Belgrade Theatre Archives - North West End UK

11Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

After Party – Traverse Theatre

Imagine inviting the family round for your 80th birthday, pouring the drinks, cutting the cake and then announcing that you intend to be dead tomorrow. That is the grenade Vivienne Blackwood throws into the celebrations in Morna Young’s After Party. A celebrated former actress, Vivienne has terminal cancer and has decided that she will determine the manner and timing of her own death. She wants her fractured family around her when she does it. You could hardly ask for a more combustible theatrical premise. What is surprising is how rarely After Party allows it to explode. This Traverse Theatre production, in association with Paines Plough and the Belgrade Theatre and directed by Katie Posner, initially treats the gathering remarkably broadly. The first half freq...

4Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Consumed – Traverse Theatre

Playwright Karis Kelly believes in challenging audiences even if that makes them feel uncomfortable. And she certainly does that in ‘Consumed’ which opens the lid on a dysfunctional family in Northern Ireland. Four generations of women gather in Bangor to celebrate the 90th birthday of Eileen who lives with Gilly, her 65 year old daughter. Gilly’s daughter, Jenny, aged 40, and her 14 year-old daughter, Muireann, fly over from London for the occasion. Eileen wears a party hat as the play starts, but there is tension in the air as Gilly returns from her last minute shopping. And things don’t get any better when Jenny and Muireann arrive. This is not an easy watch. Light moments are few and far between. And in fact what starts as a naturalistic kitchen sink drama develops into someth...

Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning – Theatre Royal Glasgow

15Sep

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning – Theatre Royal Glasgow

It seems to be, for no particular reason, a big year for Dracula. It isn't the anniversary of its first publication, of the author's birth, the author's death, or of any of its most famous adaptations - apologies, uberfans of The Satanic Rites of Dracula, happy 50th to you - and yet this year we have seen two cinematic depictions of Dracula (the Nicholases Hoult and Cage film Renfield and the adaptation of a single chapter of the original novel with The Last Voyage of the Demeter), with another remake of Nosferatu also being shot this year (and also starring Nicholas Hoult). And of course, latest but not leastest, there is Dracula: Mina's Reckoning, from the National Theatre of Scotland and Aberdeen Performing Arts, in association with Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. As its title clearly st...

The Allesley Silas – Belgrade Theatre Coventry

27Jul

By Annette NuttallNo Comments

West Midlands

The Allesley Silas – Belgrade Theatre Coventry

Originally performed in a circus marquee in Allesley as part of the Coventry City of Culture 2021, The Allesley Silas has a short run at the Belgrade Theatre. This production is a version of the George Eliot’s novel Silas Marner. It plays heavily on the local connection, the setting of Raveloe is actually Allesley and the Rainbow pub features many times in the story. Continuing the local feel, the play was devised by a production team that has connections to the area. It features professional actors alongside local community performers. Silas Marner lives in Raveloe, mixing as little as possible with the locals. This raises questions as to why and what he does. When he is robbed people’s opinions start to change. Everything is turned around even more for Marner when an orphan come...