Leeds Playhouse Archives - Page 4 of 11

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...

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes to Leeds Playhouse

10Feb

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes to Leeds Playhouse

It’s not often you see mature actors leading a play, and what makes The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel different is that the younger cast members are in supporting roles as a group of British retirees find themselves trying to make new lives in India. The two smash movies featured the cream of British acting Oscar winners having great fun as they help a mother and son save their rundown hotel and finding themselves along the way. The stage production is based on the book that inspired the movies, and also features some acting royalty in Paul Nicholas, Rula Lenska and Hayley Mills as the tour which has played to packed houses makes its way to Leeds Playhouse. Rekha John-Cheriyan is one of the younger cast members playing the feisty Mrs Kapoor who will do anything to save the hotel, and sh...

Garry Lyons talks about the unlikely inspiration for his new play, Blow Down, that comes to Leeds Playhouse

31Jan

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Garry Lyons talks about the unlikely inspiration for his new play, Blow Down, that comes to Leeds Playhouse

Giant concrete cooling towers just outside Leeds might seem an unlikely source for a play, but local playwright Garry Lyons decided he needed to tell the stories of those who lived and worked in their massive shadows. When the Ferrybridge Power Station towers were blown up after they were decommissioned thousands made the trip to see them come down. Lyons is an award-winning writer who has used extensive interviews with workers and locals to create a show about change, but also full of laughs examining what these concrete landmarks that could be seen for miles meant for his community. In what ways were the towers architecturally significant? The eight cooling towers were huge, nearly 400 feet high, with two 650ft chimney stacks alongside. When you came across them at night, ...

<strong>Cast announced for Of Mice and Men at Leeds Playhouse</strong>

24Jan

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Cast announced for Of Mice and Men at Leeds Playhouse

Tom McCall and William Young take on the roles of friends George and Lennie battling to survive in tough times in a new stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic novel Of Mice and Men at Leeds Playhouse. This version of the classic tale of doomed friendship is directed by Iqbal Khan, who was in charge of the impressive multi-genre Opening Ceremony for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, and the show is a co-production between the Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and Fiery Angel. “I'm ecstatic to be playing Lennie again,” says William Young. “I played him in Chapter, Cardiff in 2017 with August 012 Theatre Company. He reminds me of Roald Dahl's BFG. “I was born with a rare brain condition called Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum, which means I find it easy to ...

<strong>Blow Down tells the story of two iconic Yorkshire landmarks</strong>

10Jan

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Blow Down tells the story of two iconic Yorkshire landmarks

The demolition of the iconic cooling towers at Ferrybridge Power Station that impacted on the lives of the people who lived and worked beneath them is probably not an obvious choice for a play. When the towers were explosively demolished thousands turned up to watch them come down and Blow Down about their history is scripted by award-winning playwright Garry Lyons who lived near them based on stories collected from the local community in Ferrybridge and Knottingley. He’s written a funny, gritty and thought-provoking show with music about how losing a major landmark and employer impacts on a typical post-industrial Yorkshire town. From the towers’ raucous seventies heyday through recession and decline in the 2000s, Blow Down tells the story of the area through the experiences of peop...

<strong>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Musical – Leeds Playhouse</strong>

1Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Musical – Leeds Playhouse

Every festive season Leeds Playhouse tick off the work of a brilliant children’s writer and this time it’s the undisputed master of devilish delights Roald Dahl. It’s a doubly bold move taking on his most beloved book that had already spawned West End and Broadway versions of this production, two film versions, and Gene Wilder’s cinematic take on mysterious sweet factory owner Willy Wonka is rightly seen as the definitive version. Wonka launches a worldwide competition for five kids to visit his factory if they can find a golden ticket in one of his chocolate bars, and among the loathsome children who win is Charlie Bucket. He’s a decent kid full of ideas living in grinding poverty with his single mum, and four grandparents who share a bed in the attic. Once inside the factory ...

<strong>The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes – Leeds Playhouse</strong>

5Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes – Leeds Playhouse

It’s hard to think of many pieces of work where actors with disabilities are lead actors and even less so where they have roles that offer them much more. This powerful piece was devised by Australian people with disabilities working with Back to Back Theatre in Geelong. It’s performed by three actors with different intellectual disabilities (the term used in their native land) and is a breath of fresh air as it makes the audience understand them as people with the same hopes, dreams and faults as anyone else as they explore what true equality might look like. Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring and Scott Price have called a public meeting ostensibly to discuss what a civic society might look like, but soon turns into a passionate debate about what it means to be seen as just a disabled ...

Orpheus In The Record Shop – Leeds Playhouse

15Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Orpheus In The Record Shop – Leeds Playhouse

One of the rare bright spots during the pandemic was getting masked up between outbreaks up to see Orpheus In The Record Shop, and this unique collaboration between rapper Testament and Opera North is back as we return to whatever the new normal is. Fusing mysticism, rap, beatboxing and some of the country’s best classically trained musicians, Testament has boldly reworked the Orpheus myth of a musician descending into the underworld to reclaim his lost love. It’s a broad mix of influences that shouldn’t really work, but it does partly due to Testament’s confidence is his ability to beatbox and rap his way through this classic tale, and the fact that the members of Opera North’s Chorus and Orchestra have totally bought into his vision as they drift onto the stark Quarry stage through...

Rapper Testament is back in the record shop at Leeds

11Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Rapper Testament is back in the record shop at Leeds

World record-breaking beatboxer Testament is again joining forces with Opera North as they collaborate on his genre busting piece Orpheus in the Record Shop at Leeds Playhouse. The show was first seen during a short socially distanced run at the height of the pandemic that was filmed for BBC Four’s Lights Up series. Testament will be front of stage working with members of the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North, including soloist Helen Evora. Why is it important that audiences get a chance to see this show again in the Playhouse’s biggest theatre space? Performing this show live is bananas! A classical ensemble live on stage, with beatboxing, spoken word and comedy – it’s a unique thing to be part of. I’ve been telling all my friends and family to come along because it...

10Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Nine Night – Leeds Playhouse

As part of a large Irish family, I am only too aware of how tense a wake can get so it’s reassuring to know the same flashpoints can happen at a traditional Jamaican Nine Night. Great art takes you into worlds you have no experience of, and I had no idea that Jamaicans send off their dead off with nine nights of mourning, which is what one extended London family are doing for their mum Gloria It’s still that this funny and often emotionally raw play was Natasha Gordon’s debut, which a strong cast bring to life informed by a deep understanding of its meaning, and the Playhouse has revived it part of their Out of Many Festival that celebrates 60 years of Jamaican independence. Smartly Nine Night starts before the death as the seemingly saintly single mum Lorriane (Shereener B...