Yorkshire & Humber Archives - Page 2 of 48

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...

2Apr

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Blood Brothers – Hull New Theatre

Only a genius could create what is essentially a sad story of heartache, deceit, poverty, violence, snobbery, desertion and the most awful tragedy, but write it in such a way that it’s uproariously funny throughout. Blood Brothers, written by Willy Russell, is at the Hull New Theatre this week and on Tuesday evening the venue was chock-a-block with theatregoers. This multi-award winning production ran for more than 10,000 performances in London’s West End; no mean feat. And it’s no surprise to me, having seen a version of the show three times, that it’s known affectionately as the “standing ovation musical” - that description speaks for itself. All the action takes place in both the well-off and poorer areas of the city of Liverpool, in the late 1950s, and the stage setting clever...

The Marriage of Figaro – Hull New Theatre

30Mar

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Marriage of Figaro – Hull New Theatre

As is the norm when the opera or ballet come to town, Hull’s theatregoers set out in force to support the event. And Thursday evening was no exception when Opera North’s production of The Marriage of Figaro, graced the Hull New Theatre stage. Mozart’s well-known opera, premiering in Vienna in 1786 and conducted by the great composer himself, has been cleverly modernised by Opera North - meaning all the action takes place in a “modern-day crumbling pile of an English country estate”. This update led to many amusing scenes one wouldn’t associate with 18th-century life - namely mobile phones throughout, while the visiting, country house public, led by a tour guide, revealed at least one selfie stick. And the most notable change came with the costumes - everyone wore modern clothin...

25Mar

By Tracey BellNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Cher Show – Sheffield Lyceum

The Cher Show – A new musical has a book by Rick Elise and is brought to the Sheffield Lyceum Theatre by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC and Croft House Theatre Company. Originally premiering in Chicago in 2018, before transferring to Broadway, the Cher Show had its UK premier with a tour in 2022/23. Celebrating the remarkable story of Cher’s life with its highest heights and lowest lows and set to a back catalogue of 31 songs that encapsulate the longevity and apparent timelessness of her talents and persona … not forgetting her looks that seem to defy time! Then there is the Bob Mackie costumes, always fabulous, always spectacular and always head turning. A six-decade career, an icon and a memory that shaped her life, ‘the power is in the song’. Expertly directed and ...

25Mar

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Fawlty Towers – Bradford Alhambra

Sometimes when a beloved sitcom gets tired and introduces daft storylines like Happy Days did it’s said to have ‘jumped the shark’. That’s something you can never say about Fawlty Towers which ran for just two perfectly formed series in the seventies. Monty Python legend John Cleese and Connie Booth’s masterpiece has regularly won the greatest ever British sitcom title, so the increasingly deranged antics of the world’s worst hotelier, Basil Fawlty, was always going to get a stage adaptation. Cleese has adapted his greatest solo work that was based on a torrid time the Python team had when they booked a stay with a very strange and rude hotelier. In many ways in our febrile political world the always rude Basil’s xenophobia, snobbery and misogyny seem to be back in vogue. Cleese w...

21Mar

By NewsdeskNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Living -The Crucible Playhouse

Sheffield Theatre’s latest production ‘Living’ is the ambitious brainchild of local playwright Leo Butler, chronicling the life of a young family who move into the Burngreave suburb of the city and how politics shapes their lifestyle, relationships livelihoods and belief systems. It’s unflinching and bold, and this is a production long to live in the memory of those fortunate to see it. Sarah Beaton’s set design is simple yet formidable. There’s an impermanent quality to the wooden furnishing of the space that evokes the required domesticity needed for the play to operate within as well as a timeless quality that permits jumping between decades. Projection is used to establish time as well as more dynamic functions which are used with a careful consideration for their artistic merit and...

Tina: The Tina Turner Musical – Leeds Grand Theatre

20Mar

By Phoebe Olivia Sian HobsonNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Tina: The Tina Turner Musical – Leeds Grand Theatre

This show is more than good for the soul, an explosive and powerful performance was put on display last night at Leeds grand theatre, and we have Elle Ma-Kinga N’zuzi to thank for it. Completely engulfing her role as Tina/Anna Mae from her voice, accent, style, right down to her on stage presence and iconic dance moves. She had every member of the audience under her spell, thinking that they were truly in the presence of Tina herself. Photo: Johan Persson Picture this glitter, tassels, bright lights, a live band, backing dancers and an upbeat audience, a vibrant and infectious atmosphere combined with Tina turner’s number one hits. This is what it looks like on the surface, but executive producers Tina Turner herself and Erwin Bach work hard to demonstrate Anna Mae’s life on a deeper...

Good News! It’s Been Destroyed – The Beaten Track, Sheffield

19Mar

By Nathan DunnNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Good News! It’s Been Destroyed – The Beaten Track, Sheffield

Bróccán Tyzack-Carlin’s latest live stand-up project has taken its first steps in the capital and Manchester before finding its way to Sheffield, where I was fortunate to catch it. ‘Good News! It’s Been Destroyed’ is a full-length stand-up comedy show that orbits around the hopelessness of current affairs, allowing ourselves to be angry and use the energy of that anger to laugh. It takes on serious topics but is never too serious to be misinterpreted as a reductive polemic. That said, it is full of comical diatribes and carefully crafted anecdotes that will leave your face worn from laughter. Tyzack-Carlin makes our lives easier. He goes by ‘Brogan’, as opposed to the Irish pronunciation and spelling of his name (which he likes to remind us has never caused him any difficulty in his...

The Grand Babylon Hotel – Hull Truck Theatre

13Mar

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Grand Babylon Hotel – Hull Truck Theatre

London’s Savoy Hotel became a second home to the famous author Arnold Bennett, who, it is said, based his 1901 novel The Grand Babylon Hotel on the luxury establishment. And on Thursday evening, watched playwright and ex-Coronation Street actress, Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation at the Hull Truck Theatre. McAndrew is a co-founder (along with the show’s director Conrad Nelson) of the Claybody Theatre, based in Stoke-on-Trent, and it’s that venue’s production, in association with the New Vic, that is gracing Hull Truck’s stage this week. Classed as a “rollicking comedy thriller”, my seat in row B afforded me a grand view of the stage setting - a patterned floor in greys, white and black upon which stood a reception desk, table, chairs, suitcases, brass Bellboy trolley and a butler’s s...

The Ladies Football Club – Crucible Theatre

11Mar

By Jo TillotsonNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Ladies Football Club – Crucible Theatre

The popularity of women’s football has grown exponentially recently, bolstered by England’s back-to-back European titles. And every good movement has a good origin story behind it. And if you are thinking, “I don’t know anything about football, maybe this one isn’t for me…” then give me a couple of minutes of your time while I try to persuade you otherwise. I am not a football fan, at all. It’s not something I grew up with, and it all feels a bit alien to me. But I am a fan of women being brilliant, women telling stories, and women supporting and promoting other women, and that is what you get here. The Ladies Football Club, written by Stefano Massini and adapted for this production by Tim Firth, takes us back to the first moments of women’s football. It is World War I. Most men are ...