Latest Articles - Page 496 of 664

5Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

School of Rock – Leeds Grand Theatre

There can always be the danger when a classic movie turns into a stage show that you just can’t get the original star out of your mind. Well, don’t worry as there wasn’t a moment you thought of Jack Black as gifted physical comic Jake Sharp’s big voice and easy charm was perfect for broke wannabe rock god Dewey Finn who pretends to be a substitute teacher in a posh elementary school. In the absence of any teaching ability - or qualification – he focuses on his undying belief in the redemptive powers of rock and roll to form a group to take part in an adult battle of the bands. The gag is that the band is his class of privileged kids who are having their very souls sucked out of them. Step forward the kids in the band who proved to be quite the most talented group of young performe...

Announcing “WEST END for UKRAINE” at the Charing Cross Theatre

5Apr

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

NEWS

Announcing “WEST END for UKRAINE” at the Charing Cross Theatre

A top line-up of West End stars will be taking to the stage at West End for Ukraine on Monday 9th May 2022 at the Charing Cross Theatre. The musical fundraiser is in aid of the UNICEF Ukraine Emergency Appeal, raising vital urgent funds for children in desperate need. The line-up for West End for Ukraine is*: Sabrina Aloueche, Paul Baker, Lizzie Bea, Gina Beck, Nikki Bentley, Kieran Brown, Joanne Clifton, Scott Garnham, Natalie Green, Adrian Hansel, Christopher Howell, Kim Ismay, Sooz Kempner, Joshua Lay, Emma Lindars, George Maguire, Jai McDowall, Nadim Naaman, Caroline Sheen, Simon Shorten, Courtney Stapleton, Harriet Thorpe, Shona White and Rachael Wooding alongside The Barricade Boys, members of the cast of Heathers and Titanic and the West End Musical Choir (*subject to availabilit...

Red Ladder Local takes theatre to people where they live

5Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Red Ladder Local takes theatre to people where they live

If there was one company you might expect to take theatre out of its safe traditional spaces playing to the usual suspects it would be radical mischief makers Red Ladder. Since 1968 this decidedly left leaning company has created work that challenges the way we think about the world, so it’s no surprise they created Red Ladder Local. Like all great ideas it is simple. Instead of just playing big theatres, Red Ladder and other companies take scaled down, but high-quality, productions to non-traditional venues like community centres, pubs and working men’s clubs. It all started when Red Ladder’s producer Chris Lloyd went along to the then Yorkshire Playhouse to see a new short play called Playing The Joker, and he had a lightbulb moment which led years later to the creation of Red L...

Coming to England – Birmingham Repertory Theatre

5Apr

By Priya GuptaNo Comments

West Midlands

Coming to England – Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Dame Floella Benjamin’s award-winning and iconic book Coming to England is brought to life in this touching stage adaptation. It's an inspirational story of ambition, tenacity, and victory. Award winning director Omar Okai has created a show full of magic, joy, hope and happiness. The children’s book is a firm favourite by many, with wonderful illustrations captivating Floella’s own journey of emigration from Trinidad to London. These illustrations are brought to life in the simplistic yet colourful use of props and set design. Such as the rows of light up houses that create the streets of 1960’s London to the cabin style beach huts that reflect Floella’s Trinidadian home. The show explores complex issues and themes of racism, overcoming adversity, and personal triumph. It is an insp...

5Apr

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

Hindle Wakes – Lyceum Theatre Oldham

There are a lot of people who would shiver significantly at the thought of a dash up to Oldham (or Owdham to us natives) on a soggy cold Monday night. As a daughter of that fair mill town, I was more than happy to abandon my South Manchester residence and head up t’ th’ills to see the Lyceum’s current production of Stanley Houghton’s Hindle Wakes. Written in the first decade of the 20th Century and just prior to the First World War, this beautifully comic play, which presented one of the first powerful working- class female protagonists, was controversial, shocking and highly contentious amongst both audiences and academics when first produced. Fanny Hawthorn, spirited mill worker and a lass who knows her own mind, spends an illicit weekend away with the boss’s son, who happens to be...

Much Ado About Nothing (2022) – RSC, Stratford-Upon-Avon

4Apr

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

REVIEWS

Much Ado About Nothing (2022) – RSC, Stratford-Upon-Avon

Shown on BBC4 at the end of its run, this is one of Shakespeare’s funniest pieces full of delightful word play and it is often wondered whether it is the missing Love’s Labour’s Won, the latter half of a comic double bill with Love’s Labour Lost. Interpretation is key in theatre to keep it alive for new audiences and certainly there have been no holds barred with this production from director Roy Alexander Weise, indeed if there was ever an attempt to outdo Baz Luhrmann then this would be it with its rich tapestry of sci-fi staging and costume changes outdoing each preceding one to the pulsating medley of Afrobeat, reggae, funk and soul from Femi Temowo. However, as I often find with productions that focus on the sensational and hide behind the music, when you peel away the superfluous ...

4Apr

By Karen Morley-ChesworthNo Comments

North West

Swim – Theatre by the Lake

Sitting in The Studio just a few yards from Derwentwater the urge to run down to the shore and into the icy water is extreme after Liz Richardson’s performance of her play Swim, writes Karen Morley-Chesworth. This is a new version of the production performed at HOME in Manchester and at the Edinburgh Festival before the lockdowns. Originally with a cast of other performers, sharing the experiences of a group of wild swimmers, during the following couple of years, Liz revisited her work and focused on the true-life experience of her and her friend Lisa B. This one-woman performance works beautifully, distilling their intertwined story into the one voice. The setting for this production at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick is simple and effective. A chained curtain backdrop upon which the...

Tandem Writing Collective – Traverse Theatre

4Apr

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Tandem Writing Collective – Traverse Theatre

Established, run and directed by playwrights, Amy Hawes, Jennifer Adam and Mhairi Quinn, Tandem puts on new scripts by the three writers, performed script in hand here by Debbie Cannon, Vivien Reid, Lucy Goldie, and Calum Barbour, with musical accompaniment by Aaron McGregor (who composed all the music with the exception of one piece) and Lucia Capellaro. In “Divide and Conquer” a mother-in-law and furloughed son-in-law deal with forced cohabitation during a Covid lockdown. In “Tying The Knot” (which is based on some real events), a woman hires an online ancestry website called whoami.com to find out about the family she was adopted from with disturbing results. “Heartbrain” is a monologue about life and leasing with your heart. "Swing 'Till You're Winning” follows an understudy who loc...

2Apr

By Clare ChandlerNo Comments

North West

The Oracle – The Future Yard

A building that reimagines the role of a live music venue seems the perfect setting for an arts organisation pushing the boundaries of classical music. Tonight, the collaboration is further enhanced by the contribution of South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, an artist who is redefining the parameters of his instrument. As Selaocoe explains, in South Africa mastering ‘Western’ instruments is a form of protest as you can put your culture on top. This layering of cultures, timbres and sounds is evident throughout The Oracle as pieces by Stravinsky, Rameau and Vivaldi sit alongside Selaocoe’s own compositions. An oracle is a form of divination, providing a message for the wellbeing of the community and there are moments of this programme that are sublime as it explores Afrofutur...

2Apr

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Les Misérables – The Lowry

Reviewing 'Les Misérables' is in some ways a useless task. The show is entering its thirty seventh (!) year in production and has been seen by well over seventy million (!!) people during that time. It was famously panned by the critics at the opening but has subsequently proved to be one of the most popular 'critic proof' musicals with sell out audiences all over the world, Now, Boublil and Schonberg's iconic show lands at The Lowry for six weeks having already sold virtually every ticket, once again those visitors will not be disappointed with this fresh staging of a spellbinding masterpiece. The titanic struggle between Javert (Nic Greenshields) and Jean Valjean (Dean Chisnall), set against the backdrop of post revolutionary France, culminating in the Paris Uprising of 1832, forms th...