Latest Articles - Page 106 of 645

19Mar

By Bev ClarkNo Comments

North West

Dear Evan Hansen – Storyhouse Chester

An Emotional Roller-Coaster - It’ll Make Your Spine Tingle! There’s no doubt that composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul have a formula for success with The Greatest Showman and Lala Land as part of their catalogue and Dear Evan Hansen is another award-winning musical hit. It premiered on Broadway in 2016, followed by a film and endless theatre tours and it has found a solid following of fans, of which there were many in the audience last night. A standing ovation to rapturous applause. It’s an emotional rollercoaster with moments of grief, love, laughter and sympathy and those ‘sweet spots’ in the melodies make the hairs on your arm stand up and your spine tingle. For those who haven’t stumbled across this wonderful show before, it’s the story of a socially anxious teenager who fee...

19Mar

By Max EdenNo Comments

North West

Handbagged – The Lowry

Moira Buffini’s Handbagged has been revived and brought back to the stage and is currently at The Lowry as part of its UK Tour. Directed by Alex Thorpe; this revival is as sharp, funny, and thought-provoking as ever. Exploring the imagined private conversations between Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher, the play deftly balances political satire while exploring power, duty, and legacy from these two iconic women in UK’s history. The brilliance of Handbagged lies in its unique dual-casting, with two actors playing each of the leading figures at different points in their lives. Morag Cross delivers a commanding performance as the older Thatcher, bringing both steely determination and flashes of vulnerability to the role. Emma Ernest, as the younger Mags, captures the rising polit...

X Factor winner Joe McElderry stars in new version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Leeds Grand

19Mar

By NewsdeskNo Comments

NEWS

X Factor winner Joe McElderry stars in new version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Leeds Grand

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat returns to Leeds Grand Theatre after a sell-out run in 2023 and X Factor winner Joe McElderry will be playing Pharaoh. McElderry played the title role from 2017-18 in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s first major collaboration, and since then has been a regular on the stage as the lead in The Who’s rock opera Tommy and Club Tropicana: The Musical. “I have such a long history with the show and to re-join in a different role, this time playing Pharaoh, will be so exciting," says Joe McElderry. “I can’t wait to perform to amazing audiences in Leeds in a show so close to my heart.” Joe McElderry (Pharaoh) and Adam Filipe (Joseph) in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat @ Sunderland Empire. (Opening 14-01-25) ©Tristram Kenton ...

Eliza Carthy and Jennifer Reid – Traverse Theatre

18Mar

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Eliza Carthy and Jennifer Reid – Traverse Theatre

Jennifer Reid performs nineteenth-century Lancashire dialect and Victorian broadside ballads. She comes from Rochdale, “but I admit it”. Reid sings unaccompanied throughout the evening but provides percussion for one of Carthy’s songs in the form of clog dancing. Eliza Carthy describes herself as a “modern English musician”. She sings centuries-old traditional songs, and more modern pieces including her own compositions. She mostly sings unaccompanied and occasionally brings out her fiddle. Carthy hails from Yorkshire, and a few good-natured cross-Pennine insults are exchanged over the course of the evening. Reid is a fantastic storyteller, bringing life to some memorable characters such as “Frolicksome Kay”, a good Lancashire lass who is disappointed by her new boyfriend from Yo...

Seven Drunken Nights: The Story of the Dubliners – Usher Hall

18Mar

By Dylan MooneyNo Comments

Scotland

Seven Drunken Nights: The Story of the Dubliners – Usher Hall

Perfectly timed for St Patrick’s Day, ‘Seven Drunken Nights: The Story of the Dubliners’ stopped off at the Usher Hall on their 2025 UK Tour. As the name suggests, this concert-style show tells the story of Ireland’s famous folk group, the Dubliners, with songs such as ‘The Irish Rover’, ‘Tell Me Ma’ and ‘Dirty Old Town’. The show was created with O’Donoghue’s pub where the original group used to perform. The performance is made up of a talented group of musicians who bring the Dubliners’ greatest hits to life while also serving as narrators, teaching the lively audience how the group started out 50 years ago. The stage makes use of three different locations - a traditional Irish pub, a recording studio set and a section at the front left clear for the performers to come closer to the a...

17Mar

By Adam WilliamsNo Comments

North West

The Flying Dutchman – The Lowry

I’m afraid this production of The Flying Dutchman, an opera about a man cursed to wander the oceans forever, was itself all-at-sea, lacking direction, and one feared, at times, would sink under the weight of its sadly misguided reimagined central conceit. It was kept afloat by the excellence of the cast, but the production itself did not seem to know where it was going because the basic idea behind it did not work. In their own words, they “have re-imagined The Flying Dutchman to take place on the ‘ship of state’: the Home Office. Daland is the ‘Home Secretary’ and the Dutchman and his crew become displaced people seeking refuge.” This analogy just did not work and whilst it was a noble effort to make The Dutchman a man seeking asylum it did not fit with the opera and became confusin...

17Mar

By H.S. BakerNo Comments

Scotland

Wild Rose – Royal Lyceum Theatre

Rose-Lynn Harlan loves country music and is pretty good at singing it too. Her burning ambition is to sing at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The trouble is, she’s just been released from prison and has a tag on her ankle. Whilst Rose-Lynn was incarcerated, her mother has been looking after her two children and now thinks her family deserve her presence and attention. Set in Glasgow, it turns out that Glasgow has its own Grand Ole Opry, (who knew?) and Rose-Lynn gets a job as a cleaner. The rest is fairly standard and predictable. Mother give Rose-Lynn the money to go to Nashville, Rose-Lynn realises what’s really important and the final song, “Glasgow (no place like home)” says it all. But this show isn’t about the narrative, it’s about the music, and if you like country m...

17Mar

By NewsdeskNo Comments

NEWS

New Vic Theatre stages brand new adaptation of A Matter of Life and Death

Staffordshire’s The New Vic Theatre will produce a rare stage adaptation of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s cinematic masterpiece A Matter of Life and Death on their in-the-round stage. It’s been adapted by Artistic Director Theresa Heskins, who also directs, the production will open on Friday 28th March and run until Saturday 19th April. It’s 1945 and British Pilot Peter Carter’s plane goes down just off the coast of England he doesn’t expect to survive, but miraculously, after leaping from his burning plane without a parachute, he finds himself face-to-face with June, the American radio operator who kept him company on his final journey. As the pair fall instantly and deeply in love, Peter discovers a celestial error has occurred – he was supposed to die bu...

17Mar

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Chef – Traverse Theatre

Once again, The Traverse champions fresh, accessible writing; this time with Sabrina Mahfouz’s one-woman play Chef. Set in a prison kitchen, the head chef walks us through her dream menu with a story to accompany each dish. We see glimpses of the chef’s life and significant events which led up to her arrest; her troubled relationship with her father, the first kitchen she ran, illegal dealings with her seedy ex-boyfriend, living on a boat. While the chef recounts her memories, her second-in-command in the kitchen acts as a BSL interpreter. This immersive style of interpretation was refreshing to see, giving a character to the interpreter - including her rather than seeing her as a distraction. Without the interpreter this play would somehow not be as poignant ...

The Land That Never Was – The Studio, Edinburgh

17Mar

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Land That Never Was – The Studio, Edinburgh

Starting life as an idea broached on a Scratch night for budding theatre makers a year ago, Liam Rees brings a fascinating true story of financial fraud to fruition to a packed house tonight. Imagine a country so bountiful in flora and fauna, set in the warm rejuvenating waters of Central America, a tropical paradise, where you would be lord of all you surveyed. This is the dream that Stirling man (Sir) Gregor McGregor sold to over 300 Scots in 1820. The country was Poyais, it had its own currency, parliament, honours system and coat of arms, all described in loving detail in an illustrated 350-page guidebook. But the book, like the story was fake, as was the currency which padded the wallets of the hopeful on their long and perilous journey. The actual destination for the unfortunate S...