This summer’s Chichester Festival Theatre smash hit production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific will transfer to London’s Sadler’s Wells in the new year.
NEWS: Broadway musical Mrs Doubtfire gets UK premiere in Manchester next September
Broadway musical Mrs Doubtfire will get its UK premiere next year. Producers have confirmed the screen-to-stage hit will have a strictly limited season at the Manchester Opera House from 2 September to 1 October 2022.
‘Non-stop laughs, rude & explicit jokes’: JERRY SPRINGER THE OPERA – Manchester ★★★★
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Jerry Springer the Opera. It was non-stop laughs, rude and explicit jokes, and I was impressed with all performers. I would definitely go to see this show again and recommend it to friends to go see for themselves.
From The Country Wife to Olivier Award nominations: What to look out for in March
Lots of different things opening across the country in March. In London there are a lot of Fringe and Off West End productions coming your way.
2017 Regional theatre recap
Much of my ‘touring’ has been concentrated in Bristol and Chichester; there are a few other UK venues to add to the list, as well as some from my week in New York, of course.
OUR TOWN – Manchester
It seems everyone has a first memory of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Mine, in typical style is mildly embarrassing and reveals me to be the uncultured swine I so often am. It was my third year in University, which happened to be my ‘Study Abroad’ year. …
NEWS: West End PR agency Target Live marks ten years, opens in Manchester
Target Live – the UK’s only full-service marketing agency for live entertainment and the arts – marks its tenth anniversary with the announcement that the company is to open a new office in Manchester. Opening on Monday 20 February 2017, the office will be based within the Havas Village on Princess Street. The new team has more than 25 collective years of …
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE – Manchester
This is a remarkably intense Streetcar and it is one that requires dedication throughout its 3 hours+ running time, Frankcom’s key conceit taking its time to play out as Peake charts Blanche DuBois’ startling decline in the New Orleans abode of her sister Stella and her virile but violent husband Stanley.
HUSBANDS AND SONS – National Theatre
Tender, fierce, intelligent and humane, this superb production reminds us that D.H.Lawrence was at his best a great interpreter of 20th century change. Years before the showy hysteria of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, (heaven knows why the BBC chose the worst of his works to dramatize) he wrote plays about his Nottinghamshire pit village, vivid with understanding humanity, humble observation and pity. Here are themes of marriage and pride, trapped lives and rich communities, possessive fearful mothers and feckless endangered sons. Here is class and money and the yearning for art and the painful the rift between generations when education takes the young out of manual work. Here too, noted with generosity, is the increasing independence of women.
WONDER.LAND – Manchester & London
Fifty minutes in, we got a 30ft yodelling falsetto caterpillar with flashing saucer eyes, and I cheered up. It also, as it happens, sang the central message of Damon Albarn’s musical, centrepiece of the Manchester International Festival in partnership with the National Theatre ( Rufus Norris himself directs). The message is “Who are you?”, ‘cos it’s all about teenage self-realisation in the age of broken homes and feral schools under the cosh of Goveian superheads. This necessitates a girl’s escape down the rabbit-hole of the smartphone, to become a braver avatar of herself.
The Letter Room debut Five Feet in Front at The Lowry ahead of Edinburgh
Newcastle based company, associate artists at Northern Stage and Edinburgh Fringe 2014 favourites, The Letter Room are bringing their new show Five Feet in Front to the Lowry Studio next week. The Letter Room will debut Five Feet in Front…
KAFKA’S MONKEY – HOME, Manchester
There are not many performers who could accomplish what Kathryn Hunter has achieved in this version of Kafka’s A Report to The Academy, interpreted for the stage by Colin Teevan and masterfully directed by Walter Meierjohann – her transformation to a monkey is beyond physically impressive. Hunter is wholly mesmerising throughout the performance- from the top of her jaunty bowler hat right down to the tips of her crooked fingers when she extends her hand to greet. She holds a command over the language and projects it with a rich and expressive tone of voice and incredible physicality. From the moment that we first see her shuffle across the stage, her body depicts a bewildered beast trapped halfway between ape and human. Hunter performs with wit and precision – furrowing her brow, her arms swinging and contorting uncomfortably and her loping gait – every sinew of her body works to create an entity trapped between the two different states of being. Startled by the world, she exhales heavily through her nostrils admitting that questioning freedom “leads to the most profound disillusionment”.
CONSTELLATIONS – Touring
Constellations, written by Nick Payne, follows the relationship between a man and a woman from the first time that they meet each other at a barbeque. The play is built on the quantum multiverse theory and goes on to visit Marianne and Roland at six different points in their relationship – exploring how certain situations, conversations and decisions can change the course of their lives together.
THE FUNFAIR – Home, Manchester
Manchester’s newest arts centre HOME thrust open its doors for its official HOMEwarming celebration last week. Following the merger between the Manchester’s Cornerhouse and Library Theatre Company, the first theatre production at the new venue is perhaps a fitting fusion of old and new.
What’s on for families in Manchester during half-term?
For those of us who aren’t jetting off to sunnier climes during the Whitsun school holidays, there is an abundance of good stuff going on. I’ve compiled the best picks of theatre, film and creative activities for families happening in Manchester from 22 May until 7 June 2015…
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – Touring
Adapting Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, for the stage is a brave decision to make. The novel has recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, and besides being a staple on the GCSE curriculum, it has been translated into 40 languages and sold over 30 million copies worldwide. This humble, poignant and charming stage adaptation by Christopher Sergel pays homage to the legacy of the novel and everyone who has read it.
THE 56 – The Lowry, Salford
Date: 19 May 2015 Upstaged Rating: At 3.40pm on May 11th 1985, a small fire broke out in the main stand at Valley Parade football ground during the final match of the season. Within four minutes the wooden structure was…
DIFFERENT IS DANGEROUS – The Lowry, Salford
Different is Dangerous aims to give a unique insight into the lives of the Asian community living in Leeds. Devised and performed by Fadia Qaraman and Nyla Levy of Two’s Company, the piece aims to explore multicultural life, the challenges of ethnicity and present the voices of Asian Leeds locals.
RITES – Contact Theatre, Manchester
RITES is a verbatim piece of theatre, borne out of interviews conducted with real people who have been directly affected or have some experience of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The people who were interviewed to make this production are from all over the UK and are FGM survivors, medical staff, health and social workers, activists and campaigners.
JACKIE HAGEN: Some People Have Too Many Legs – Contact Theatre, Manchester
Contact Manchester’s Flying Solo Festival celebrates the ability of one artist to hold the stage and the interest of the audience for an entire performance. It makes for an intensive and rewarding experience for theatregoers. And this is particularly true of Jackie Hagan’s show, Some People Have Too Many Legs.
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