Leeds Playhouse Archives - Page 3 of 11

Wish Sunita a happy birthday at Leeds Playhouse

31May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Wish Sunita a happy birthday at Leeds Playhouse

Harvey Virdi is best known as Dr Misbah Maalik on long-running TV soap Hollyoaks, but she is also a writer who scored a hit play back in 2014 with Happy Birthday Sunita. The revival of the play is about the power of British Asian women on stage is on its way to Leeds Playhouse and Harvey tells us about the fun you can have with a dysfunctional family. What’s Happy Birthday Sunita all about? It’s Friday evening and the family are gathering to celebrate Sunita’s special birthday. But after years of denial and strained relationships, emotions are running high and the family is finally forced to face the truth. Can they be brave and let go of the past and embrace a new future? What are the new team of actors bringing to this tour? A new cast always forces you to see your play in...

The creatives behind The Beekeeper of Aleppo discuss its power and truth as it buzzes into Leeds Playhouse

22May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

The creatives behind The Beekeeper of Aleppo discuss its power and truth as it buzzes into Leeds Playhouse

The Beekeeper of Aleppo was a surprise hit novel but the stage version on its way to Leeds Playhouse began with just a feeling and a Facebook post. After volunteering at a refugee centre in Athens in 2016 – a decision prompted by her own experiences as a daughter of Cypriot refugees – bestselling author Christy Lefteri wrote on her Facebook page: ‘You wouldn’t believe what’s going on here.’ Leferi was too overwhelmed with her volunteering work to post again, but the seeds of the novel had been sown, and the hard graft of writing it down would soon begin. Despite the tales of devastation and destruction she had heard, the first scene that Lefteri wrote was one of hope - a man salvaging a pomegranate for his wife among a pile of rotting fruit. “Just from that one scene,” r...

Tess Seddon talks about staging Kay Mellor’s first hit play, A Passionate Woman, at Leeds Playhouse

16May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Tess Seddon talks about staging Kay Mellor’s first hit play, A Passionate Woman, at Leeds Playhouse

30 years ago Leeds Playhouse staged A Passionate Woman by local playwright Kay Mellor who went onto pen massive TV hits like Band of Gold and Fat Friends. The play is set in the 1990s with glimpses back into the 1950s as Leeds woman Betty reconsiders the decisions she’s made, and the roads she’s left untravelled. Now this troubled woman at the heart of the play is returning to the same stage – the Courtyard – in memory of the much-missed writer who died a year ago. It’s directed by Tess Seddon, who lives in Leeds, trained at Leeds Playhouse and runs her own company, TheatreState, in the city. Tess Seddon explains why A Passionate Woman, with Emmerdale star Katherine Dow Blyton as Betty, is making a comeback three decades on. Why choose this play to direct? Kay was such an ic...

Fancy being Oliver or the Dodger at Leeds Playhouse?

5May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Fancy being Oliver or the Dodger at Leeds Playhouse?

Leeds Playhouse has launched an open casting call to find young actors to star in the leading roles of Oliver and Dodger as well as the Children’s Ensemble in its new staging of Oliver! that opens in Leeds this November. The Playhouse is working with leading casting directors Keston & Keston, who supported the theatre’s search for Charlie Bucket as part of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – The Musical, which is currently on tour across the UK. Open auditions will be held on 27th and 28th May to find Oliver, Dodger and members of the Children's Ensemble. All young people who meet the casting criteria and who register by 17th May will be seen by the team. They must be 9-12 years old, under 5ft tall and live within an hour’s commute of Leeds city centre. This is a paid role,...

Leeds Playhouse stage Oliver! as their next festive extravaganza

19Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Leeds Playhouse stage Oliver! as their next festive extravaganza

Audiences are invited to consider themselves at home as Leeds Playhouse stages Lionel Bart's classic Oliver! as their next Christmas show. Bart’s masterpiece adapted from Charles Dickens' rich novel was turned into an Oscar winning movie that has become a TV family favourite especially at Christmas time. This stage version Is Directed by Leeds Playhouse Artistic Director and Chief Executive James Brining, who was at the helm for their last festive hit, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – The Musical. Oliver! is a rags to riches story but one that doesn’t pull its punches about the grim reality of poverty in Victorian London. Orphaned Oliver is a small boy with a big heart as sets out on a perilous journey from a desolate workhouse to the mean streets in search of love and a place to ...

Corrie legend Paula Lane takes a trip down Quality Street at Leeds Playhouse

11Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Corrie legend Paula Lane takes a trip down Quality Street at Leeds Playhouse

Coronation Street Paula Lane made her name playing tough nut with a soft centre Kylie Platt and takes the lead role of Phoebe Throssel as bittersweet musical Quality Street comes to Leeds Playhouse. The marvellously moreish show was created with a team of retired workers from the Halifax factory where Quality Street™ chocolates have been proudly made since 1936 as they wrap the action in their witty and outrageous observations. The story centres on the romantic entanglements of Phoebe Throssel who runs a school for unruly children on Quality Street, and ten years after a tearful goodbye an old flame returns from fighting Napoleon. But the look of disappointment on Captain Valentine’s face when he greets an older, less glamorous Phoebe, spurs our determined heroine into action....

Alan Bennett joins 1001 Stories at Leeds Playhouse

7Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Alan Bennett joins 1001 Stories at Leeds Playhouse

Local legend Alan Bennett makes a rare public appearance at Leeds Playhouse to join 1001 Stories that gives a voice to the pioneering generations who have lived life to the full and are still here to share their incredible stories. As part of this innovative two-week takeover from 24th April to May 4th, the multi award winning actor, author, playwright and screenwriter, best known for The Madness of King George, The History Boys and The Lady in the Van, will return to his home city just days before his 89th birthday on May 7th. 1001 Voices was originated by Leeds-based The Performance Ensemble, and developed with Leeds Playhouse, Leeds Older People’s Forum, Leeds Museums and Galleries and Leeds 2023 to give a voice to share incredible stories of love and family, of the everyday and t...

Amy Leach talks about a new version of Lord of the Flies at Leeds Playhouse

12Mar

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Amy Leach talks about a new version of Lord of the Flies at Leeds Playhouse

In the 70 years since the publication of Lords of the Flies it’s been a staple on the national curriculum as young readers have been entranced by schoolchildren going feral on a desert island. Leeds Playhouse's Deputy Artistic Director Amy Leach is directing a new version of William Goldman’s classic study of human nature as Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon and Roger battle to survive, or just stay alive. “We often think about Lord of the Flies as a reaction to the Second World War, but when I came back to the story as an adult, I realised it’s actually set against a background of nuclear war – a war of the future,” says Amy Leach. “It felt important to embrace that by setting it now, to find a new and interesting way to restage a classic story and make it connect with audiences in 2023....

16Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Henry V – Leeds Playhouse

This is not a production for the purists as the traditional opening chorus is ditched in favour of a dying Henry IV handing over the crown to Prince Hal. It is typically challenging rethinking of the traditional text by dramaturg Cordelia Lynn who offers a smartly edited dark version that is a million miles away from the jingoish of Olivier’s technicolour movie version. That propaganda piece focused on Henry as a selfless warrior for a nation and empire in its greatest peril, but Lynn’s king is a conflicted man who reluctantly embraces the relentless brutality displayed by monarchs of that period, and familiar to Shakespeare’s audiences who had often fought in bloody campaigns. This is co-production with Headlong whose artistic director Holly Race Roughan places the uniformly excelle...

10Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Blow Down – Leeds Playhouse

It's certainly a first time experience watching a play billed as being about the demolition of massive cooling towers at a Yorkshire Power Station. Garry Lyons, who lived near the massive cooling towers at Ferrybridge Power Station that dominated the landscape around the M62 for 50 years, recorded over 25 hours of interviews with people who worked there - or made a life in their giant shadows. The result is a moving, and often very funny, verbatim play musing on what really happens when a community loses its industrial heartbeat. Act one focuses on the power station's heyday as Matthew Booth's almost stereotypical bluff Yorkshireman recalls the dangers and vast financial rewards of working in a close knit team at the plant. It is a dry and often poignant testimony of what happe...