Yorkshire & Humber Archives - Page 24 of 26

School of Rock the Musical – Hull New Theatre

13Sep

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

School of Rock the Musical – Hull New Theatre

There are a dozen good reasons to go and see School of Rock the Musical - the 12 super-talented children, stars every one. Actually, make that a baker’s dozen - the 13th good reason is an adult, who was the most childish of them all. Hull’s New Theatre welcomed audiences back for the first time since Covid hit, and it was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End smash hit making its first UK and Ireland tour of the venue that had theatregoers rushing back in their droves. Based on the 2003 movie of the same name, the story centres around Dewey Finn (an energetic Jake Sharp, the man-child I mentioned above), who, desperate for rent money, takes his best friend’s identity to gain a teaching post at a prestigious prep school. Dewey - known at school as Ned Schneebly - causes havoc from the...

8Sep

By Tracy RyanNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Groan Ups – Sheffield Lyceum

After meeting at Drama school 13 years ago the in suppressible Mischief Theatre members have continued to have us rolling in the aisles with their next instalment Groan Ups. Following on from the successful West End located The Play that goes Wrong, and the Penn and Teller collaboration Magic Goes Wrong; the seasonal Peter Pan Goes Wrong and the standalone The Comedy about a Bank Robbery, the work ethic of Mischief is admirable. Groan Ups takes a slightly different persona to the former being more an observational comedy and does not rely on physical comedy as it’s lynch. It has real moments of nostalgic pathos as it follows the lives of five friends at three intervals in their lives from primary school to the obligatory school reunion. All taking place within a classroom the set reduc...

7Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Looking Good Dead – Leeds Grand Theatre

When crime authors like Ian Rankin and Val McDermid sell squillions of books it seems odd producers insist on sending out creaky old stage versions of novels written in the middle of the last century. So, thank God for Peter James who is another of those crime superstars - selling 21 million books of his Roy Grace novels worldwide - who has worked out there is an appetite for stage versions featuring the troubled south coast detective. This time Grace is investigating a couple of bizarre murders that seem to be linked to the suburban Bryce family. It all starts when Father Tom brings home a memory stick he says he found on a train, which proves to contain something gruesome that puts his wife Kellie and teenage son Max in danger, and it’s up to Grace to solve it. James acts as p...

3Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Dangerous Liaisons – Leeds Playhouse

Sexual power, cruelty and deceit. There surely can’t be a better mix for a ballet, and Northern Ballet’s artistic director David Nixon’s dynamic choreography makes the most of the antics of two French aristocratic sociopaths playing games with people’s minds and bodies because they can. This is Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ timeless tale of upper class amorality as the cunning Marquise de Mertueil sets her sparring partner Vicomte de Valmont the task to seduce the godly Madame de Tiourvel just for sport. But Valmont’s head is turned by de Tourvel with deadly results. Unlike some of their sumptuous productions Northern have gone for a stark stage with minimal period furniture that allows the eye to focus on Nixon’s sensitive and emotional choreography which manfully resists going ov...

1Sep

By Chris HanlonNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Tell Me on a Sunday – Sheffield Lyceum

After a long 18 months, I finally had the pleasure of returning to the beautiful Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield to watch a musical that I was familiar with but up until tonight had not had chance to see! Well, I finally put that right and wow! Am I glad I did! Tell Me on a Sunday was excellent! For those unfamiliar with the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s classic, Tell Me on a Sunday is a one-woman show (or song cycle) that follows the journey of an English girl newly arrived in New York. Filled with hope and eager eyed, she sets out to seek success, friendship and, of course, love. But as she weaves her way through the maze of the city and her own insecurities, frustrations and heartaches she begins to realise that – in fact – she’s been looking for love in all the wrong places. ...

31Aug

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Magic Goes Wrong – Leeds Grand Theatre

Go on….admit it. One reason we still love magic shows is while we are intrigued by how the illusionists fool us, we also secretly hope it will all go horribly wrong. So, it is really smart of Mischief to create another one of their ‘goes wrong’ series around a camp, OTT group of hopeless performers, and it works much better than their mega successful am dram version as that world is just too a bit too serious to really parody. The premise is that the inaccurately named Sophisticato - played just on the right edge of hysteria by Sam Hill - has put together a tacky fundraiser for magicians killed or injured in the line of conjuring duties, including his father crushed by his stage props. But as with all Mischief productions anything that can go wrong does as the body count stead...

17Aug

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Mamma Mia! – Harewood House

This was my daughter’s fourth time seeing this perennial blockbuster, but it was certainly the most unusual with the audience sitting in a windy field near Leeds. This was the very first time the team behind the Mamma Mia! juggernaut have opted for an open-air production and given how protective they are of the brand they threw everything at it – live band, massive lighting rig, pin sharp sound plus the full set and cast. And to make extra sure it would work for a near capacity crowd, including Olympic champion Jonny Brownlee, they packed the cast with Mamma Mia veterans who were clearly enjoying the challenge of this new format. It would be easy for performers who know this show backwards to coast through it, but they were really trying to project their performances to the people a...

17Aug

By Tracey BellNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Hairspray – Sheffield Lyceum

Sheffield Lyceum’s opening night after 17 months of darkness - Hairspray is resoundingly resplendent, raucous and right on point. The show highlights many modern day issues that are particularly relevant today, that of Racism, Body Image and Sexism but never in a heavyweight way. It can be difficult to achieve this but, Hairspray packages these issues with a buoyant bouffant and plenty of toe tapping tunes. Set in Baltimore in the 1960’s we follow the trailblazer Tracy Turnblad as she stands up for equality and proves there is no place for the word ‘minorities' in the dawn of a new era. The staging on the UK tour remains traditional and is mainly made up of backdrops and two trucks which represent the Turnblad household on stage right and the Pingleton/ Motormouth Record Store on the ...

10Aug

By Alison BainesNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Heathers – Leeds Grand

Take a trip to Westerburg High School to join the class of 2021 on a twisted tale of romance, fun and a bit of bitchiness too - I promise you won’t be disappointed. Heathers, the dark comedy/rock musical first hit the stage in 2010 in New York following and based on the great cult classic movie of the same name starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. The modern musical begins its UK and Ireland tour at Leeds Grand Theatre. If you’re not already familiar with the soundtrack I urge you to go and listen to it. Written by the award-winning team Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy, the music could not suit the cult classic story any better: with heart wrenching ballads and vibrant ensemble numbers, the soundtrack doesn’t have a bad song and promises to have you singing them for days af...

27Jul

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Piaf – Leeds Playhouse

Imagine if instead of Beyonce the world’s biggest female star was a foul-mouthed Parisian street urchin who was blessed with a golden voice that lifted her out of the slums to global fame. That’s the story of Edith Piaf – aka The Little Sparrow – and this raucous revival of Pam Gems’ musical biography pulls no punches telling the tale of a damaged woman who flew high before crashing back to earth as like Lady Day she was totally unequipped for the price of fame. If anything, Gems tries too hard to pack in too much of Piaf’s rich life, overegging her rough beginnings, and the second half feels a touch padded. This is not an evening for the faint hearted as the C bomb is dropped a couple of times, among an impressive array of expletives, drawing gasps from some of the more genteel ...