Wolverhampton Grand Archives - North West End UK

2Nov

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Cirque du Magique – Wolverhampton Grand

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the great Philip Astley who, in 1770, gathered together a disparate band of acrobats, unicyclists, tight rope walkers and stunt performers to entertain the crowd in the gaps of his horse-riding show inadvertently creating what we know today as circus. Over the years the format has grown and evolved with clowns thrown in and a ringmaster added to offer some semblance of authority until it has become today what Barnum bombastically described as “The greatest show on Earth!” and after two hundred and fifty years it continues to grow - and today we welcome its latest incarnation into the ring! For those of you who thought Richard Cadell was first and foremost the right-hand man of one of the most iconic characters in British entertainment - a chara...

5Oct

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Wonderboy – Wolverhampton Grand

With the astoundingly talented and acclaimed Sally Cookson at the helm and a script by Ross Willis, Wonderboy exploded out of the Bristol Old Vic back in 2022 and recently embarked on a national tour already nabbing the Writer’s Guild Award for Best Play 2023. It’s a hotly anticipated ticket with a huge reputation behind it. But many shows with a tidal wave of hype rarely live up to the noise - will this one? Captain Chatter is the comic book superhero who helps our own hero, reclusive Sonny, with his self-conscious stammer which constrains him from making small talk, sharing thoughts and ideas and most of all speaking to an audience. And then he finds himself cast in the school production of Hamlet! 90 minutes whizzes by and for all those minutes the teenage audience (the demographi...

1Aug

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

The Wizard of Oz – Wolverhampton Grand

“There’s no place like Wolves!” Well, there certainly isn’t as Dorothy Gale and her little dog, too, land their wooden house on the stage of the Grand Theatre which they’re calling no place like home for the next few days. “The Wizard of Oz” is, undoubtedly, an iconic, kaleidoscopic, psychedelic trip into the mad and inventive mind of L. Frank Baum who, eager to create a new style fairy tale for a new, burgeoning nation, let his eyes drift to his library index cards one day where the letters O-Z jumped out and he was off down his yellow brick road to literary success. His unstoppable quill knocked out a dozen or so Oz titles within a few years with further volumes being penned by other authors. Baum, being no slack capitalist, exploited his work in all media - books, stage and film. Way...

2May

By Robert BartleyNo Comments

West Midlands

Love Never Dies – Wolverhampton Grand

When Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Phantom’-follow-up ‘Love Never Dies’ hit the West End in 2010, it opened to a critical mauling that led to the show being closed to allow significant reworking. The press still wasn’t too kind, with some jokingly retitling the show as ‘Paint Never Dries’. While the show never stood a chance of replicating the success of its predecessor, there is still a lot of love for it in theatreland, as showed by the standing ovations at the Drury Lane concerts last year. And now it’s time for the country’s amateur groups to have a bash, starting with the West Bromwich Operatic Society (WBOS), who are performing the show this week at the Wolverhampton Grand. Loosely based on the 1999 novel ‘The Phantom Of Manhattan’ by Frederick Forsyth, ‘Love Never Dies...

24Apr

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Life of Pi – Wolverhampton Grand

I remember reading Yann Martel’s dazzling Booker-prize-winning novel “Life of Pi” in a youth hostel in San Francisco and being so consumed with it I nearly missed a trip to the Golden Gate Bridge. It really is a cracking novel and such a wonderful whirl of magic realism and bright, laugh out loud comedy. I dodged the film when it came out in case it spoiled my memories of the book, so it was with some trepidation I approached the stage version. I needn’t have worried. Piscine “Pi” Patel is the son of a Pondicherry zoo keeper who tells a tall, but convincing, tale of surviving days adrift in open sea with only a Bengal tiger for company. A Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, no less. The playwright Lolita Chakrabarti takes the story and deftly reassembles the narrative into a spectacular ...

2:22 A Ghost Story – Wolverhampton Grand

22Feb

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

2:22 A Ghost Story – Wolverhampton Grand

We should have known Danny Robin’s career would have led him up the cemetery path towards the dark side of the racks when one of his first forays into entertainment was the kids tv show, Young Dracula. The signs were all there. We should have sought the help of a vampire slayer when we had the chance, but no. Danny grew into an adult with a penchant for the paranormal, a weakness for the weird, a taste for the terrifying and an urge for the uncanny. As a young stand-up he may have died many times, but in the afterlife, he seems to have reincarnated himself as a presenter of the hauntingly addictive and truly unsettling TV and radio reality series, “Uncanny”. Those of us who hid behind a cushion as each ghostly tale throttled our imagination will approach this play with trepidation, angst a...

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Wolverhampton Grand

24Jan

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – Wolverhampton Grand

Everybody’s Talking About Finton! Rarely do you get the chance to witness an understudy triumph in a role, but tonight at the Grand was once such moment. Finton Flynn slipped into the title role with big heels to fill which he did with aplomb. A joyous, buoyant comic performance tempered with a well judged dash of poignancy made this performance in equal parts outstanding and endearing. He exploded with assured confidence and squeezed every drop out of line and every lyric. Certainly, a performer to look out for. Elsewhere Rebecca McGinnis more than held her own as Jamie’s long-suffering mother nailing a beautiful ballad in act two. She forms a great comic partnership with Shobna Gulati whose comic heritage is well-known. And Talia Palamathanan is a total delight as Priti and nails o...

Jesus Christ Superstar – Wolverhampton Grand

15Nov

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Jesus Christ Superstar – Wolverhampton Grand

Now on its umpteenth resurrection in fifty or so years, “Jesus Christ Superstar” comes to the Grand in Wolverhampton in this very sombre and earnest production from Regents’ Park. The stark set inevitably dominated by a cross is cloaked in darkest from the outset and peopled with gray and black clad actors. We don’t see a fleck of colour till Act Two. The first ten minutes or so has a feeling of grudging obligation which slowly modulates into something more engaging. Of course, it’s splattered with well-known tunes throughout, and each is dutifully deployed under Michael Riley’s tight musical direction with Hannah Richardson as Mary giving us a beautiful rendition of “I Don’t Know How to Love him”, which, as musical aficionados love to point out, bears more than passing resemblance to Mend...

Peter Pan Goes Wrong – Wolverhampton Grand

31Oct

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Peter Pan Goes Wrong – Wolverhampton Grand

Exploding both literally and figuratively on the stage at the Grand last night, “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” follows in the confident footsteps of its predecessor Broadway-smash, “The Play That Goes Wrong”. Riddled with Mischief theatre’s trademark mania, chaos and panto-like pandemonium from the off and a litany of misfires, missed cues, mistakes and madness - the evening provides a string of cracking sight gags and slapstick. Whereas their predecessor opted for a murder mystery to parody here we have the well know family story which, much to the actor’s distress, the audience seem to think is a panto. The joy of Mischief theatre is the dedicated attention to detail, gags woven so adeptly into the script with many callbacks to previous set-ups making for a fantastically joyous evening with no a...

The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Wolverhampton Grand

27Sep

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Wolverhampton Grand

Without doubt British Author Neil Gaiman (Coraline, Good Omens and The Sandman) is one of the greatest storytellers in the world. His intriguing and beguiling tales are in turns science-fiction, fantasy, surrealism, horror, magic realism and have appeared as novels, comic books, audio theatre, films, television and now stage. Playwright Joel Harwood together with director Katy Rudd have adapted the award-winning book in an equally award-winning play which appeared at the Dorfman, the Royal National Theatre’s smallest theatre back in December 2019 to stunning acclaim and, though the touring version seems a somewhat pared down version of the original, it’s easy to see why it is so popular. Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg It begins with a single man returning to his childhood home, standing...