Giles Cooper Archives - North West End UK

Great Expectations – Royal Exchange Theatre

14Sep

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Great Expectations – Royal Exchange Theatre

With three competing press nights in Manchester theatreland this evening, I chose the opportunity to visit the venerable old Royal Exchange building in St Anne's Square to review their opening offering for the Autumn/Winter season, an adaptation of Charles Dickens 'Great Expectations' which like the character of Estella had great beauty but lacks a little heart. This is one of Dickens most oft adapted novels, only 'A Christmas Carol' and 'Oliver Twist' beat it for popularity and already in 2023 we have had two versions of Dickens tale of class mobility and class intransigence served up, Steven Knight gave us his spiky television adaptation earlier this year and Eddie Izzard's extraordinary one woman show was a huge success in London over the Spring, This ubiquity means that writers are ...

Steve – Seven Dials Playhouse

The newly refurbished Tristan Bates Theatre (now renamed Seven Dials Playhouse) is the perfect setting for this play in which the first scene takes place in a Joe Allen restaurant, and the New York bar setting of the theatre compliments this perfectly. The writer Mark Gerrard has (rather annoyingly) called three of the characters similar names, Stephen (Joe Aaron Reid), Steven (David Ames), and their son Stevie, who we do not see, but who is talked about extensively. The annoying aspect is that it does take some time to understand who is who at the outset, so some of the nuances of the first scene may be lost as you figure out which Steven/Stephen/Stevie, they are talking about. Five old friends meet at Joe Allen’s to celebrate Steven’s birthday, Carrie (Jenna Russell...

The Royal Variety Performance 2020 Comes to Blackpool

The Royal Variety Charity is thrilled to announce that the Royal Variety Performance 2020 will take place at the Blackpool Opera House, within the Winter Gardens complex, on Sunday 29th November. This year, the charity has continued to support current members of the entertainment industry with our own nationwide grants scheme, assisting many people who have found this year a particularly difficult one. Before Covid-19, it was only the top 4.8% of those working in the entertainment industry who earned above the average UK wage. Sadly, theatres, music and other entertainment venues have mostly had to close, so many more people, including those who usually work ‘job-to-job’, have sought out our assistance. The Royal Variety Charity has also continued to manage its own care home...