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30May

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

NEWS

Ripples – A Play (A Work-in-Progress)

It was lovely to be back at The Vaults to take a look at ‘Ripples’, which is a work-in-progress play. The show is presented at the Fringe Futures Festival, an innovative collaboration between the Pleasance & VAULT Creative Arts, providing an opportunity for early and mid-career artists to try out work at various stages of development in front of a live audience. How many times have you watched something going on around you, and then when asked a question about what just happened, you cannot give a detailed answer? Our mind plays tricks on us and fills in the detail that we cannot remember, so we think we know what happened, but that may not be entirely the case. Inspired by her own experience of this when she was young, Xi Chen (Director), was convinced that ...

Ballet legend David Nixon steps down from leading Northern Ballet

30May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Ballet legend David Nixon steps down from leading Northern Ballet

Northern Ballet have announced their longest serving Artistic Director David Nixon will step down in December 2021 after twenty years leading the Leeds based company. Under the Canadian-born Nixon they have created 29 full-length ballets with 23 one-act works added to their repertoire, as well as 14 original full-length musical compositions. As an innovative choreographer and designer Nixon has created 13 original full-length ballets for Northern Ballet, including Wuthering Heights, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Great Gatsby and The Little Mermaid, and has restaged and adapted a further six productions. But more than that Nixon turned a company based in the North into a national and international force building a world class company that always nurtured and pushed new talent to e...

Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters have their say at Leeds Playhouse

28May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters have their say at Leeds Playhouse

Fairy tales are always ripe for retellings of the original story and this time it is Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters who get to tell their side of the story at Leeds Playhouse. The Not So Ugly Sisters, created by Leeds-based theatre company Wrongsemble in co-production with Leeds Playhouse and Red Ladder Theatre Company, is a family friendly show where there are always two sides to every story. Dolly is resting on her broom counting the passers-by outside the salon window, while her sister Barb watches the phone that never rings. It’s the morning of Cindy and Prince Smarming’s big royal wedding – but Dolly and Barb are not invited – and Hell hath no fury like a hairdresser scorned. Photography by Anthony Jones Leeds actors Daisy Ann Fletcher and Lucy Rafton star as the h...

No Strings Attached – King’s Head Theatre

28May

By Jessica BattisonNo Comments

London

No Strings Attached – King’s Head Theatre

“You asked ‘who are you then?’ I don’t think I know the answer to that.” The debut play by Charles Entsie marks the King’s Head Theatre’s return to live performances after 436 days. Directed by Aileen Gonsalves, the audience are exposed to, and reminded of, the lengths gay men feel they must go to hide in the closet. Sorcha Corcoran’s skeletal car structure against a concrete backdrop, set in an underground car park, brilliantly highlights the claustrophobia felt by the two men. At very different stages in their lives, they are equally lost in trying to find themselves, “tired of just surviving”. The play is riddled with their anxieties, distraught and pain, despite attempts to suppress. Utilising Gonsalves’s own method, of the audience feeling what the actor does in each moment, ...

28May

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

London

Public Domain – Vaudeville Theatre

There is a fresh breeze blowing through the world of musical theatre from the general direction of Forristal and Clarke. This very on-trend musical does not hold back in its dissection of social media, and as we emerge, bleary eyed from the latest lockdown, it is making a very relevant point. It is all too easy to reach for the smart phone, iPad or laptop to see what is going on outside your front door, when you cannot leave the house, we are sociable animals and need interaction. Hidden, lurking behind this online socialisation is a world of capitalism, where every click is monitored, every search is logged. With this in mind, ‘Public Domain’ attempts to give us a musical, collating the words of others, via Tweets, Instagram posts and You Tube videos. T...

Touching The Void – Bristol Old Vic at Home

27May

By Kiefer WilliamsNo Comments

REVIEWS

Touching The Void – Bristol Old Vic at Home

After a successful and critically acclaimed West End run, David Greig’s tense play based on Joe Simpson’s bestselling mountaineering memoir is brought to the live streaming platform by Bristol Old Vic. Touching The Void is a play about the human spirit and the need to survive under extreme and dangerous circumstances. The story is set in the perilous Peruvian Andes where climbers Joe (Josh Williams) and Simon (Angus Yellowlees) are facing the treacherous descent of the infamous Siula Grande Mountain. Greig’s lean and powerful script plays out like a nail biting thriller as we see both climbers struggle to survive not just the unforgiving weather conditions but the mountain itself. When one of the climbers slips during their descent, all bets are off as the real tension builds and ...

27May

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Here Come The Boys – London Palladium

After more than a year starved of live theatre, it is not surprising that the socially distanced and masked audience for Here Come The Boys is champing at the bit, wildly enthusiastic, and totally up for an evening of sparkling entertainment. And they certainly get that in this show. Here Come The Boys toured to sold-out theatres in 2019 and the performers are clearly as keen to get back into the swing as the audience. The four lead dancers, calling themselves the "Kings of Dance", are Strictly stars present and past Aljaž Škorjanec, Pasha Kovalev, Graziano di Prima and Robin Windsor. They are joined by Nadiya Bychkova representing the ladies, Strictly finalist Karim Zeroual as dancer and MC, and a large dance ensemble. The vibe of the show is Strictly on steroids, a dance p...

26May

By Katie LeicesterNo Comments

North West

Meet Me at Dawn – Hope Mill Theatre

“No matter how bad your heart is broken, the world doesn't stop for your grief or does it?” “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” The stunning Hope Mill Theatre opened its doors to a long-awaited theatre audience eager to get back to watching live performing arts. The Covid safety screening was efficient and slick where the front of house staff guided you through from the box office to the bar area where they had tables with sectioned screens and table service to minimise movement. British playwright, screenwriter and director Zinnie Harris’ Meet Me at Dawn was first performed at the Traverse Theatre in Scotland in 2017 at the age of 48 her plays have been translated and performed in many countries and she has directed for a number of theatres, including the Royal Shakespear...

26May

By Angela KellyNo Comments

South East

The Preacher – Brighton Fringe

‘Philospohical’, ‘existential’ and based on the ‘Biblical book of Ecclesiasticus’ are not common descriptions you would associate with a stand up comedian but these descriptions can certainly be attributed to David ‘Dave’ Davidson in his stand up performance ‘The Preacher’, performed as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival. It’s true that many of us challenged ourselves during the various lockdowns of the past year or so but performing stand up, based on a book of the bible to no live audience was certainly up there with the strangest of challenges. Adapted by Anthony Noack and now performing on line, David ‘Dave’ Davidson was one comic who chose to carry on with stand up whether there was a live audience or not. Perhaps something a Preacher may also do in times of the Bible and spea...

Decades: 1970s/1980s/2000s – Leeds Playhouse

26May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Decades: 1970s/1980s/2000s – Leeds Playhouse

To kick off their delayed 50th birthday celebrations the Playhouse team commissioned both experienced and newer creatives to create short monologues boldly trying to meld the history of Leeds and events across the north over six decades since they opened their doors.. They are offering all six as the King Lear of monologues, or two lots of three like tonight’s offering spanning three decades. There may be some obscure artistic reasoning behind this but it seems odd to run them out of sequence as doing so might have added to their power. As a veteran of the eighties Leeds anarchist and squat scene it must have tempting for Alice Nutter to offer a sugar-coated version of that scene, but typically in Nicer Than Orange Squash she offers an often funny indictment of the hypocrisy an...