Bradford Alhambra Archives - North West End UK

14Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Waitress – Bradford Alhambra

The Great British Bake Off had been going for some years when Waitress hit the West End a decade ago, so there was a ready made audience for a show based on cakes….or pies as they are known stateside. This warm hearted musical uses the ingredients waitress Jenna Hunterson uses in her unique pies as a metaphor for the trials and tribulations of her life and those around her. Waitress is actually much like Jenna’s pies, a bittersweet affair as whilst Jessie Nelson’s book celebrates the tight community that work and eat in her southern diner, Jenna is not only trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband Earl, but reluctantly expecting his baby. She escapes her grim life through an affair with her obstetrician Dr Pomatter and dreaming of winning a pie-baking contest to escape from E...

25Mar

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Fawlty Towers – Bradford Alhambra

Sometimes when a beloved sitcom gets tired and introduces daft storylines like Happy Days did it’s said to have ‘jumped the shark’. That’s something you can never say about Fawlty Towers which ran for just two perfectly formed series in the seventies. Monty Python legend John Cleese and Connie Booth’s masterpiece has regularly won the greatest ever British sitcom title, so the increasingly deranged antics of the world’s worst hotelier, Basil Fawlty, was always going to get a stage adaptation. Cleese has adapted his greatest solo work that was based on a torrid time the Python team had when they booked a stay with a very strange and rude hotelier. In many ways in our febrile political world the always rude Basil’s xenophobia, snobbery and misogyny seem to be back in vogue. Cleese w...

4Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Rocky Horror Show – Bradford Alhambra

There are not many shows where the opening overture gets a massive round of applause, but this is the Rocky Horror Show where usual theatrical rules do not apply during this cult classic. More than fifty years after Richard O'Brien first staged his transgressive love letter to the fifties and sixties B-movies of his youth the Rocky Horror Show continues to play round the world, including a cold Monday night in West Yorkshire. This is the simple tale of two very straight fifties kids, Janet (Lucy Aiston) and Brad (James Bisp), who stumble upon the lair of transvestite mad scientist Frank N Furter who is conducting strange experiments in his spooky mansion with his gang of kooky misfits, and takes great delight in corrupting the naive young couple. It's a mashup of finding yo...

30Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

An Inspector Calls – Bradford Alhambra

Only yards away from this historic theatre is a statue of local boy made good J B Priestley so it’s fitting that it’s a full house for this revival of his spooky masterpiece. Still a GCSE text An Inspector Calls was revived by Stephen Daldry for the National Theatre and since then Priestley’s combination of the supernatural and socialism has become a staple of the touring circuit. Posh industrialists the Birlings are having an engagement party for their self-absorbed daughter in their mansion at the turn of the last century when a mysterious police inspector arrives to ask them questions about the suicide of a young local woman. Piece by piece Inspector Goole reveals the complicity in the death of these smug people, whose only concern is for themselves, but is their inquisitor all th...

3Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Hamilton – Bradford Alhambra

Bradford’s historic Alhambra Theatres is certainly doing its bit to kick off the city’s stint as UK City of Culture by booking the world’s hottest musical in for a long run. I’ve always thought a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton, one of the more obscure members of the Founding Fathers who delivered democracy to America, was a concept that shouldn’t really work, but, boy, did this powerful touring version of a theatrical juggernaut prove me very wrong. If you think of the Founding Fathers as an intellectual boyband, then Hamilton born as a bastard into poverty in the Caribbean is the Jason Orange of the group. Quite why Lin-Manuel Miranda who wrote the book, lyrics and music picked him to be the star of his show isn’t that obvious, but the rise and fall of this Icarus of the r...

The Adventures of Pinocchio – Bradford Alhambra

12Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Adventures of Pinocchio – Bradford Alhambra

Next year Bradford becomes the UK City of Culture so what better way to prepare for that momentous year then joining local legend Billy Pearce for his 24th panto. Pinocchio is a new show for both this theatre and panto giant Crossroads, so it makes sense to launch it with Billy leading a strong company and getting the audience revved up from the moment he came on. Billy may be in his seventh decade, but he retains an infectious energy, and razor sharp comic timing honed by his years slogging round the club circuit. He’s also the king of the fart gag, much to the delight of the young kids laughing their heads off alongside their loved ones. He’s equally at home with the corny gags that are so central to a satisfying panto experience, and the smutty asides that go over the heads of...

26Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Hairspray – Bradford Alhambra

Hairspray is one of those rare musicals that can happily combine big, breezy show tunes with a clear political message, but still easily fill big theatres like this. It’s 1962, Tracy Turnblad is a plus size teenager with an enormous beehive living in racially segregated Baltimore, who has a dream of becoming a star of the Corny Collins TV dance show despite limited talent, which certainly feels familiar in our reality TV obsessed world. Along the way Tracy who is mocked by the 'cool' white teens finds she has much in common with her black friends, and leads an assault on Corny’s show to try and unite the races through the medium of song and dance. Hairspray was the creation of transgressive cult filmmaker John Waters who brought together a gang of misfits in his home city to cre...

7Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Book of Mormon – Bradford Alhambra

Most of us have heard the doorbell go and opened it to find a pair of earnest Mormon missionaries keen to discuss their faith dressed in their trademark white shirts and black name badges. Imagine if two of those naïve teenage missionaries were dispatched to Uganda to spread the word of Mormon founder Joseph Smith to a nation ravaged by brutal warlords, poverty and AIDS, and there you have The Book of Mormon. Along the way, devout Elder Price and nerdy Elder Cunningham find out that the local population are just a tad cynical that any god will help them, but somehow through the violence and a not a few moments when their faith is sorely tested manage to find some common humanity. It all sounds a bit grim, but this ribald musical is the brainchild of South Park creators Trey Parker...

31Oct

By Phoebe Olivia Sian HobsonNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Ghost The Musical – Bradford Alhambra

This musical makes you finally realise what Frankie goes to Hollywood has been singing about, the power of love. Passion, tears and heartbreak were left on that stage on Tuesday night, truly a sensational story about the afterlife of modern day Sam Wheat played by John St Clair, alongside his living soulmate Molly Jenson (Rebekah Lowings).Their love affair takes a terrifying turn splitting them apart, but Sam’s soul lingers and the love continues, the performance was remarkable in portraying the passion between the pair despite his death. Photo: Alastair Muir Bruce Joel Rubin’s famous narrative was displayed on that stage beautifully with grace, leaving the audience in awe of the talent that was shared with them. The show was a credit to the deeply loved original but also featured ne...

22Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Chicago – Bradford Alhambra

There is no better opening in musical theatre than Chicago as a troupe of ripped and toned dancers shimmy, strut and shoulder roll their way round the stage in perfect unison as vaudeville performer turned murderess Velma belts out All That Jazz. Originally choreographed by the great Bob Fosse this is a show full of ‘jazz hands’, which is a concept that many people sneer at, but as Craig Revel Harwood constantly points out on Strictly strong hands make for great dancing. There is something really elemental about a simple move like a hand roll, and the dancers in this cast nail some of the toughest and naughtiest routines in any show. At heart Fosse’s wonderfully cynical book is both a tribute to the exuberance of vaudeville and to the nature of fame, aided by the med...