Yorkshire & Humber Archives - North West End UK

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – Sheffield Lyceum

12May

By Natalia PrucnalNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – Sheffield Lyceum

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold brings John Le Carré’s 1963 Cold War novel to the stage, alongside plenty of carefully woven drama, deception and espionage. The Ink Factory and Second Half Productions take us on a tumultuous journey to East Germany alongside British intelligence officer Alec Leamus at the Sheffield Lyceum Theatre. The play is well adapted by David Eldridge, with a relatively digestible storyline and many witty British references sprinkled throughout the script. It felt as though there was a lot of “telling”, with little “showing”, particularly in the first act. There were several times where characters, particularly Leamas, referred to the show’s title and broke the fourth wall, clichés that surely caused a few eyerolls in the audience. Yet, the scenes featuring Leamu...

3May

By Nathan DunnNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Footloose – Sheffield Drama Studio

SUPAS Drama have taken on the musical adaptation of the 1980’s classic ‘Footloose’, a tale of young romance, extremely restrictive Christian-conservatism in small town America and dancing. The young company gave a great effort, resulting in an entertaining night of theatre that had only a slight few blemishes that could perhaps be fairly considered as opening night teething issues. Rory Violet’s direction was particularly strong. She helped foster strong relationship dynamics between the actors on stage, and their understanding of emotional narratives was there to see. Transitionally it was also impressive at times with a slick fluidity, although on occasion there were periods of dead space on stage when there weren’t any actors or music to help usher in a new scene. Charley Moffat...

22Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Red Shoes – Bradford Alhambra

Powell and Pressburger’s classic movie The Red Shoes was about a ballerina forced to choose between love and art, so it seemed natural Matthew Bourne's New Adventures company would adapt it for the stage. The movie was itself a new take on the rather gruesome Hans Christian Andersen fairytale where a haughty young girl is punished by a pair of red ballet shoes with a life of their own that force her to dance endlessly even when her feet are chopped off. Thankfully Bourne’s places his less bloody version in the late 1940s where rising star Victoria Page catches the eye of demanding ballet impresario Boris Lermontov. She joins his company becoming his star creation wearing the fabled red shoes before falling in love with composer Julian Craster, but the demanding Lermontov forces Page ...

22Apr

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Here & Now – Hull New Theatre

From the first minute the “curtain” rose on Here & Now at the Hull New Theatre on Tuesday evening, I couldn’t get over how absolutely wonderful the stage setting was. The brand-new musical is based on the music of the 1990s iconic group, Steps, with a storyline centred around the staff of supermarket Better Best Bargains (BBB for short). Set designer Tom Rogers brings that environment to life by creating floor-to-ceiling partitions, left and right, graduating to the back of the stage. Each partition is filled with “groceries” and lit continually with the most amazing colours. Overhead are aisles 5, 6, 7 and 8 (there’s a song in there somewhere), while, occasionally, a graffiti covered wall drops for outdoor scenes, and serving counters are pushed and pulled throughout the show. ...

14Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Waitress – Bradford Alhambra

The Great British Bake Off had been going for some years when Waitress hit the West End a decade ago, so there was a ready made audience for a show based on cakes….or pies as they are known stateside. This warm hearted musical uses the ingredients waitress Jenna Hunterson uses in her unique pies as a metaphor for the trials and tribulations of her life and those around her. Waitress is actually much like Jenna’s pies, a bittersweet affair as whilst Jessie Nelson’s book celebrates the tight community that work and eat in her southern diner, Jenna is not only trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband Earl, but reluctantly expecting his baby. She escapes her grim life through an affair with her obstetrician Dr Pomatter and dreaming of winning a pie-baking contest to escape from E...

14Apr

By Nathan DunnNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Operation Mincemeat – Sheffield Lyceum

Operation Mincemeat smashed records for being the best reviewed West End show in history collecting a baffling amount of 5-star reviews - and I’m here to tell you each one is earned. Avalon & SpitLip have birthed a raucous, compelling musical comedy for the ages. The story is intriguing. We are thrust into World War Two, and MI5 are scheming a plan to try and thwart the threat of German aggression across mainland Europe. SpitLip, composed of David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts, authored the script, music and lyrics. They recount the relatively unknown story of ‘Operation Mincemeat’, a real-life plot to trick the Nazi’s into anticipating an allied counter-offensive into Sardinia. The desired effect would be for the Third Reich to move their troops into the isl...

9Apr

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Mamma Mia! – Hull New Theatre

Even before the curtain rose on the smash-hit musical Mamma Mia! at the Hull New Theatre on Wednesday night, we in the packed venue were already singing along to a medley of Abba songs played by talented musicians in the orchestra pit. Mamma Mia! takes its name from the Swedish superstars’ song which appeared on the group’s third album in 1975. Written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, the musical is based around the music and lyrics of Abba’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, and it’s their recognisable, singalong-to tunes that showered us in feel-good vibes from the off. Set on a Greek island paradise, the opening scene has bride-to-be, 20-yeer-old Sophie Sheridan (Lydia Hunt), posting wedding invitations to three men, strangers, whose names she has discovered in her mum...

9Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Operation Mincemeat – Alhambra Bradford

Hamilton proved that a rap show about an obscure figure in the American revolutionary war could be an unlikely smash hit, and Operation Mincemeat proves a musical about a long-forgotten part of our nation’s military history can also win Oliviers and Tonys. This quirky and very funny musical is based on real life events in World War Two brought to life by five incredibly talented and hard working singers and hoofers playing an array of different roles. They tell the unlikely true story of how our secret service disguised the corpse of a dead tramp as a made-up naval officer who was supplied with fake documents. The fake officer's body was dumped off the coast of Spain and based on the fake contents of his briefcase Hitler’s spies convinced him that the Allies were going to invade Sardini...

7Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Handle With Care – Leeds Playhouse

Most theatre productions start with the lights going down as some actors walk onto the stage….not this one. Instead, the audience are faced with an empty stage where a white box sits because tonight Belgian theatre mischief makers Ontrogrend Goed are challenging a bunch of strangers to make their own show. In the box are a series of prompts and instruction cards that help guide us, but the genius of this immersive experience is that this show will be unique because every audience is different. All it takes is one hardy soul to get up and open the box, so full marks to the woman who took up the challenge, and we were off making our own show. Each step encourages audience members to join in, so one participant is asking all of us what our favourite drinks are as others in this a...

Northern Ballet: Gentleman Jack – Sheffield Lyceum

2Apr

By Jo TillotsonNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Northern Ballet: Gentleman Jack – Sheffield Lyceum

Anne Lister. Born 1791, died 1840. Yorkshirewoman. Diarist. Businesswoman. Landowner. A woman who lived life on her own terms, and who loved how and who she wanted. For anyone who hadn’t already heard of her, she was made famous in the 2010s by the BBC, which cemented her status as the ‘first modern lesbian’, but there is so much more to her than just her sexuality. In this brand new, 100-minute ballet (with interval) we get to know Anne as a woman who forged her own path in society. From the moment the curtain rises to reveal Anne (danced at this performance by Gemma Coutts) in a striking tailored jacket surrounded by a homogeneous group of male contemporaries, she demands your complete attention. The ballet follows the story of her life as she falls in love, gets her heart broken, fac...