Richard Kent Archives - North West End UK

11Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

After Party – Traverse Theatre

Imagine inviting the family round for your 80th birthday, pouring the drinks, cutting the cake and then announcing that you intend to be dead tomorrow. That is the grenade Vivienne Blackwood throws into the celebrations in Morna Young’s After Party. A celebrated former actress, Vivienne has terminal cancer and has decided that she will determine the manner and timing of her own death. She wants her fractured family around her when she does it. You could hardly ask for a more combustible theatrical premise. What is surprising is how rarely After Party allows it to explode. This Traverse Theatre production, in association with Paines Plough and the Belgrade Theatre and directed by Katie Posner, initially treats the gathering remarkably broadly. The first half freq...

5Dec

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Singin’ in the Rain – Royal Exchange

We all know that Manchester has a reputation for enjoying a drop of rain, so it was entirely apt that a downpour greeted ‘Singin in the Rain’ as it landed in the Victorian splendour of the Royal Exchange for the festive period. The weather did nothing to dampen the palpable sense of excitement of the packed press night audience and were not to be disappointed. This is a show with the high quality production values, a great ensemble, superb leads and a beautifully orchestrated score, that left me walking through soggy St Anne’s Square singing 'do de do do, do de do de do do do, I'm singin' in the rain, just.......', into the Mancunian night. The plot, charting the demise of silent pictures and the rise of the 'Golden Age' of 1920s Hollywood 'talkies', is well known, less so is the fact t...

3Mar

By Zoё MeeresNo Comments

London

Birdsong – Alexandra Palace

The novel Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks was a popular GCSE text back when I was taking those exams but wasn’t part of the Jane Austen-heavy syllabus followed by my school. Friends at a neighbouring school had studied it though (it was my at-the-time boyfriend’s favourite book) so I went into Rachel Wagstaff’s stage version on Friday night with a vague expectation of a sad World War I love story. The reality is obviously far richer and more complex than that, and I’m still unsure whether having a fuller understanding of what to expect would have made my experience better or worse. At three hours long the production covers a lot of ground, and the three acts divide the action neatly, but for me the first act was quite slow moving and a lot of subtlety was lost in the enormous auditorium. N...

Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong is coming to the Playhouse

13Sep

By NewsdeskNo Comments

NEWS

Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong is coming to the Playhouse

Sebastian Faulks’s epic story of love and loss, Birdsong, returns to the stage in a brand-new production for 2024 at the Liverpool Playhouse from Tuesday 8th to Saturday 12th October. Featuring award-winning actor Max Bowden (EastEnders), this production marks the 30th anniversary of the international best-selling novel. The critically acclaimed show, adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and directed by Original Theatre’s Artistic Director, Alastair Whatley, tells the story of one man’s journey through an all-consuming love affair and into the horror of the First World War.   Max Bowden (EastEnders) who plays Jack Firebrace said: “I’m so excited to be collaborating with Original Theatre again on a project close to my heart. Birdsong highlights the tragedy of war, yet the...