Paul Wills Archives - North West End UK

4Dec

By Manda ElizabethNo Comments

North West

Here You Come Again – Liverpool Empire

Dolly Parton’s hits such as “9-5" and “Islands in the stream” grace the stage of Liverpool’s Empire Theatre this week for a wacky and wonderful comedy take on a diehard fan's troublesome times, and the dreams that see him through “when reality and fantasy intertwine” - as Paul Wills (set & costume designer) says. This is “Here you come again”. Immediately the story begins and we meet Kevin Rutter played by Steven Webb, in his attic kitted out in shrine for Dolly. He takes us back to Covid-19 pandemic times… very controversial I thought given the elapsed time and a somewhat dare we say distant memory, but the political humour as the story went on was a real trust the process and something that I felt worked to a high degree. Kevin is a struggling comic awaiting his break, and albeit ...

Here You Come Again – Leeds Playhouse

‘What would Dolly do?’ That’s the premise for the UK version of a musical comedy based on some of the greatest songs from country music’s undoubted queen Dolly Parton and one of the all-time great songwriters in any genre. Asking that question is fortysomething Kevin marooned in his parent’s attic during lockdown after splitting up with his boyfriend and his furlough pay is coming to an end. His boyhood room is a shrine to Dolly and as if by magic - or his subconscious - the relentlessly upbeat country and gay icon pops up to help her flamboyant, but secretly floundering, superfan find his way. This is not only a love letter to a big hearted philanthropist who has distributed 150 million free books to kids because her beloved daddy couldn’t read, but to a hall of fame songwriter w...

A Christmas Carol – Alexandra Palace

For many Christmas would not be Christmas without Dicken’s famous ghost tale which in many ways started and embodies the Victorian tradition of Christmas, which is still with us today. The Nottingham Playhouse production presently playing at Alexandra Palace is a new adaptation by Mark Gatiss, who also stars as Jacob Marley. The play script follows the traditional story closely with all the normal ingredients that one would expect, but Gatiss emphasises the spookiness of the original story which in the dilapidated auditorium of the old, but only recently re-opened Alexandra Palace Theatre, works well and is enhanced by numerous very effective supernatural effects created by the illusion designer John Bulleid. The traditional setting, however, is not maintained by the Paul Wills’ set ...