Red Ladder Theatre Company Archives

Cheryl Martin joins Red Ladder Theatre Company as new Artistic Director

9Dec

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Cheryl Martin joins Red Ladder Theatre Company as new Artistic Director

Director and writer Cheryl Martin joins radical theatre company Red Ladder as their new Artistic Director from January 2024 replacing Rod Dixon who stood down after 17 years leading the company. Alongside her work writing and directing award-winning theatre productions, Cheryl has also fulfilled a variety of roles including supporting writers and practitioners at Contact Theatre, Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, and Oldham Coliseum. She has also worked with Community Arts Northwest on a series of community plays devised with, and starring, mostly women refugees and asylum seekers. In 2015 she co-founded LGBTQ+ Global-Majority performance arts company Black Gold Arts creating a week-long celebration in choreography, writing, directing and cabaret, which was part of the Eurovision...

14Aug

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Taxi – Old Woollen Mill

Everyone has sat in the back of a cab staring blankly at the driver’s head, and aside from the usual ‘busy day’ chit chat we pay our fare knowing nothing about their lives. So, when John Rwothomack as cab driver Taxi stands at the end of the stage in this converted mill offering us the back of his head, he is asking us to take a journey inside his often troubled mind on a busy night shift. Along the way Andrea Heaton’s words offer us a chance to meet different Leeds folk who jump in behind him, based on co-director Douglas Thorpe’s own experiences as a cabbie. It is an often hallucinatory trip round the city that kicks off with homeless man Mal - who may or may not be the ferryman to the underworld – jumping up on the bar to rant about his life before leading the audience into the pe...

Red Ladder Local takes theatre to people where they live

5Apr

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Red Ladder Local takes theatre to people where they live

If there was one company you might expect to take theatre out of its safe traditional spaces playing to the usual suspects it would be radical mischief makers Red Ladder. Since 1968 this decidedly left leaning company has created work that challenges the way we think about the world, so it’s no surprise they created Red Ladder Local. Like all great ideas it is simple. Instead of just playing big theatres, Red Ladder and other companies take scaled down, but high-quality, productions to non-traditional venues like community centres, pubs and working men’s clubs. It all started when Red Ladder’s producer Chris Lloyd went along to the then Yorkshire Playhouse to see a new short play called Playing The Joker, and he had a lightbulb moment which led years later to the creation of Red L...

Nana-Kofi Kufour talks about his debut play My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored

18Nov

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Nana-Kofi Kufour talks about his debut play My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored

Black people in this country are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched and that is what happens to Reece in Nana-Kofi Kurfour’s debut play. In My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored the teenager appeals to his black teacher Gillian for help but she refuses leading to a tense standoff in their classroom the next day. No one can accuse this new writer of picking an easy topic for this tense two hander, but it’s a subject that impacts on all of us in modern Britain one way or another. It’s no surprise it’s being produced by Leeds based radical theatre company Red Ladder, who have a long history of taking on subjects no-one else wants to touch. As My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored gets its World Premiere at Leeds Playhouse our Yorkshire editor Paul Clarke caught up Nana...

Red Ladder heads home to Leeds with timely new play

17Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Red Ladder heads home to Leeds with timely new play

This November Red Ladder Theatre Company is heading home to Leeds with a very timely new play My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored exploring race and identity. It opens with 15-year-old Reece, played by Jelani D’Aguilar, being roughly accosted by police. Misha Duncan-Barry’s young, Black teacher Gillian Misha witnesses it all but doesn’t question or intervene as the disturbing scene plays out. The consequences of her lack of action erupt the following day when Gillian finds herself locked in a classroom with Reece. As a radical theatre company Red Ladder are always looking to challenge audiences, and this time take the audience to the centre of a discussion that asks ‘if you see something you do not agree with, do you intervene?’ This new work is the stage debut from writer Na...

Homebaked the Musical – Liverpool’s Royal Court

30Sep

By Blathine MaguireNo Comments

North West

Homebaked the Musical – Liverpool’s Royal Court

The doors of Liverpool’s much loved Royal Court Theatre are back open and tonight we witness a new show “Homebaked the Musical” which has been produced by Liverpool’s Royal Court alongside Red Ladder Theatre Company. Written by Boff Whalley, ‘Homebaked the Musical’, is a new piece of theatre based on the well-known bakery that borders Anfield and Everton. It celebrates the historic and heroic story of the Liverpool residents who fought to save their local bakery from demolition and evolves into a huge inspiring project that brings the whole community together. Boff Whalley has done a fantastic job in writing something funny, heart-warming and emotive. The music is both touching and humorous which blends perfectly into the script. I particularly enjoyed the choral sound of ‘we rise’, ...

13Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Damned United – Leeds Playhouse

The last time I saw this Leeds United were in the midst of one of their regular comedic play offs collapse, but now they are riding high in the Premier League this punchy tale of hubris at Elland Road has extra resonance. It’s nominally the tale of Brian Howard Clough’s disastrous 44 day reign at Yorkshire’s biggest club after taking unfancied Derby County to the First Division title, but it is a story about obsession and madness that will reach non football fans too. The Damned United is based on David Peace’s semi-fictional novel tracing Clough’s descent into a personal hell. Anders Lustgarten’s tight adaptation captures all the psychological demons swirling round Ol’ Big Head’s fractured psyche as he takes on a team of seasoned pros loyal who he hates as ‘cheats’, but they h...

Another fixture for The Damned United at York Theatre Royal

1Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Another fixture for The Damned United at York Theatre Royal

With Leeds United riding high in the Premier League it’s the perfect time for another tour of The Damned United charting Brian Clough’s disastrous 44-day period as manager at Elland Road, which plays at York Theatre Royal on 16 June. It’s 1974 and Brian Clough, the enfant terrible of British football, wants to revive his managerial career by winning the European Cup with his new team Leeds United. It’s a team full of seasoned international he has openly despised for years who loved their old boss Don Revie, and they all loathe the brash newcomer. Anders Lustgarden’s adaptation of David Peace’s novel takes audiences inside the tortured mind of ‘Old Big ‘ed’ battling his own demons and a team he can’t tame. The Damned United is performed by Luke D...

Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters have their say at Leeds Playhouse

28May

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters have their say at Leeds Playhouse

Fairy tales are always ripe for retellings of the original story and this time it is Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters who get to tell their side of the story at Leeds Playhouse. The Not So Ugly Sisters, created by Leeds-based theatre company Wrongsemble in co-production with Leeds Playhouse and Red Ladder Theatre Company, is a family friendly show where there are always two sides to every story. Dolly is resting on her broom counting the passers-by outside the salon window, while her sister Barb watches the phone that never rings. It’s the morning of Cindy and Prince Smarming’s big royal wedding – but Dolly and Barb are not invited – and Hell hath no fury like a hairdresser scorned. Photography by Anthony Jones Leeds actors Daisy Ann Fletcher and Lucy Rafton star as the h...