Yorkshire & Humber Archives - Page 6 of 33

3Jul

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Guts! The Musical – Hull Truck Theatre

Hull Truck Theatre’s latest production, GUTS! The Musical, a world premiere, portrays the real-life struggle female fish packers at a local fish factory faced in their battle for equal pay. The stark stage setting of bare, “tiled” walls, soulless strip lighting and little else is what one imagines a processing frozen food factory to be like. The year is 1984 and the aforementioned workers are about to make and change history. Also making a bit of (theatrical) history of their own are the 57 members of the community who answered the call to bring this production to life. Space prevents me from naming them all, but what a fantastic job they each did. The factory in question, owned by a Mr Frank Fish (Andrew Clark) is based in Hull, with all the fishy business, historically, being...

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Bradford Alhambra

3Jul

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Bradford Alhambra

When I was at school in the less enlightened 1970s the mere hint of being different would have earned you a beating, so turning up to an end of year disco in a dress would have been inviting real trouble. So when in our more liberal times Sheffield teenager Jamie New announces he wants to wear a dress to his prom you’d think no-one would care. Sadly, as in most musicals, the road to true self expression is never an easy one as he battles to overcome prejudice and his own insecurities to achieve his dream. Openly gay Jamie doesn’t want to be a forklift driver that his career teacher thinks is his destiny, instead he wants to be a drag queen like the real life character who Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom MaCrae based their lively musical on. It helps that Jamie has the support of his sing...

An Officer and a Gentleman – Sheffield Lyceum

20Jun

By Tracey BellNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

An Officer and a Gentleman – Sheffield Lyceum

In the same genre as recent musical adaptations such as 'Dirty Dancing' and 'The Bodyguard', using an extensive and repurposed catalogue of music from the period, this jukebox of the beloved 80's film classic - 'An Officer and a Gentleman' is touring the UK in 2024. Fifteen years in the original making, written by Douglas Day Stewart and later adapted for stage alongside Sharleen Cooper Cohen, this new interpretation follows the 2018 version and is again directed by Nikolai Foster. The raw and raunchy story is set in Florida 1982. It tells the story of both autobiographical naval officer recruits and a group of female factory workers at a time when Ronald Reagan sowed the seeds of a new America. These characters collectively, regardless of class and gender, all have their demons and bindin...

Frankie Goes To Bollywood – Bradford Alhambra

19Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Frankie Goes To Bollywood – Bradford Alhambra

One of the joys of theatre is it can transport to worlds that you have no experience of in real life, and Frankie Goes To Bollywood takes us into heart of a flamboyant billion dollar movie industry that puts millions of bums on seats in India and entertains diaspora South-Asians around the world including the UK. Every year Bollywood filmmakers based in Mumbai churn out hundreds of films taking people away from their daily grind to a glitzy world where they can forget their troubles for a few hours. That was the inspiration for the book by RIFCO Theatre Company’s Artistic director Pravesh Kumar - who has worked in Bollywood - that he says is an ode to those movies, but also a call to action for an industry still rife with sexism. Like so many Bollywood movies it is a fantasy where na...

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Hull New Theatre

18Jun

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Hull New Theatre

This week Hull New Theatre plays host to the hit musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, a production inspired by the 2011 TV documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16 which features County Durham lad, Jamie Campbell, who, from a young age, liked to dress in girls’ clothes. The theatre was packed on Monday evening; would everybody be talking about Jamie at the show’s end? Sixteen-year-old Jamie New (the super talented Ivano Turco) lives on a Sheffield council estate with his mum Margaret (a passionate performance from Rebecca McKinnis). Single mum Margaret’s best friend is bargain-loving Ray (the amusing, sassy and protective Sejal Keshwala). The opening scene shows Jamie and his classmates with patient teacher, Miss Hedge (the irrepressible Sam Bailey), discussing their career aspe...

12Jun

By Tracey BellNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Syndicate – Sheffield Lyceum

We all dream of the big lottery win but The Syndicate at the Sheffield Lyceum just falls short of hitting the theatre jackpot. Written by the supremo of creating relatable characters Kay Mellor completed the writing of this just before her death in May 2022. The Syndicate is directed by her well known daughter, Gaynor Faye, who also plays Kay, the Lottery representative. One winner from this production is the set and costume designer Bretta Gerecke. The first Act set is the shop building the characters are employed at and has multiple playing areas that allow for mood and tone. It is full and detailed and effortlessly transforms into the more clinical house interior of Stuart’s swanky new home in Act Two. A definite nod to the loss of comfortable familiarity to a harder less embracing new ...

8Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

My Fair Lady – Leeds Playhouse

For many My Fair Lady is the ultimate big screen version of a musical, but famously the vocals of one of the leading actors was overdubbed and the other talked his way through the whole thing. This Leeds Playhouse co-production with Opera North offers a return to the original hit musical that featured a young Julie Andrews, and here both leads are great singers who do full justice to Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s classic score packed with showstoppers. My Fair Lady is based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion that took its inspiration from a Greek myth where a sculptor fell in love with one of his creations. Lerner’s book turns it into a fable where an arrogant phonetician Henry Higgins takes on a bet he can turn any woman into a lady, so he plucks Cockney flower seller Eliza ...

7Jun

By Jackie FoottitNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Give Us A Sign – Bilton Theatre

Talk about life imitating art! On Thursday evening, as my sister and I tried to follow directions to Bilton Theatre (in between house numbers 17 and 19, Main Road), to watch its amateur dramatic production of Give Us A Sign, I mentally prayed for a sign. Lo and behold, a gentleman appeared carrying a huge sign with the theatre’s details on. Phew! Surely a good omen? Turns out it was. Members of Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society (BADS) tread the boards in the village of Bilton, a short distance, east, from the city of Hull. Taking our seats in this cosy little venue, reached via a narrow lane off the Main Road, we perused the printed programme thoughtfully left on our chairs and waited for curtain up. At 7.30pm sharp the heavy stage curtains parted to reveal a suburban sitting ...

5Jun

By Tracey BellNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Kite Runner – Sheffield Lyceum

Based on the bestselling novel by Khaled Hosseini and adapted for the stage by Matthew Spangler, The Kite Runner is an epic tale of childhood friends Amir and Hassan, set in the backdrop of Afghanistan in the 1970’s. Their tumultuous story is seemingly mirrored by the horrific realities of a country on the cusp of war. The Kite Runner does not shy away from mature themes of the atrocities of brutality, rape, war and political upheaval and handles them with an exemplary display of compassionate sensitivity. Directed by Giles Croft with Design by Barney George and Composition and Musical Direction by Jonathon Girling this production is all encompassing and draws the audience into a time of affronting through Amir’s own story. If you have read the 2003 book, then I would say this production; ...

Northern Ballet: Beauty & The Beast – Leeds Grand Theatre

5Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Northern Ballet: Beauty & The Beast – Leeds Grand Theatre

There have been countless versions of Beauty & The Beast over the years in film and the theatre, but David Nixon’s version for Northern Ballet is a million miles away from the saccharine Disney version delving deep into the darker elements of this love story that has its origins in Ancient Greece. Northern Ballet’s former artistic director looks to Cocteau’s classic 1946 movie for his inspiration, which offers the dancers a much more challenging understanding of how if we fail to look beyond exteriors we will miss things like love, compassion and the inner demons that make us all human. Although this is a far more subtle reading of this fable it retains all the key elements as a vain prince who is cursed by his narcissism to become a beast until he can find true love when someone...