Liverpool Theatre Festival Archives

Dame Fanny And Her Fabulous Friends – Liverpool Theatre Festival

31Jul

By Luke StephensonNo Comments

North West

Dame Fanny And Her Fabulous Friends – Liverpool Theatre Festival

It’s pride weekend in Liverpool, a weekend of love, acceptance and unity. I was at another show within the programme of the Liverpool Theatre Festival at St Luke’s Bombed out Church. It was Dame Fanny and her friends Violet P and Debbie. Advertised as a family show. I didn’t know what to expect but what I got blew my mind. It was funny, engaging and ‘off the cuff’. Dame Fanny came out in a gorgeous dress in LGBTQ+ colours and welcomed her audience with open arms. She used her quick-fire wit when speaking to the audience and kept them in check. Fanny encouraged audience members to take the stage and show of talents for prizes to be won including a framed signed photo of Dame Fanny and a family trip to ArCains games. The audience and Fanny were very supportive of those who got up and ...

The Tempest – Liverpool Theatre Festival

31Jul

By Bev ClarkNo Comments

North West

The Tempest – Liverpool Theatre Festival

For the penultimate performance of the Liverpool Theatre Festival, A Place for Us brought its edited version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The setting is ideal for open air Shakespeare and the weather managed to hold off the raindrops until the last few minutes. A Place For Us are a professional creative team who work with students, in this case members of Cronton Sixth Form College, delivering this project with only five days of rehearsals and then presenting at Norton Priory woodland, before this performance at the Bombed Out Church. Director Kate Allerton has done a wonderful job bringing this all together in such a short time, with an atmospheric soundtrack, some really good movement sequences and some excellent performances from their cast of twelve young people. The...

Shout! The Mod Musical – Liverpool Theatre Festival

31Jul

By Luke StephensonNo Comments

North West

Shout! The Mod Musical – Liverpool Theatre Festival

At the penultimate night of the Liverpool Theatre Festival, I was invited to review ‘Shout the (mod) Musical’ by Phillip George and David Löwenstein. It was performed by the students at Edge Hill University for their musical theatre course. A short synopsis of the show is that. It’s a show with hits from the 1960s including such hits as Son of a Preacher man, Goldfinger and of course Shout from LuLu. The show was about 5 women making their way through the 60s decade and overcoming stereotypes and prejudice. Each woman portrayed a different type of woman from the 60s and it looked at the personal journey of each of them. Whether questioning sexuality, their marriage and their love of Paul McCartney. We even had agony aunt columns and adverts plucked from the era. The musical was set in L...

The Rubbish Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet – Liverpool Theatre Festival

28Jul

By Bev ClarkNo Comments

North West

The Rubbish Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet – Liverpool Theatre Festival

The theatre gods smiled on Liverpool’s Bombed Out Church this afternoon and kept the rain away for The Rubbish Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet. Three actors present this comic tomfoolery with plenty of physicality, energy, adlibs, bad wigs and a packet of sausage rolls. This immersive theatre relies heavily on audience participation and luckily there were lots of young people in the audience willing to get up and be part of the show, so us adults didn’t have to. Lee Hithersay, Alex MacDonald along with Thomas Galashan, who was making his debut this afternoon, showed that underneath all their clowning about and slapstick they can actually act. They are professions as Hithersay reminds us. This funny, accessible, hour-long show gives us the main gist and characters ...

Whatever Happened to Billy Kenny? – Liverpool Theatre Festival

23Jul

By Donna M DayNo Comments

North West

Whatever Happened to Billy Kenny? – Liverpool Theatre Festival

The 2023 Liverpool Theatre Festival once again sees writer, Ian Salmon and director, Mikee Dickinson united for another poignant and emotional piece about the complexities of life and regret. Whatever Happened to Billy Kenny? is a one-man show performed by Jay Johnson which rockets at breakneck speed through the short and dramatic career of an Evertonian footballer who was derailed by his heavy use of alcohol and cocaine. The play opens with voiceovers talking about Kenny and everything he has thrown away. The disembodied voices disintegrate into Johnson’s creation of a club scene where he does a remarkable job of creating the illusion of a crowded nightlife alone on an empty stage. The voiceovers then repeat with overlap and distortion, creating a real sense of anxiety and panic. Jo...

Venus Rising – Liverpool Theatre Festival

6Sep

By Ezzy LaBelleNo Comments

North West

Venus Rising – Liverpool Theatre Festival

Pulsing with energy and sprinkled with laughs, Venus Rising takes you on a trolley ride of emotion through the life of an accidental erotic writer. Performed as a monologue, it has you perched with anticipation. Meet James Wilkinson. All he had ever wanted to do was write, but not like this. Having made a drunken bet with a friend, James finds success carving out his own greasy niche in the market. Life should be brilliant, shouldn't it? It is clear from the staging - a messy room with several wine bottles - that life is perhaps not as brilliant as you'd expect for a writer supposedly living the dream everyone else has. But that's the problem; he's not the one living the dream. He’s the most successful person you’ll ever meet, and you’d never know it. He hates his job, hates his l...

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich – Liverpool Theatre Festival

5Sep

By Ezzy LaBelleNo Comments

North West

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich – Liverpool Theatre Festival

With no ticket left unsold, Fear and Misery of The Third Reich transports the audience to a time the history books say will never happen again. Written by Bertolt Brecht in 1938, viewers witness events that took place in ordinary German households through a series of twenty-four interconnected playlets. This version is dedicated in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. Produced by Theatre Right Now and directed by Anthony Proctor, Fear and Misery of The Third Reich, the performance provides an intimate, moving evening. They have made use of the actors’ skillsets and focused on the storytelling of Brecht's work. The script is powerful. With only four people in the cast - Liam Powell-Berry, Reginald Edwards, Megan Thorne, Mary Savage and Samantha Alton - a multitude of characters a...

Something about George – Liverpool Theatre Festival

14Sep

By Donna M DayNo Comments

North West

Something about George – Liverpool Theatre Festival

Something about George is a concert with a difference. Written and musically directed by Jon Fellows, it utilises live musical performance, storytelling and contemporaneous recordings to tell the story of the youngest member of one of Britain’s most famous most successful and enduring bands. Opening with the iconic screams of girls hysterical over Beatlemania, and the announcement that the Beatles have broken up quickly brings a halt to the story of the Fab Four. Performed by three musicians: Daniel Taylor and Fellows on guitar and Ben Gladwin on keyboard, the show combines a showcase of George Harrison's post-Beatle repertoire with anecdotes and stories from his life after the breakup of the band. Taylor narrates the story of Harrison's life and tells us that George was both the you...

The Laughterhouse Comedy Club – Liverpool Theatre Festival

13Sep

By Blathine MaguireNo Comments

North West

The Laughterhouse Comedy Club – Liverpool Theatre Festival

What a joy it is to be back at Liverpool Theatre Festival once again, in the beautiful surroundings of St Luke’s Bombed Out Church. Having reviewed a number of shows in this festival, it was a pleasure to return tonight to see further variety unfold in the form of pure humour from “The Laughterhouse Comedy Club”. Laughterhouse are the longest running comedy club in Liverpool having showcased thousands of sell-out shows for well over a decade. They pride themselves on understanding what makes the best comedy nights, taking their venues, acts and overall atmosphere into great consideration. The show was hosted by laughterhouse’s resident MC Chris Cairns who is no stranger to both the local and international stage. Chris’s charming welcomes and witty introductions warm the audience up nice...

Twelfth Night – Liverpool Theatre Festival

13Sep

By Donna M DayNo Comments

North West

Twelfth Night – Liverpool Theatre Festival

The Boaty Theatre Company’s Twelfth Night is a pirate themed version of Shakespeare’s classic comedy of unrequited love and mistaken identities. Live music, physical comedy and a reinterpretation of the use of gender in the play, make this an original and fun performance which is suitable for the whole family. The set features a barrel table and bar stools, giving this version of Illyria a feeling of Nassau during the reign of the pirates, and this version of the play features its very own Pirate Queen, Captain Orsina. The Captain is deeply in love with Countess Oliva, who is grieving for her father and brother while trying to maintain order on the island with the help of her overseer, Malvolia. In the meantime, a violent storm shipwrecks twins, Viola and Sebastian, each of whom assumes...