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18Apr

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

The Show Goes On for The Dukes

The Dukes are delighted to announce the much-anticipated return of live performance at their venue with an exciting new spring and summer season to welcome audiences back to their building. On sale now on The Dukes’ website ( www.dukeslancaster.org ), the dynamic line-up features a mixture of family theatre, provocative dramas, guest speakers, dance and even some virtual reality. Beginning in May, the season marks the first live performances at The Dukes since October last year, with shows resuming with safety measures in place. The Dukes have embraced digital theatre and creativity during lockdown, with the likes of the upcoming The Importance of Being Earnest, their co-production with Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield which is streaming from April 19th – Ma...

Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted – Gash Theatre

18Apr

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

REVIEWS

Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted – Gash Theatre

Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted works not only as a title but also a production credit. The show is produced by Gash Theatre, the brainchild of Maddie Flint and Nathalie Ellis-Einhorn, two theatre makers with a shared interest in form, femininities, pop culture, and the ridiculous. The “Ghosted” part reflects the show's horror/haunted side but also its discussion of romantic and physical relationships, from the film, TV and music samples played or spoken by pieces of furniture, vinyl records and a television to the recorded conversations about porn and ghosting dates which punctuate the main action and yes, are also spoken by furniture and household appliances. Early on the show seems a mix of the Evil Dead (possessed furniture) and Aardman's Creature Comforts (real-life conversations perform...

Mrs Noah Fights Back – Untamed Productions

18Apr

By David S ClarkeNo Comments

REVIEWS

Mrs Noah Fights Back – Untamed Productions

This play is a reimagined version of the story of Noah’s Ark – with a strong environmental message and a definite feminist twist on the whole proceedings. Very early on when Noah has finished building his Ark, his wife tells all and sundry, “I’m not getting on that!” which sets the scene for the remainder of the production. The whole play is very tech-heavy, led by the talents of Juliann Pichelski, and starts off with the cast (and audience) participating in a Zoom meeting which, after some decidedly pertinent references to recent Zoom meetings that have gone viral, is interrupted by an extremely angry God who tells all present, “You are destroying nature in cold blood, so I’m finishing you off by sending an almighty great flood!”. Cue Noah’s attempts to save mankind (including himself,...

Rebuilding Beirut’s theatre scene with Whispers International, an online fundraiser production

18Apr

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Rebuilding Beirut’s theatre scene with Whispers International, an online fundraiser production

In the devastating 2020 explosion, the largest non-nuclear blast in history, all of Beirut’s theatres were destroyed. Whispers International will unite British playwrights with acclaimed Lebanese artists; all the proceeds of this online production will go towards helping the theatres rebuild and to support emerging Lebanese artists to create art once more. Facing a pandemic, a global theatre shutdown and Lebanon's economic crisis which was only worsened by the explosion, the hardship facing Lebanese artists and producers is unprecedented. Many lost their studios, homes, and belongings. Talented artists are being driven out of the creative industry and out of the country in order to simply survive. Agatha Ezzedine, actor and co-producer, comments, Beirut has always been the ultimate m...

Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre to stream online production of Jonathan Harvey’s Hushabye Mountain

17Apr

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre to stream online production of Jonathan Harvey’s Hushabye Mountain

Hope Mill Theatre has announced it will work with Stream.Theatre to stream a new online production worldwide of Hushabye Mountain by acclaimed writer Jonathan Harvey. Directed by Nick Bagnall, this online production will star Matt Henry as Lee, Jodie Prenger as Beryl, Layton Williams as Connor, Nathan McMullen as Danny, Amy Dunn as Lana and Harrison Scott-Smith as Ben. Hushabye Mountain will be streamed live on Saturday 5th June, and then available online on 11th, 12th and 13th June 2021 (All 7:30pm) and 18th, 19th and 20th June 2021 (All 7:30pm with a 2:30pm Saturday Matinee). Hope Mill Theatre will be partnering with the following venues to show the production throughout the run: The Turbine Theatre Sheffield Crucible Liverpool Everyman York Theatre Royal Tickets are £1...

Soho Theatre reopens with award winning play in June

17Apr

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Soho Theatre reopens with award winning play in June

Soho Theatre celebrates the relaunch of its theatre programme this summer with an exhilarating new play. Shedding A Skin, written by Amanda Wilkin, the 2020 winner of the acclaimed Verity Bargate Award, sponsored by Character 7, introduces audiences to a fresh and fierce new voice. Shedding A Skin is a Soho Theatre production sponsored by NJA. A story for our times, Shedding A Skin is a play about finding kindness in unexpected places, moments of connection, intergenerational friendship and joy. It will be the first new play staged in front of live audiences at Soho Theatre since the pandemic and brings together the creative talents of Amanda Wilkin and Elayce Ismail, who also directed the sell-out hit GIRLS (Soho Theatre 2016). Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge described this award-win...

16Apr

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Manchester theatre company wins prestigious Olwen Wymark Award after taking work online in Covid-19 pandemic

A Manchester theatre company which swapped the stage for a screen due to the Covid-19 pandemic has had its work recognised with a prestigious award. Elysium Theatre Company has just released five new online plays, days after being announced as Olwen Wymark Award-winners by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, for its work in supporting new writing. The company, which also has a base in Durham, began producing The Covid-19 Monologues last year on its new YouTube channel after the pandemic closed all theatres, as a way to bring the Arts to audiences on-screen. Elysium co-founder and Director, Jake Murray, can’t wait for the world to see the next five Covid-19 Monologues, which are online now. The pioneering approach involved commissioning writers to pen monologues on any subject,...

16Apr

By Kiefer WilliamsNo Comments

REVIEWS

Outside – Orange Tree Theatre

This is the companion piece to Orange Tree Theatre’s Inside which featured three new short plays from emerging and established writers and Outside follows the same format with three more short plays livestreamed from the Orange Tree Theatre auditorium. The three plays have a distinct link in so much that they look at personal connection during difficult times and how healing can sometimes take place through mutual understanding and the ability to forgive Two Billion Beats by Sonali Bhattacharyya features two schoolgirl sisters one of whom is in detention. It’s a slim story but the dialogue between the two sisters (Asha played by Zainab Hasan & Bettina played by Ashna Rabheru) crackled along at a fair pace. It was unfortunate that the performance suffered from some sou...

Cruise – Aria Entertainment and Lambert Jackson

16Apr

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

REVIEWS

Cruise – Aria Entertainment and Lambert Jackson

Oscar Wilde suggested that the theatre is the “greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being” and this sentiment is beautifully represented in Jack Holden’s latest play CRUISE. A lyrical celebration of queer culture, CRUISE is a musical and spoken word tribute to the veterans of the AIDS crisis. A perfectly crafted piece of queer theatre. Poetic. Artistic. Honest. It is a brutal depiction of a horrific period in the gay culture of ‘80s London. Of course, there is no message more powerful or indeed primal than that which shows the need of a human to protect their tribe and this story, told through the eyes of a 30-year-old Jack (jack Holden) in 2021, is the perfect example of survival, of ...

16Apr

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

REVIEWS

A Splinter of Ice – Original Theatre

This is story of two friends, Kim Philby and Graham Greene, two ex-spies, one turned traitor and one turned author. If you're interested in the story of these two men and their friendship but don't know many details, don't worry: this three-hander tells pretty much the entire story of Kim Philby's part in one of the biggest spy scandals of the 20th Century through one conversation between them. Written by Ben Brown and directed by Alastair Whatley with Alan Strachan, the team behind the play which inspired the Oscar-winning film Darkest Hour, the play imagines the final reunion between them just a year before Philby's death, their only meeting since the latter was revealed as a member of the Cambridge Spy Ring and fled to the USSR. I say “imagines” because, though the circumstances behi...