year of the birth of the infamous Brendan Behan, Fatdan Productions present the second of their musical dramas focusing on the ‘outsider’, following their 2021 play on Oscar Wilde, as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival. Written by John Merrigan and with music and lyrics by Danielle Morgan, director and visual artist Professor Pamela Howard OBE presents a semi-staged production to explore the enigma that is Behan. With the simplest of staging that includes three stools, three chairs, and a clothes rack, Behan (Pádraig Lynch) steps through the key phases of his life from impassioned young Republican through to literary lush, with supporting characters portrayed by an ensemble (Gillian McCafferty; John Newcombe; Jack Klaff; Ann Marcuson; Ross Scarfield) and the s...

30Oct

By Peter RuddickNo Comments

North West

Spam Valley – 53two

There is something intensely personal about Spam Valley. Perhaps unsurprising given it is described as an ‘autobiographical monologue’ of Kevin P. Gilday’s journey from working-class Glasgow to a middle-class career on the stage. But what makes the show extra special is how universal and relevant it is. Blending poetry and spoken word this is part stand up, part sermon. A hilarious, heartbreaking and extraordinary analysis of class. Under the 53two arches sits a solitary plastic chair, a microphone on a stand and a clothes rail of jackets: from the classic Umbro zip up to the badged blazer beloved by the arterati. One person monologues like this rely on the audience feeling secure in the hands of the performer. Gilday emerges and delivers his brilliant poem The Old Men In Weth...

The House Amongst the Willows – Formby Little Theatre

30Oct

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

The House Amongst the Willows – Formby Little Theatre

Fletcher (Peter Harris) is taking his fiancée Sadie (Hannah Johnson) away for a week, but they will be staying with the parents, Paul (Michael Leathley) and Erin (Vicky Birrell), of his previous wife, Laura (Donna M Day). Although engaged, they haven’t been together that long and Sadie is about to discover more than she had bargained for when his friend Josh (Simon James), a former policeman, reveals some hidden truths about Fletcher’s previous relationship, and when his Parisian ex, Kelly (Samantha Jones), turns up, things are about to get really complicated. If that’s not enough to get you started, then director Day’s unravelling of the subtext of the story definitely will as all is most certainly not what it seems in this tranquil part of middle England. Without giving too much away,...

Close Up Concert – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

28Oct

By Kiefer WilliamsNo Comments

North West

Close Up Concert – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

This concert in the intimate surroundings of the fantastic Music Room at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall features the outstanding UK clarinettist Julian Bliss accompanied by the excellent pianist James Baillieu. The concert included five superb pieces of music written for clarinet and piano. Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet and piano (1962) is a short, energetic, and quite dazzling piece. In three movements, Poulenc’s sonata simply soars and brings a whole new meaning to the word melodic – the second slow movement is absolutely beautiful, and Bliss really shows us why he is one of the UK’s first and foremost exponents of the clarinet. Claude Debussy’s Premiere Rapsodie (First Rhapsody) (1910) is a sublime and exhilarating piece of music and altho...

To Wong Foo The Musical – Hope Mill Theatre

27Oct

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

To Wong Foo The Musical – Hope Mill Theatre

Back in 1994 a struggling playwright called Douglas Carter Beane went to Hollywood and sold the rights to a screenplay he had written, a year later a movie called 'To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar' was born. This 'road movie in drag' was a modest hit on release, helped by the star power of Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes donning sequins and high heels for the silver screen. Now nearly thirty years later Carter Beane has teamed up with Lewis Flinn, added music and lyrics and brought the world premiere of 'To Wong Foo The Musical' to the home of the innovative new musical, Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester. When Vida Boheme (Peter Caulfield) and Noxeema Jackson (Gregory Haney) jointly win 'New York Drag Queen of the Year', with an all expenses paid trip to Hollywood as the ...

The Addams Family – St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School

26Oct

By Katie LeicesterNo Comments

North West

The Addams Family – St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School

Spooky season is upon us and what better production to stage than Addams Family, Newton Amateur Dramatic and Operatic Society (NADOS) just one week before Halloween have created the right amount of spookiness for this spectacular family musical comedy. Staged in a high school there was a huge buzz of families with their children dressed in Halloween outfits or as characters from the show, it was a delight to see the community spirit with front of house dressed in Halloween attire and all pulling together to ensure the audience was well catered for and able to find their seating. Addams Family has become enormously popular in the autumn months for many theatre companies, this being my third viewing of the show in less than a couple of months. The story is that of the kooky, upside-...

26Oct

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Romeo & Juliet – Royal Exchange Theatre

In over 40 years of watching and reviewing theatre, I've seen a lot of Shakespeare, some very good, some indifferent and some very bad. The best productions manage to make even the most well known phrases in the canon sound both newly minted and instantly understandable, whilst giving the story a fresh context and relevance to the particular audience it seeks to entertain. The new production of Romeo & Juliet at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester does both of these and much more, ranking amongst the best I have seen in recent years at this lovely venue. Director Nicholai la Barrie firmly embeds his tale of the 'star crossed lovers' in the inner city streets of Manchester, his Verona does not feature the palazzo's and palaces of 16th century Italy instead it is the rain soaked ...

By the Waters of Liverpool – Floral Pavilion

25Oct

By Damian RiverolNo Comments

North West

By the Waters of Liverpool – Floral Pavilion

Pulse Stage Productions in association with Bill Elms bring the follow up to Twopence to cross the Mersey, By the Waters of Liverpool, to the Floral Pavilion for its final date of the UK tour. By the Waters of Liverpool continues to tell the story of Helen Forrester (Emma Mulligan) and her family in the 1930s as they have been forced to leave behind their nannies, servants and middle-class life as Helen’s father went bankrupt during the Great Depression. The story is told through narration by the actors themselves, talking to the audience to set the scene or tell you how their characters are feeling, which is where, at points, it became a little confusing as there is no separation from dialogue to narration, the actors just continued talking within the scene, feeling quite disjoin...