Latest Articles - Page 433 of 659

Corrie legend Paula Lane stars in Oldham Coliseum Theatre’s revival of Jim Cartwright’s Road

6Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Corrie legend Paula Lane stars in Oldham Coliseum Theatre’s revival of Jim Cartwright’s Road

Corrie legend Paula Lane leads a strong case for Oldham Coliseum Theatre’s timely revival of Jim Cartwright’s raw and powerful Road. Well-oiled narrator Scullery takes the audience along his run down Lancashire road in 1987 where’s no jobs and little hope. but there’s a party to go to that’ll take you from the gutter to the stars and back again. Sound familiar? Ironically Paula Lane who was Kylie Platt in the Street plays the equally feisty Lane in Road and is joined by Coliseum regular Richard J Fletcher as feckless Scullery. Lancashire playwright Jim Cartwright’s debut play mixture of humour and pathos was voted third best play of the 1980s being revived many times, and even being produced at the Lincoln Centre in New York featuring cast Kevin Bacon and Joan Cusack. ...

Venus Rising – Liverpool Theatre Festival

6Sep

By Ezzy LaBelleNo Comments

North West

Venus Rising – Liverpool Theatre Festival

Pulsing with energy and sprinkled with laughs, Venus Rising takes you on a trolley ride of emotion through the life of an accidental erotic writer. Performed as a monologue, it has you perched with anticipation. Meet James Wilkinson. All he had ever wanted to do was write, but not like this. Having made a drunken bet with a friend, James finds success carving out his own greasy niche in the market. Life should be brilliant, shouldn't it? It is clear from the staging - a messy room with several wine bottles - that life is perhaps not as brilliant as you'd expect for a writer supposedly living the dream everyone else has. But that's the problem; he's not the one living the dream. He’s the most successful person you’ll ever meet, and you’d never know it. He hates his job, hates his l...

6Sep

By Max EdenNo Comments

North West

We Will Rock You – Palace Theatre

‘We Will Rock You’ is one of those musicals where you know exactly what you’re going to get; a musical with a set list jam-packed with singalong mega hits and bags of energy and fun, it’s a real crowd pleaser! Launched back in 2002; it has become the eleventh longest running musical of the West End and credited as one of the original ‘jukebox’ musicals, it’s popularity and longevity can be acknowledged in part by the back catalogue of Rock Legends; Queen - which make up its score; featuring a whooping 25 songs from Freddie Mercury and the band. The script although quite far-fetched and silly at times is perfectly tailored to our British humour, and writer Ben Elton has revamped and refreshed the script over the years to keep the production relevant, including a rather amusing Covid t...

David Essex ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ Tour – Liverpool Philharmonic

6Sep

By Jenn McKeanNo Comments

North West

David Essex ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ Tour – Liverpool Philharmonic

How do you scare a man in his mid-70s from East London? Lock him in a room with hundreds of scouse women screaming for him. Some people might think that David Essex is well past his prime, still going on tour into his 70s, but being on stage at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, it seemed as though he was still in his prime. Still sounding almost exactly the same as he did on his records and still able to fully captivate an audience. As someone who grew up, only knowing his biggest hits and learnt more of his back catalogue through his musical ‘All the Fun of the Fair’, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. We were treated to a fabulous set from Tim Newman, as Essex’s support act and he definitely got the crowd warmed up and ready for the main event. He sang some of his own tracks, in...

5Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Interviews

Big Fish swims into Northwich

Big Fish the musical is heading to Northwich Memorial Court later this month from Mid Cheshire Musical Theatre Company and our editor, Paul Downham has been speaking to director Louise Colohan to find out what we can expect from this lessor known musical. Mid Cheshire Musical Theatre Company have once again opted to produce a lesser known musical after the success of Sunshine on Leith 12 months ago and American Idiot earlier this year, which both gained huge critical acclaim. This year they bring us Big Fish, tell us about the storyline? Big Fish tells us the story of Edward Bloom, a seemingly ordinary man who, through the tales he tells his son, appears to have led a life full of magic, wonder, love and adventure. As an ailing Edward seeks to reconcile with his now grown-up son, we ...

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich – Liverpool Theatre Festival

5Sep

By Ezzy LaBelleNo Comments

North West

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich – Liverpool Theatre Festival

With no ticket left unsold, Fear and Misery of The Third Reich transports the audience to a time the history books say will never happen again. Written by Bertolt Brecht in 1938, viewers witness events that took place in ordinary German households through a series of twenty-four interconnected playlets. This version is dedicated in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. Produced by Theatre Right Now and directed by Anthony Proctor, Fear and Misery of The Third Reich, the performance provides an intimate, moving evening. They have made use of the actors’ skillsets and focused on the storytelling of Brecht's work. The script is powerful. With only four people in the cast - Liam Powell-Berry, Reginald Edwards, Megan Thorne, Mary Savage and Samantha Alton - a multitude of characters a...

A Night at the Musicals – Buxton Opera House

4Sep

By Angela KellyNo Comments

North West

A Night at the Musicals – Buxton Opera House

The stunning Buxton Opera House hosted ‘A night at The Musicals’, an Icy Shark production with an array of well-known scores from some of the world’s most popular musicals. Directed by Chris Ellis and Des McGill and produced by Dennis Kay this is a must for any lover of musical theatre. Including music from Moulin Rouge, Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables and Jesus Christ Superstar, and accompanied on stage by keyboards, drums and percussion and guitar, this non-profit making company had put on quite a show, considering that their first rehearsal was only in September 2021 following many delays related to Covid 19 prior to this. Before discussing the entire performance, it would be remiss not to mention the one major issue with the entire production and it was sadly the poor qualit...

2Sep

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Twenty Today – King’s Arms, Salford

For some reason, in the mid Eighties, my Dad started collecting plates. The sorts of plates that were regularly advertised in the back of glossy Sunday magazines. They were hideous. Many of them were wall mounted around the house and when family parties or sisters pretending to be The Nolans got a bit boisterous, my mother could be heard crying “Watch the plates!” I was reminded of this in the opening scene of Peripeteia Theatre’s Twenty Today in which we meet 19-year-old Peter Clapton (Joseph Harding) and his Aunt Holly ‘Dave’ Clapton (Solaya Sang) on the eve of his 20th birthday. He is preparing for his house party, she has a date. There is immediate warmth and connection between Harding and Sang as the orphaned boy-about-to-be-man and the sister of his dead mother, who has now...

Professor Brian Cox presents Horizons: A 21st Century Space Odyssey – The 02, London

1Sep

By Ely KingNo Comments

London

Professor Brian Cox presents Horizons: A 21st Century Space Odyssey – The 02, London

As someone who has always been fascinated by space, but never had the brain capacity or time to learn more, I jumped at the chance to be able to see Prof. Brian Cox live. This show may be seen as a glorified lecture to some, and Cox even referred to it as such, but this was so much more. With a huge HD LED screen at his disposal, the scientist used it to display some of the most fascinatingly beautiful images I will ever see. From real images taken from telescopes to simulations and artist renditions to live equations, this screen was used for it all. The highlights for me were when he displayed real life imagery taken by the James Webb Space Telescope and The Hubble Space Telescope, we even had the delights of seeing a ‘selfie’ from a Mars Rover! For two and a half hours the a...

1Sep

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Not F**kin’ Sorry – Soho Theatre

Presented by Not Your Circus Dog Collective and Access All Areas, the frank and honest cabaret ‘Not F**kin’ Sorry’ dives headfirst and unapologetically into the topic of disability discrimination in a highly provocative, hilarious, and seductive way. Not Your Circus Dog is a collective of learning disabled and neurodivergent performers who all, in their own right take command of the performance space to share their own story and those of others, and with serious content warnings, knock down all barriers on the sexuality, lifestyle, and fantasy of disabled people. The 60 minutes performance is impactful from start to finish. It is a curated piece that balances between the points of audience laughter and dancing, and points where they are stunned into silence and grim sadness. It’s a s...