Friday, November 22

Tag: Our Day Out

Our Day Out – Castle Hill School, Stockport
North West

Our Day Out – Castle Hill School, Stockport

As NK Theatre Arts do not currently have access to their home venue at the Romiley Forum, this production was staged at the hall at Castle Hill School. This meant that instead of their usual capacity of close on 300 seats, there was an audience of only about 50 people, but those that did attend were treated to an excellent interpretation of Willy Russell’s comedy about a group of Liverpool’s underprivileged children on a day out from their normal classes exploring the countryside of North Wales. The director described this production as an “Informal Show”, which is perhaps doing it a bit of an injustice as everything about it was done in an extremely professional manner. The date of the production has changed a number of times which necessitated a number of changes in the cast, but thes...
Lockdown Interview – Willy Russell
Interviews

Lockdown Interview – Willy Russell

On 11th May as part of Bloomsbury Academic and Stage-ed, I had the pleasure of being involved in a Q&A session with writer, composer, and lyricist Willy Russell, best known for Blood Brothers, Educating Rita, and Our Day Out, to name but a few of his celebrated works. I have a confession to make: on a personal level, Russell had a huge influence on me both as a writer and actor. Our Day Out was the first musical I was cast in and Blood Brothers was the first musical I watched. So, to be part of this was something really special for me. Russell spoke openly and honestly as to how Blood Brothers came about and how he wrote and composed the songs for the show, and in a session that was scheduled to last one hour, ever the gentleman, he gave us ninety minutes. With the soundtrack for...