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Bradford panto legend Billy Pearce returns to the Alhambra Theatre this festive season

19Mar

By NewsdeskNo Comments

NEWS

Bradford panto legend Billy Pearce returns to the Alhambra Theatre this festive season

Pantomime will be making a magical return to the Alhambra Theatre this festive season as Bradford panto legend Billy Pearce returns for his 24th season, following a triumphant run as Buttons in last year’s pantomime Cinderella. Tickets go on general sale on Monday 25th March for Pinocchio which runs from Saturday 7th December 2024 to Sunday 19th January 2025. Billy Pearce first topped the bill of the Alhambra Theatre’s annual festive production in 1993, winning acclaim from critics and audience members alike, and has since solidified his reputation as the King of Yorkshire comedy. Side-splittingly funny, Billy will bring his trademark mad-cap comedy and boundless energy to the stage and will have audiences laughing in the aisles just like he does every year. The Alhambra Theatre ...

19Mar

By Jan MellorNo Comments

North West

Sister Act – Palace Theatre

Arriving at the bustling theatre, where red carpet welcomed many an actor from the phenomenon that was Coronation Street, the evening started with fans in awe, the atmosphere electric and everyone ‘giddy’ with excitement for the show ahead. The Coronation Street actors had come along in their numbers to support their colleague the nominated favourite female soup star Sue Cleaver who for this epic show of female comradeship was playing the Mother Superior. Many people may know the film of Whoopi Goldberg played the husky blues singer Deloris Van Cartier desperate to make it big but in falling for a married mobster ends up, after watching this crook Curtis murder a gang member, is on the run for her own life. For this show, the threatened disco diva is played amazingly by Britai...

18Mar

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Cold, Dark Matters – The Hope Theatre

It is said that curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back. It is also said that you shouldn’t go sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, and that good advice is almost certain to be ignored. Cold, Dark Matters is a very curious play, and every aspect of its production at the Hope Theatre is morbidly satisfying. Altogether more thought provoking than it has any right to be, this fun, dark tale is neither cynical nor vapid, instead approaching its murky subject matter with a refreshingly forthright earnestness, much the way one might attempt to earn the respect of a particularly wilful horse, or an intimidatingly intimate crowd. Writer and performer Jack Brownridge Kelly doesn’t bother with charming the audience, he simply gets straight to work, and wins them over by be...

Comedy version of The Time Machine comes to Leeds Playhouse

18Mar

By NewsdeskNo Comments

NEWS

Comedy version of The Time Machine comes to Leeds Playhouse

H G Wells was not known for his comic genius but his Sci-fi masterpiece The Time Machine is played for laughs at Leeds Playhouse direct from a highly acclaimed season at London’s Park Theatre. The Time Machine - A Comedy stars Michael Dylan, Amy Revelle and George Kemp, and is produced by the team behind the hit comedy The Hound of the Baskervilles, Original Theatre. The trio take the audience on a journey of a lifetime as George tries to persuade the others to stick to the script he’s worked so hard on, as Michael attempts to explain time travel without the help of excessive props. Will Amy get to sing her Cher tribute and can these three clowns defeat the space time paradox If Amy was to somehow invent a time machine, she knows exactly which period she would go back to. “I would...

17Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

American Buffalo – King’s Arms, Salford

As a reviewer, five star shows appear in many guises; last night I sat in the cavernous surroundings of Manchester Opera House with 1,919 other hardy souls watching Sir Ian McKellen give a bravura performance as Falstaff in a four hour adaptation of Henry IV. Now, less than 24 hours later a sold out audience of just 35 are privileged to witness a very different, but equally compelling production in entirely different surroundings. Lisa Connor combines the job of Director of the Greater Manchester Fringe with her role as owner of The Kings Arms in Salford, in the latter capacity she has pulled off something of a coup by tempting legendary Director David Thacker to stage a production of David Mamet’s ‘American Buffalo’ in the tiny theatre that nestles above this backstreet Salford boozer....

17Mar

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

The Good Father – Riverside Studios

What are you doing for sex tonight? When was the last time you felt comfortable singing in front of someone? Who do you belong with, really? The Good Father poses all these questions and leaves plenty of empty space in its performance for you to spend the whole night coming up with your own personal answers. Directed by Mark Fitzgerald and written by Christian O’Reilly, this play is somewhat lacking in theatricality and sitting in the audience you get the sense that it’s only being performed live in front of you because there wasn’t enough budget to turn it into a proper film. Both actors’ performances are serviceable and occasionally attention-grabbing, but they have a lot of empty space to fill, and it is an intimate enough story that audiences feel more like interlopers than particip...

17Mar

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Escaped Alone – Traverse Theatre

A play by Caryl Churchill (written in 2016), at age 86 arguably Britain’s greatest living poet and playwright. Known for her dramatisations of the abuse of power, for her support of Palestine, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes. Also central to most Churchill plays is a fascination with surreal deconstruction and non-naturalistic techniques which puts her firmly in the uncompromising postmodernist camp. Anyone coming to see a Churchill play will leave this one with a knowing smile, for those of us just coming to see a play, less so. The structure of the short 50-minute piece is simple enough; two storylines run side by side, in the first four post-menopausal women sit in comfortable chairs chatting in broken sentences and half-words in a sunny garden, in t...

17Mar

By Zoё MeeresNo Comments

London

Hide and Seek – Park Theatre

Touching on issues like identity, peer pressure, friendship and the negative impact social media culture is having on young people, Hide and Seek doesn’t feel like entirely untrodden territory. Written by Italian playwright Tobia Rossi and translated and directed here by Carlotta Brentan, Hide and Seek charts the course of an unlikely friendship formed by two boys, Gio (Louis Scarpa) and Mirko (Nico Cetrulo) under quite bizarre circumstances. Bullied and belittled by his classmates, Gio retreats to a cave to escape after leaving a final mark on social media. Mirko finds him, and the two bond over their shared role in sensationalising Gio’s disappearance to feed the ensuing media circus, resorting to some fairly drastic measures to twist the story and stay relevant. As their friendship b...

14Mar

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Harry Clarke – Ambassadors Theatre

A rose by any other name… still has its thorns. It’s what we love about our favourite conmen, Anna Delvey, Elizabeth Holmes, Remington Steele… They’re beautiful but also terribly cringe inducing. We love to hate them but can’t quite bring ourselves to look down on them, so powerful is their allure. Maybe it’s the accent, each one unique and bizarrely captivating, all the more for its inauthenticity. Harry Clarke’s is immaculate, as is Philip Brugglestein’s. In fact, all of the characters Billy Crudup speaks on behalf of over Harry Clarke’s 80-minute runtime are perfectly articulated, under the supervision of vocal coach, Deborah Lapidus. The stage cousin of Matt Damon’s Talented Mr. Ripley, Crudup’s Philip Brugglestein / Harry Clarke is no less charming for being 30 years his film fellow’s...

A Song for Ella Grey – Liverpool Playhouse

14Mar

By Coral MourantNo Comments

North West

A Song for Ella Grey – Liverpool Playhouse

Greek myths have had many reimagining’s as their moral narratives and fantastical characters will always intrigue an audience. Based on the novel by David Almond, this adaptation takes the old cautionary tale of Orpheus and Eurydice and places us in modern day Northumbria. A group of sixth formers recall the story of their friend’s untimely death, a tale that conjures up grief, longing and fears of fleeting youth. The whooshing sounds of the ocean and ethereal drapes of cloth adorn the stage, where the actors tell us of Ella Grey. This five strong cast take us from Bamburgh beach to the depths of hell, remembering their dear friend and her demise. Elusive Orpheus appears in the waters and captivates the youngsters with his music and otherworldliness. Using shadows of silhouette with ...